By using the "cracked" copy of the software, he is indeed stealing from the author, but on the other hand, the actual physical copy of the data cost the developer nothing.

If he cannot realisticly afford the software, then he is not a potential customer you could argue. If you agree with this then you could argue that his illegal use of the software in no way is harming the developer. This is a rather contrived example and not neccassarily the view I subscribe to.

But in this country, as in most capitalist countries, that's the right of the author to say yea or nay to. It's not your right as a consumer to make that choice for them, regardless of the altruistic motives. Really, it's not. And I don't see what's so hard to see about that.

I create it. I choose the options. Luckily for us, Larry chose "open source" for Perl. But that's his right, as is the right for Microsoft to chose "closed source" for Excel. Give people the choice, and give them incentive, and more things will go open source. But mandate it, and you will kill the creative market.

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker