The SOPA / PIPA debate

I read a response to the whole SOPA PIPA debate where someone said downloading music for free isnt stealing because theres no actual loss of anything from the copyright holder, ie no physical thing has been stolen, therefor there has technically been no theft.

I simply cannot understand this way of thinking. I dont get it. I cant get it.

We live in a digital world and its accepted universally that content is no longer confined to delivery via a physical medium anymore. Yes, while there is no physical theft, it till exists that the person who created the content isnt getting paid by the person who is consuming it. Its the act of holding (via digital medium) the content of what someone has created and using/enjoying that content which is the issue here. If you are willing to spend time downloading something for free, it obviously has value to you, and you should legally have to pay whatever the predetermined universally agreed upon price is. You should not be allowed to own it for free, unless the maker of the content specifically allows that. Yet today people assume since musicians put their music online that that means they hope people download it for free and use that content forever without ever paying for the privelege of consuming that content. Its wrong. Simply wrong. If Im lucky to have one person per day pay for one song, thats only $365 per year. Who can live on that? And who can live on that AND finance recording new music?? Yes, you need to play live, sell merch, etc, but its still extremely hard to make a living as an artist, and impossible when the main source of income simply doesnt exist anymore (selling the music being the main source. Everything else is secondary.)

Now on the other hand we have SOPA and PIPA. These are messed up attempts to solve a huge problem that I believe is simply going to create more problems. As always when big governments get involved, they end up screwing up something. I personally feel theres a hidden agenda here (and if the gov't sees fit to get involved, you can bet there is.) It could have to do with the unprecedented power of social media to shed light on how said gov'ts truly work, hence social media has possibly become one of the biggest threats to big gov't that theyve ever had, so through something designed on the surface to stop internet piracy, theyre simply going to stamp out a growing threat to their very survival. Or maybe Im just being paranoid, but Facebook, Twitter et al are becoming very effective mass protest tools and if its one thing governments dont like, its a free, powerful tool in the hands of the 99% and out of the control of the 1%. So this is, in my opinion, what SOPA / PIPA are designed to do: put the power back in the hands of the 1%, let the big music labels/corporations decide who's infringing their copyrights, and shut down an avenue for unlimited artistic expression and funnel it back through the major label / corporate machine. And we all know what will happen to the quality, quantity and variety of music when that happens...