When people talk about internet piracy, they tend not to see it as an illegal act not just because the crime is something not big but because they are deriving some benefits from it as internet users. The effects can only be felt by the originator of such content either music or movies, this is because his right as the only person who can decide about what happens on his website contents is being infringed upon, that's why the illegal act is also called copyright infringement.
There are so many ways contents on internet are being pirated. For example, some people make pirate copies of new video release by videotaping the screen inside the movie theater, after this they go and burn it in their own DvD and start selling it to the public. These type of activity is common on torrent. Many will go to the internet and get blog posts written by some authors and copy it directly into their websites.