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What I think a lot of people object to is the "dog in the manger" behaviour of publishers, who own the rights to things that people want, which they will neither let people have, nor benefit from themselves. It seems to me a pretty well established moral objection, which is behind the argument that "orphaned" works should enter the public domain.
So, I don't think that it is a straightforward "I'm going to steal it if you won't sell it to me" situation, but one where people feel that publishers are in the wrong in withholding material, and that they have some justification in obtaining it when there is no attempt by others to benefit from it.
My point is that there is a rational moral position that one could adopt in support of using the darknets to obtain material that nobody is prepared to sell you. We can debate whether that position is the best one to adopt or not, but I think it unreasonable to belittle it as childish, or as craving justification for known naughtiness.
The whole point of copyright is to grant people temporary exclusive rights to the benefits of some work, in exchange for it becoming public domain afterwards. The point is not to sit on the rights and not let anyone access the work at all. So, I think that there's something worth exploring here, as those supporting new rules for "orphaned" works advocate.
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