I occasionally pirate, especially retro games. I don't pirate movies though, I always buy the genuine copies. You can justify pirating some things, but not others.

I don't like SOPA or DRM, but I don't agree with pirating at all. As much as I dislike companies controlling what we do with what we own, you do agree to it if you buy it.

Not liking the terms of an agreement is not grounds for stealing. That is like saying that you don't like how Costco treats its customers, therefore you are going to steal ten loaves of bread from them.

If you don't like the DRM attached to something, then by all means don't buy it. But that does not give you the right to steal it. You are not entitled to have what you want just because you want it.

Why I pirate?

I don't make illegal copies, Austrian law allows me to make a copy of everything for myself, most notably is, that movies are even less protected than anything else.

Basically you are allowed to make a copy of every copyrighted piece of work as long as you don't put it to commercial you or are planing to show it in public, if the piece of copyrighted work is not released, or not available due to shortages you are allowed to use a copy to show it to the public. Buildings are excepted from this law...

humm what else...

yeah movies are less protected:

You are allowed to copy of a non released movies for showing it in the public regardless if there are shortages or not...

Oh yeah,  you are allowed to make a copy of something you bought in order to protect the original from harm through use - earlier in Austrian history it was a right to make a copy (ergo DRM measures where prohibited by law)

Link to the Law (linked to Austrian online lawservice (in german)) [point (4) is the most important for me]

Well, I basically just copy movies (anime) that are falling under not yet released (in Austria)... so humm...hehe I love how laws always leave room open for discussion

I hope that's not a serious argument in favour of piracy.

I'm not rich enough to buy a Ferrari so I'm justified in stealing on from the manufacturer instead? And before you claim otherwise, yes, it is the same thing. If you can't afford something, you don't acquire it. Simple. People go the effort and expense of creating a good and aim earn a living by selling that good. That's their choice. If you want it, you must pay for it. Why should the creators of goods be out of pocket becaue of your lack of morals?

I have pirated in the past, and it's something I now deeply regret. Anyone who attempts to justify piracy, on any level, is plainly wrong. A creator of goods is entitled to sell them at the price he likes, where and how he likes. If you are unhappy with those conditions, don't avail of the good. Simple as. Nothing, however, gives you the right to steal anything from anyone else.

To me it is. I've set up rules for myself:
- Never pirate anything indie
- Only pirate what you know has been a financial success, or is certain to achieve financial success.

E.g pirating Call of Duty or Transformers gives me no feeling of guilt since I know they'll make billions anyway. If pirating suddenly started to significantly hurt these products, I won't pirate them.

Personally, I hardly ever pirate games, it's just too much work for me. 

If pirating Transformers was significantly hurting it, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Michael Bay has to stop raping my childhood.

Well because I don't feel any guilt when I'm pirating a film from a huge hollywood studio/publisher. On the other hand I do feel bad for movies not released in my country, but then again, as soon as I can most of the times I buy a legit copy. Sometimes I've bought them in other countries, as I know some of them will never reach mine.

Games, I used to. Nowadays I hardly have enough time to play games, then my income is more than enough to cover my needs.

Music, well, now that's a tricky one. I buy a good share of my music, but I do pirate a lot. However, good karma comes when I check how much I've spent in music festivals, and concerts.

Edit: Lol at the Michael Bay thingy, unfortunately he gets the sales he doesn't deserves.

I pirate bands when I first hear about them or they are recommended to me. Then from there if I don't like their music I can delete it and move on, but more often than not if I like the band I end up buying one of their CD's. Pirating (or simply listening to some of it on Youtube) has led to me buying more CD's than anything else.

This has happened many times for me. My friend told me to go listen to Rise Against a few years ago so I downloaded their most popular stuff like Prayer of the Refugee, Give It All, Ready to Fall, The Good Left Undone, etc. and I found out I love their stuff, and right now I own every single one of their CD's.

Haha, well that's true. Transformers is a bad example

If we go the creator of goods, now especially for artists, have you ever heard of adhesive contracts?

These force people to give the distributional rights of everything they create during the period of the contract to a company (sometimes these contracts last over 20 years), now this isn't really a problem... unless you are for example a programmer and you write a programm in your free time while being employed at a company, then often the contract with your company forces you to give the distributional rights for the programm written in your free time to the company you work for. Now it can even become more ridiculous, in some countries (e.g. Austria) programms are considered a piece of written art, now often these contracts aren't just limited to programms but written arts in general, so if you write a book in the meantime, there go your distributional rights. Now taking it even further (this is not as often used as the former contract clauses) that if you have programmed or written anything on that Book/programm during your employment you are also forced to let go of your distributional rights.

Now hold on there a minute son, you might say, it's your own fault for signing that contract, well then, try to find a company that does not want to steal your distributional rights, its their money after all...

Now I have kept this whole thing above incomplete to keep it somehow easy to understand, but companies always screw over the artist...