Precisely.. the logic here actually has nothing at all to do with the Software industry.. or at least: the vast majority of it.

For example: You *could* use this type of logic to say that Bill Gates should be federally funded and that the US taxes are increased to pay for Microsoft.. since nearly everyone uses Microsoft Windows - it's become a critical piece of most businesses, it is therefore just as much a "widely" used and therefore should be "public property" and funded via public funds, not individuals. In fact.. I'll bet more people in the US use Microsoft more than any given road in the US. Even landmarks or tourist attractions.

Then Microsoft Windows would be legitimately "free" to the public .

However.. this logic does *not* apply to about 99% of the rest of the software industry, where the software itself is actually used in very specific, and by significantly less people.. meaning that they could not say that they need public funding because most people have never even heard of them - so how would they get money and/or funding to continue creating their software if they were required to give it free?

By pirating it... giving it away for free without royalty to the owners.. takes away their only source of income and the software will cease to be maintained or updated because the programmers were fired since the company couldn't afford to keep them.

People can say and claim Programs are simply 1's and 0's all day long, and say that because it's all broken down into 1 long number anyway then it's value is useless... this is completely irrelevant. How many people can or could have built that same big long number? How many did? If the answer is many.. why are you pirating his software? Find a free one. If the answer is one - then big long number or not, what that programmer has is something akin to Brain Surgery. You wouldn't demand that the best specialist in Brain surgery be forced to work on you for free would you? Same for the programmer. They've built something that is obviously popular enough to be pirated, useful enough for you to want, and is the only person(/people) to have done it.

They should get compensation for that.

Now.. how they get compensation, and how they *should* release their software, and other ideals like that are for the other thread that doesn't exist that Fargus keeps trying to get people to start. But for this thread: Suffice to say, the programmer was the only that did it - and he chose to require you to pay for it to receive it, and to not do so is going against the wishes of the author.

Whether right, wrong, morale or not the only thing that *really* matters is, In the US (and I believe the UK?) - this is considered illegal. That's really the short and end of it. Philosophical discussions aside..

I personally believe Marijuana should be held to the same standard as alcohol as they are both pretty much equally harmful. So either ban both, or legalize both, but it makes no sense to split them. That doesn't mean I should go out smoking Pot or that I have a leg to stand on in court if I do.