What I'm saying is, the motivation to print pirated copies of books was to sell them to people for profit because as cheap as it was to copy books compared to w

What I'm saying is, the motivation to print pirated copies of books was to sell them to people for profit because as cheap as it was to copy books compared to writing them, it was still quite a bit above 0. However, copying cost today is effectively 0. No one would pay money for a pirated copy of an ebook. One could (somewhat pedantically) say that this means the creator's 'exclusive right to profit' from their work is not violated because no one profits in this way from piracy[0], but that's not the point. the point is that the concept barely even made sense the first time around, but allowed a creator who didn't own a giant expensive distribution mechanism the leverage to negotiate compensation. Now the distribution is about as free as it is ever likely to get. [0] or at least they wouldn't if it weren't for laws creating barriers that allow people to profit by providing mechanisms around said barriers.