It's not that getting this stuff for free is in itself much of a political act. But the very fact that the vast majority of people who do it are acting out of self-interest - rather than under the delusion that it's political - actually makes it a political issue. If it were all a misconceived strategy to bring down the record and software corporations, maybe your argument would make people see the error of their ways. But since most people aren't doing it for that reason, it's not going to be stopped by an appeal to reason, any more than 'buy American' campaigns saved the US auto industry. Piracy's not going away. Nowadays you don't even have to use the old file-sharing software, it's all over the web. It's a fact, and the only solution to the problem of paying for the labour is going to be political.
And it's not like piracy is the only issue, especially when it comes to job prospects for writers. It's not like the newspaper industry has been shedding journalists because everyone's been pirating newspapers. Digital reproducibility lowers the barriers to entry even with original content, and that's naturally hammering firms that used to be able to pay for labour-intensive content.
It's obviously not apocalyptic, people will adapt: musicians rely more on playing live and selling T-shirts, some subscription websites and newsletters seem to be doing well. But it does suck for certain kinds of writer and artist; opportunities that used to be there are disappearing and I don't know that the cottage industry model is going to entirely make up for it. A public model along the lines of what Dean Baker advocates in lieu of drug patents would be much more rational in an old fashioned utility-maximising sense: people get more cultural product for less cost. It's pretty far fetched in current political conditions, but then so is public healthcare apparently.
Cheers, Mike scandalum.wordpress.com