My opinion is (and was, when I worked for a software company for eight years) that piracy has a certain utility for commercial interests and it is tolerated to a certain extent.

If you are selling software, you want a lot of people to try it, and you don't initially care whether they get it legitimately or not. What you care about is whether you eventually make money by selling it to the former piraters and their friends.

Much early software went under because it was too difficult to pirate and too expensive. When software came along that was easier to pirate (example: WordPerfect), it exploded in popularity. This is because people are never going to pay big bucks for a product they have no experience with. Once they have tried it and perceive its advantages, then they will consider paying for it.

Someone trying to sell software should find a way to get it to people, then make it increasingly inconvenient to upgrade without paying, while offering better and better features. Some pirates will find ways to continue getting it for free, but most people will find piracy too much hassle and will decide to pay.

And if you want to know which software is best, ask a pirate. That's because pirates don't care about the pricetag on the software and they tend to try everything. People who have to pay big bucks for software don't tend to buy lots of software and then use a small amount of it that they find works best. They take a guess and stay with a small number of programs.

So, commercial interests like piracy, but never admit it. It gives them a moral and financial way to intimidate users into paying for something they wouldn't have paid for in the past.