How about if you know you wouldn't buy the game?
Well you don't know in most cases. But it doesn't really make it right to me but it makes it ignorable.
I remember reading a study that people who pirate music are apparently eight time more likely to actually buy it or something similar.
Yes but that was an independent study made by a highly qualified group of people with no connections to the Video Game Industry and thus was biased
Actually it isn't so much Biased as it is meaningless with a biased implied conclusion.
It all has to do with the fact of "Who is the one Pirating music?"
The reality is that most people who pirate are the people who also take Videogames or music as a hobby and thus they would buy the most games/music. Same with anyone who takes games/music as a hobby who don't pirate. (also 8 times more likely then the average person is rather low)
The Bias comes from painting it as "The act of Piracy itself makes people buy more games". Which the scientists better feel lucky this wasn't a racial study because I do not want to see the results on that nor the reaction once people see it.
That's why piracy is the same as stealing.
Uhh... No... Piracy is stealing.
You see the game itself is the property of the company that made it, when you make a copy via pirating they own that copy.
So you are stealing from them. Your stealing their rights to their own property at minimum.