The absurdity of online "piracy"

Nothing demonstrates the absurdity of the concept of online "piracy" better than the situation I find myself in: a new episode of The Simpsons aired this evening, one which I really wanted to see. I was out of the house when the episode aired. If I had remembered to set my DVR before I left, I would be able to legally watch that episode now (and skip the commercials). But I didn't, so now if I find a copy of the episode and watch it, I'm a pirate.

To which I say: arrrr, mateys.

[UPDATE:] I tried to see if the episode was available on-line. I first tried YouTube, and discovered a zillion videos that claimed to be the episode in question, all of which were spam (or at least all the ones I tried). I then tried to find the episode on the Fox site. No luck. Finally, I tried iTunes. The episode was there, so I bought it. I somehow ended up buying it twice by accident (for some reason the usual confirmation dialog didn't appear -- iTunes seems to have quietly gone to one-click purchasing.) And then -- AFTER I had bought the episode, paid for it (twice), and downloaded it, iTunes told me that I COULDN'T PLAY IT BECAUSE MY MONITOR WAS NOT HDMI-ENABLED!!!

Nonetheless, despite the fact that I BOUGHT AND PAID for a copy of this episode and didn't get it, if I now obtain a copy by other means I am STILL a pirate in the eyes of the law. But the studio, which stole my money, isn't.

I'm a filmmaker, so I am VERY sympathetic to the desire of content producers to protect their work. But even I am ready to hoist the jolly roger in this case.