What does it mean to "own rights" to the distribution of information? It's effectively a restriction on everybody else's freedom of speech for the benefit of the rights holder. Whether this is a net benefit to society or not is very situational, so the ethics here are not as clear cut as you imply.
> You aren’t entitled to watch what you want.
The rights holder is not entitled to stop me from sending certain streams of bits in all circumstances.
Edit: While calling IP "property" can be a useful abstraction in some cases, it leads you astray in others. For example, the only way to measure "losses" from piracy is as loss of potential sales since the owner is not deprived of the "property" in the process. But what are the losses when media not available in a given geography is pirated in that geography? There was no "potential revenue" that could be recognized there because the media was not for sale. Thus one could argue that the losses are precisely $0.
The rights holder isn't entitled to stop you from doing what you like; you are entitled, however, to agree not to do things in order to obtain information.
That's what pirating is based on; you've explicitly agreed not to make available content for others when you agreed to purchase the content.
By providing content for pirating, you are breaking your word. Further, by consuming pirated content, you have a reasonable assumption that the person providing you with the pirated content obtained that content through deception, which ropes you in on the culpability of the ethical violation.
Nobody's freedom of speech is violated because nobody has been compelled to do or say anything! Rather, you are knowingly benefitting from the deception of others.
> You aren’t entitled to watch what you want.
The rights holder is not entitled to stop me from sending certain streams of bits in all circumstances.
Edit: While calling IP "property" can be a useful abstraction in some cases, it leads you astray in others. For example, the only way to measure "losses" from piracy is as loss of potential sales since the owner is not deprived of the "property" in the process. But what are the losses when media not available in a given geography is pirated in that geography? There was no "potential revenue" that could be recognized there because the media was not for sale. Thus one could argue that the losses are precisely $0.