Copyright infringement isn't theft or stealing. It's copyright infringement. If you could walk down the street and make a copy of any car you see for free you wouldn't deprive the owner of the car of his property. By copying you deprive the designer of the car the right to the scarcity of cars with his design. The problem is that we need to pay designers for R&D otherwise they stop designing cars.

>Stealing software is just as bad.

Stealing software the same way people steal physical would require the thief to delete all copies of the codebase. This happens through ransomware, not piracy.

Except that when you copy something you don't steal an existing copy. If the person were not going to buy something because they couldn't afford it, they're not a lost sale. This means there's no monetary loss for the company selling the software, it might even be beneificial as free marketing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4

Sure. Worth mentioning cars are also insured, so there is no loss for the owner as they get a "refund". That means there is monetary loss for them. The car maker is also happy to sell them a new car. The only people losing are those in between. Just like with software. You know, those people also work for money.

I disagree with your way of looking at this, There's monetary loss from the insurance company because someone has to pay someone to make that one specific car that you want to steal, while the software is already written and distribution is free. In the case of software, nobody pays. Hardware, someone always has to pay.

>Sure. Worth mentioning cars are also insured, so there is no loss for the owner as they get a "refund".

The owner of the copyright infringed car would just download his copy of the car again from the manufacturer. Why would insurance be involved?

Right after the iron curtain fell was a weird place to live in in Eastern Europe.

I felt like people really wanted to emulate the west, partake in its wealth and successes, on the other hand there was this ingrained sentiment that it was a bit decadent and was not really “us” They didn’t understand us, and had their nose up in the air, snickering about the poor stray EE kids, who couldn’t distinguish investment portfolios from pension funds, the savages.

There was a very strong Us vs Them mentality, and if you couple that with the idea that copying isn’t exactly theft, it has made sure any moral qualms were quickly overcome with peer pressure. You were “stupid” if you even tried to own SW legally.

Its similar to how an american would feel about owning a Japanese good luck flag, or a nazi medal of honor. Yes there was a person behind it, somewhere, with his/her struggles and dreams, but at one point in time nobody really cared.

Couple that with the fact that some software packages were priced as decent cars, it made the decision pretty easy.

Not trying to defend it too much, just putting it into perspective so people might understand a bit better why someone from EE might feel the way we sometimes do.