Difference being, the writers chose to go on strike.
If an artist is fed up with their label contract, then they stop making music for those guys.
If you don't want to support a label, then you don't pirate music from them, you just don't buy their music. Simple enough.
It's like, you don't like McDonald's? Fair enough. But no-one's forcing you to buy their food. And you certainly don't torch down their buildings or steal their food.
Especially since your beef is really with the management and owners of the company, not the workers. There are people who work in the record industry who have absolutely no part in what you see as unfair business practises, and yet, by supporting piracy, you're stealing their livelihoods.