They'd probably stop pirating if it caused film culture to collapse; whereas so far, the only agents currently destroying film culture are production/licensing

They'd probably stop pirating if it caused film culture to collapse; whereas so far, the only agents currently destroying film culture are production/licensing companies like Disney. It's a social activity after all, and social currencies extend beyond money; ie. reputation, access and fairness. I'm not entirely well-versed in this, but from what I understand pirate money comes downstream from these social criteria. This is why certain platforms like Steam and Netflix work (or used to, in Netflix's case, while they still had a good reputation). Pirates have proven to be more than willing to pay for content when they consider it appropriate to do so (money going directly to the creator, superior access, etc.)