I'm aware that some projects (especially those made for big corporations) needs to be made using only fully licensed tools. I'm not so stupid, I couldn't even make what you're talking about with a student version then again making that kind of animation would require some small team. Weather your project was made with licensed tools or not the corporation has no right to use it be during the superbowl or prime time shows just because companies like Autodesk are in rights to ask for the programs license codes. If you used fully licensed tools then yes you have rights and they need to follow the contract or you can sue them. 

Actually, I wasn't at all asking about using student licenced/pirate software to do commercial work. But you answered my question anyway. So, you expect that your intellectual property is respected, and if it is not, then you're ready to sue, is that correct?

Now, another hypothetical scenario: suppose that the project files for the ad you made for the company are somehow "leaked" to torrent sites. All of the sudden, you see videos pop up online where people have changed some little thing in the ad, re-rendered it and are posting it as theirs. Would that be ok for you?

Next thing you know, you see an ad for a different company that is clearly just a slight modification of your leaked project. Is that fair use? Or do they have to pay you for the use of your project assets?

This is common in the industry though. If I'm correct people need to change no more than 20-30% of your work to make it their own. This can be very irritating but you'd have to cope with it. If your files were leaked and someone stole them to use them commercially, they'd have to face my client in court because the product is theirs not mine so the decision to sue is not mine but theirs. What they would do though is sue me for reusing their files (which I made) for another client but then again they'd have to prove I did it. Artistic property is a very touchy subject but people copy one another here and there, no need to grab the files, just seeing it is enough to copy.

As for the programs there's one thing you have to take into consideration. Take Adobe for example. Being easy to pirate makes their programs the most used in and out of the industry. People know Adobe and they want it more than say, Corel. People want Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effect etc. The industry wants these too, it's pretty easy to find workers that have knowledge in Photoshop these days because everyone has it even if it's a 800$ program. Adobe knows this, the industry knows this and people benefit from it. Adobe is not on the verge of bankruptcy, the world needs artistic talent here and there and both Adobe and Autodesk benefit greatly from being the most used programs on the planet weather it's pirated of not.

I fell in love with my MAC as soon as I got it, it's so practical, fast, smooth and the interface and order is fantastic. In my PC, something was ALWAYS wrong. I couldn't save my file in X disk, Y file was missing, Z program wouldn't run.

I love MAC, and it's far superior. Of course, the price is indeed an issue.

I prefer my PC right now but that is mostly because I am used to it. My bro has a mac for the purpose of developing iOS games and I use it every now and then. I do the graphics on my PC and I am not seeing why a mac is better for design. I do like the set up the more i use it though. My bro has somehow managed to slow this mac down over a 1 year period. Anyone else have that problem?

PC because that's what i'm used to, they customizable and allow to do anything you want. Mac can be limited, although i still wouldn't mind owning a MacBook pro, even if it's very expensive