The problem with treating "piracy" as a straight up bad thing that needs to be fought at every turn is that humans are social creatures. Think to yourself for a moment - how did your favorite band become your favorite band (i.e., you buy all their albums, go to concerts, etc)? Is the answer "I picked up an album of theirs in a music store without knowing anything about them beforehand"? Probably not.
No, odds are you heard them somewhere first - perhaps one of their songs was used in a commercial jingle or in a soundtrack to a television show or film? Maybe you heard them playing on the radio, or, quite probably, somebody you know was into them and "loaned" you their music or otherwise played it for you.
The common factor in all those scenarios? You didn't pay a dime to listen to music from your "favorite band" (or if you did, it wasn't specifically for that purpose) until after you'd already heard them for free - that was how you became a fan in the first place. There's a good reason a lot of performing artists these days are taking the exact opposite stance on file-sharing than what Gene Simmons is espousing - "piracy" is free publicity!
The idea that album sales are a zero-sum game and the existence of "unauthorized" free copies is some dire threat to your sales figures is a fallacy, perpetuated by the ones with the most to lose from the existence of an essentially "free" worldwide marketing channel that can connect artists directly with their potential fans - Record Labels. The crusade against music piracy is simply their attempt to desperately thrust the genie back into the digital bottle they let it out of when they tried to litigate away the advancement of technology in a vain attempt to retain their monopolistic control over the production and distribution of music, rather than adapting their products to fit the changing landscape.
Me, I actually pay for the majority of the music I obtain (and I buy a bloody ton of music on a fairly regular basis), but I also have a habit of passing examples from my collection along to other people with some regularity - a habit I justify because I'm a self-appointed musical evangelist, bent on spreading awareness of awesome music and creating fans where once there were none, and I'm cognizant of the simple fact that most people aren't going to purchase or otherwise become invested in things they don't know anything about; on those rare occasions where I obtain things extra-legally there is always a reason for it, whether it's because the only legal means of obtaining something involves paying ludicrous prices for European import copies, or because you actually can't buy it at all for whatever reason. I rest easy knowing my actions can only ever be beneficial - for whatever reason I was never going to buy it, so it isn't a sale lost, and if I like something I am going to tell other people and instill more widespread interest, quite possibly leading to more purchases made than were ever "lost" by my initial download of a product I wasn't going to pay for in the first place.
Do I ever encourage people to download stuff illegally? Oh heck no! I simply understand that piracy isn't a black and white issue, and that content distributors attempts to equate it with theft are disingenuous.
