Yes, it should be legal to not pay for copyrighted material

Free speech means freedom from legal consequences. If it’s a crime to say a thing, and there is a penalty for saying them, then it’s a misnomer to call it free speech.

Well then that’s not free speech. If there are any limitations, even sensible ones, it needs a different name. Like, limited speech for example

Copied from a comment I just made elsewhere, but that applies here too:

As an end goal? I don’t want anyone’s lives to be destroyed. I do want to prevent harm happening to people, and if people are harmful to society they should be rehabilitated, or if not possible, isolated from society to prevent further harm. However, I don’t want anyone to be punished or have their life destroyed just for revenge, or because it seems ‘just’. That would just cause further unnecessary harm.

That is not surprising.