I remember having a conversation with you about how uneven access to opportunity is in America among different races, economic classes, etc. - and I recall you saying in a resigned way (something like) "Oh welp, yeah things are bad, but I have a wife and a kid, I'm too tired and old to do anything about that, and I'm not an idealist anymore." I have somewhat the same feelings about piracy... it's not going to stop, it's just the way people get their software. Frankly I hate that this is the way things are, because now we have total pieces of shits like Facebook -- free things, which are not really free -- they're taking our fucking data, and invading our privacy, I hate that, I wish developers of good software made a killing. But there are a lot of poor people right now who're not doing really well... and you know what, if they can spend 2 hours watching a pirated movie to lessen their miseries, I say God bless them. There are bigger things we should be directing our outrage at. When there are no more wars, no more poor people, no more crimes, let's worry about piracy. (And, also, unlike the uneven access to opportunity thing -- at least (generally) the people getting fucked in this case are the already rich ones.)
To be fair, I don't think piracy is a big deal in the grand scheme of things. I personally think copyright holders should have an absolute property right in what they create, but at the same time, I think infringement is like trespass. Yeah, the kid cutting across your lawn is an infringement of your property right, but it's not a big deal and you'll never be able to do anything about it.
My ire is directed at the people who treat piracy as some sort of moral high ground that they're taking.
