Cognitive dissonance.
You are still listening to it, you haven’t paid for it, the maker gets no benefit, which is one of the reasons she paid for the studio, producers, session players, wrote performed promoted and made available the music; so she could make a living.
Imagine going to work and not getting paid; giving your all, your boss looking at your many sweaty hours worth of work, taking it, using it, enjoying it, but saying, nah I’m not feeling like paying for it, thanks though it’s really good.
I thieve film though, but not normally music, most definitely never independent music. I’m working on perfecting the justification, but for now it’s all I got; never pirate from independents.