Knowingly downloading copyrighted material, say to get it for free, still violates the rights of the copyright holders. It's just that litigating against members of the public is bad PR and not exactly lucrative, especially when it's likely that kids downloaded the content.

People used to get busted from buying bootleg VHS and DVDs on the street before P2P filesharing was a common thing. Then, early on, people were sued for downloading copyrighted files before rightsholders decided to take a different legal strategy to go after sharers and bootleggers.