• get creative
• use alternatives
• write your own

Um, no its not cool but that doesn't give you a license to steal. How about this, send us your address and we'll send all of the homeless people in your city and take all the stuff they need. Yeah, what's wrong with that? They're starving and hungry. You'd be glad to right that wrong, right?

The bottom line to your thinking is that its a good thing as long as its someone else's dime. Once it's yours, then wait, hold up. That's not right.

We're talking about right and wrong. Let's talk specifics. What software? Photoshop? you can it for like $199 (someone else said) or maybe it's Office fo rlike $70. Can not this starving child save $70? Unless that child is literally naked and starving I'd say he can probably scrimp and save.

That college boy will spend more on the cool laptop he wants or MCB or iPod. But somehow they find money for that. Let's be real. Kids that need software in college have student labs they can go to to get access to everything they need. Don't pretend that the student will die or all of a sudden lose his brain and fail because he won't. He just has to work a little harder.

Wait, your saying if you're black you can get higher scores on tests because of the color of your skin? Seriously. No.... that's wrong... I know we disagree, but trust me, Affirmative Action doesn't give you different test scores. I'm pretty sure about that.

The fact that you would belittle the plight of blacks from the past by comparing them to students? You have got to be kidding.

Slaves were kidnapped, beaten, sold, raped and forced to work in inhuman conditions against their will and you compare it to students that a) want to go to college b) know that in order to go to college they need school supplies?

So no, they're not the same and you're still wrong. I mean if you follow your thinking that poor students have a moral right to steal, then what prevents them from taking other "rich" student's laptops?

And what constitutes poor? Naked and starving or the student too lazy to get off their *** and get a job and only live off the allowance their mom gives them? Please.

Get a job?

Got one, thanks, but I'm always looking!

If you're a student, you get a fatty discount. If you're not a student you should be working which means you can save for the software if its that important to you. If you're not working then go find a job. There are career services available for the unemployed that give you access to tools like Office, Word and etc. Go to your local library to access the internet and most have basic tools like word as well, if not Open Office.

We live in the computer age. the resources are there.

I would love to know how many of you guys who say "no" never pirated anything.... including songs, videos etc.

Sorry about that, you know how the human mind loses track of time sometimes. Now that you've reminded me it's the '10s, I'll try a completely different argument: Next time you buy a pizza, if you don't give me half of it, I'm going to call that theft. No, wait, actually, I think I'll just go all-in and call it murder.

I can do that, right? Since in 2010, apparently nobody cares that the definition of theft involves depriving someone of property, just as the definition of murder involves depriving someone of life.

Non-sarcastically, as "sad" as my reusing old arguments may be, attempting to guilt-trip or prejudice by disregarding definitions to call something by a scarier name is even sadder. If your arguments as to why information should receive property-like legal protection, or why that legal protection should be morally binding, cannot stand on their own merit when using accurate terms like "copyright infringement", then you should find some new arguments.

Wow. The ignorance is staggering. Do you really not know that the publishing lobby's efforts to secure legislation stripping people of their natural right to copy their own property dates to the early days of the printing press, not the "electric box"? The only thing changing in the '80s was the barrier to entry -- and by then, the legal framework of copyright (and the assumption of its moral validity) had already been established with little scrutiny, because at the time it did not really affect most people,

You mean the only way to make money from previous works, without having to develop new ones? Sure -- although even that ultimately fails, as people will copy it, remove the ads, and reupload it.

Maybe, if you'd even read what I said, you'd realize that I was suggesting a completely different class of business models, where one doesn't speculatively invest in developing a work, then seek ways to force people to pay it back, either directly, or by bartering their eyeballs on a screen, which you in turn sell to advertisers. Business models where you directly sell the service of producing content , and get out of the distribution market altogether.

Well, here, you're arguing to the wrong guy.

When I spoke of someone who didn't have money, so they couldn't have bought it, so there was no real or potential lost sale, I was using that as an example to show why that argument is ridiculously broken -- in fact I consider it ridiculous precisely because, if accepted, it leads to the conclusion that whether piracy is "theft" or not depends on whether the person could have (and, even more awkwardly, would have) purchased it legitimately, which is obvious nonsense.

I completely share your disgust with arguments that the morality of theft, copyright infringement, or anything else should depend on the depth of the perpetrator's pockets.

That was the point of the question. It wasn't "is it understandable", "is it a forgiveable offense", etc. It was "is it OK". In my reading you yourself here just voted 'no' in the above poll.

Nice. If you find an extra one lying around send it my way. I like long arguments and beating a dead horse.

I actually did acquire a few songs and videos years ago the illicit way. But I didn't feel right about it, and no longer have them. I own tens of thousands of dollars worth of software and media now, and all legitimate. And some of that was acquired when I was almost poor... I should write a book on finding sweet software deals.

Here are some hints:

• you can download a Microsoft Office 2010 trial that lasts for a year. No strings attached.
• used software. Great deals can be found.
• competitive upgrades. I got Photoshop and Illustrator extremely cheap using them.
• Developer and consultant programs. As a consultant I was getting thousands of dollars worth of Microsoft software for $300 per year, all legit.
• Trade shows. Microsoft put one on for the Windows Nt 4 release and gave out FREE CDs of NT 4 and Microsoft Office. I came home with several and made a lot of friends and family happy.

EDIT: as a designer, songwriter, inventor and programmer, I feel I would be a hypocrite for not paying for creative works if it's expected.