The obvious downside though is at some point the show may just magically disappear from your purchased library, if negotiations between the platform and the creator go south††. I'd love to see some laws in this area where "a purchase is a purchase" to prevent this, but for now it's a risk (albeit one with maritime workarounds).
† or license leasing if you're buying digitally
†† ie https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6449826?sortBy=best
Buy a season of a show (an album, a book) digitally to indicate your support and help keep it running. Then pirate and keep a local copy of the same to ensure against future unavailability, and for more convenience.
I bet enough people in the media industry understand this mechanics, and sort of turn a blind eye at it, because it's not affecting their bottom line materially.
I rarely ever watch anything twice so I’m fully ok with renting and be done with it
For ebook the situation is worse but for many technical books there's a way to purchase a DRM version.
Movie/TV series is unique in a way that there's no option to buy a DRM-free version.
Obviously if your original is lower quality (say, DVD) and your pirated backup is higher quality (say, Blu-ray) then I would concede that it's piracy of the difference (i.e., you're only entitled to backups at the quality you originally purchased) which can reasonably be considered piracy in full. For simplicity, let's suppose both originals are identical releases.
If a copyright holder would consider this to be piracy, logically they should also consider it piracy if you download your digital purchase multiple times without using the same CDN point of presence each time. I'm quite certain they'd consider that a non-issue, since it all shares a common ancestor (the master for that particular release) regardless of any meaningless duplication between the master and the licensed consumer.
Unfortunately the world of DVD and Blu-ray seems to be overrun with too many editions. For example besides that particular HIMYM set (here it is at Amazon [1]), there is also this one [2] which is $49.99.
The pictures for the two look identical. But the release date listed for the $32.99 is about 9 months later, and the media format descriptions differ between the two. The $32.99 one says Subtitled, NTSC. The $49.99 one says NTSC, Widescreen, Box set, Subtitles, AC-3, Dolby. The $32.99 lists language as "English (Dolby Surround)" so does apparently have Dolby. The $49.99 one doesn't list language. The $32.99 one says it has English, French, and Spanish subtitles. The $49.99 just says French and Spanish subtitles. Does one of them have better sound? Do either of them have commentary, deleted scenes, or other special features. Does only the $49.99 have widescreen?
Some comments mention that there is commentary, but (1) Amazon considers these two sets to be variations on the same set and so they share comments, so there is no way to tell which set the comment is talking about, and (2) some of those comments are from several years before either set was released--they were definitely commenting about HIMYM so my guess is that they were for early releases of specific seasons or something like that.
If I were interested in buying that complete HIMYM I'd have no idea from those Amazon listings and comments which set to buy.
I've also seen similar things when considering buying movies. There will often be one or more of a DVD, a DVD + digital code, a Blu-ray + DVD + digital code, a 4K UHD Blu-ray, a 4K UHD Blu-ray + digital code, a 4K UHD Blu-ray + DVD + digital code, and probably some that I've forgotten.
Online listings often don't say if the digital code is for 4K, and often don't say much about special features. It is confusing enough that my impulse to buy the movie does not last long enough for me to figure out which to buy.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/How-Met-Your-Mother-Complete/dp/B07GJ...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/How-Met-Your-Mother-Complete/dp/B0747...
I suspect it won't stand because the removal of the DRM provisions that potentially allow to retract access to the media is the point of, well, backing it up.
When you buy media DRM-free, you don't have to pirate anything, you can just peacefully make a copy.
Modern piracy (the so called *ARR stack) provide UX that is pretty close to what you get from streaming services. In some cases even better - now I will use just one app on my TV to watch everything, will not be affected by Netflix/Prime/Apple/Hulu or internet provider outages when I am watching a movie or TV show, and will not have to go through 4 or 5 apps when I am searching for something specific to watch.
The UX is slightly worse when I find a movie or TV show via Plex Discovery and want to watch it immediately, since I will have to wait for *ARR to pick it up and download it, but for now I have quite a few TV shows to finish watching before it will become an inconvenience for me, especially given the fact that this stack can subscribe to upcoming shows - I can tell it that I am interested in Fallout for example, and it will monitor releases and download the show once it will become available.
Pirate all the things.
The relationship between publishers and consumers has been almost 100% adversarial for a while, now. It started with payola for radio DJs in the 1950s, and it has only escalated since then.
PIRATE ALL THE THINGS! It is almost our duty, at this point. Publishers are closer than ever to being able to take your money and provide nothing in return if they choose. They keep inching closer and closer to that reality.
Again, this relationship is adversarial. Fight back or lose the fight forever.
Pirate. Everything.
Regarding the pirated content - I just started, so my experience have pretty low sample size. Still, majority of shows I downloaded so far are in 4K. The only one in 1080p is older show, for which I think there's no 4K source material.
I hope they reverse course, but as you say, I'm sure the temptation for control is irresistible.