I too have had to build an ethics, so to speak.
Books: For quite a while, I simply downloaded books to see if I wanted to buy them. I deleted the download and purchased the book if I liked the download. Also download books if I have the paper version.
EBooks: Similar. Then came the problem of formats. For example, Amazon only provides kindle format (.mobi/.azw) while tech books provide three formats (.pdf, .mobi, .epub). I found myself downloading pdf versions of .azw's because the silly books referred to "pages". Hopefully Az will finally come around, but until they do, and the book is not available in multiple formats, I'll download a pdf if need be. Almost all tech books are ebooks and on my iPad.
Video: I downloaded old TV shows which were not available otherwise. Also, our net was DSL, so too slow for streaming, even youtube! With a new faster network, cable, we're looking at Amazon primarily, and have Az Prime so many videos are available free. We also have NetFlix streaming but don't seem to use it. We stopped NetFlix DVDs when they hit a 30% failure rate. Not sure about Hulu, don't use it now. We record, TiVo, a LOT of sports and cooking shows and re-runs on SciFi channel.
Papers/Magazines: Thus far I have not payed for NYTimes. They let me read N a month, and I believe allow click-throughs to not count against the N. But I admit to defeating their count by going incognito in Chrome at times, maybe once a month. I've also found that much of their stuff finds itself elsewhere.
I believe a "digital library" solution would be helpful for paying for a lot of media. I'd gladly pay $D dollars for N subscriptions .. a "book shelf" like OReilly's Safari .. but much broader.
So I'm sorta in the middle, but mainly due to the media industries not "catching up". Between Az Prime and buying ebooks, I'm easily at $250/year .. yipes! My guess is that the big TV companies will try one way or another to make older shows available, but I don't think they've done it yet. Az doesn't offer pdf's yet but I'm sure they'll both improve their page references etc, and go multiformat sometime.
-- Owen