And to add to this, if someone wants to support your product or your work they will. And that's not even getting into the view of piracy as a service problem, which Gabe Newell spoke about back in 2011. (archive link once it gets archived)

“We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem,” he said. “If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.”

. . .

Prior to entering the Russian market, we were told that Russia was a waste of time because everyone would pirate our products. Russia is now about to become [Steam’s] largest market in Europe,”

. . .

“Our success comes from making sure that both customers and partners (e.g. Activision, Take 2, Ubisoft…) feel like they get a lot of value from those services, and that they can trust us not to take advantage of the relationship that we have with them.”

I can't tell you how many times I've pirated something and then ended up buying a copy legitimately (and often gifting copies to friends!) IRL friends would all say the same.

Or how I wanted to see or read something and the only way to acquire a copy was through piracy.

Or how I had purchased something legitimately years and years ago but the only way to reacquire it without "piracy" was to purchase it 2nd or 3rd hand from God knows who for God knows how much. I highly doubt the creators saw money go into their pockets from those sales.

Piracy, torrenting, w/e you want to call it is used by people who probably never intend on paying a single dime for anything, but I generally think that at the end of the day creators benefit from "piracy."