> break the terms of the license and effectively steal the software

We're all (mostly/some) software people here, you don't need to use terms established by the "anti-piracy" firms to make your point, no one is "stealing" anything here, even if they were getting it for free from TPB or whatever.

Indeed. But people are stuck on these archaic unrelated terms for now. AI firms will make the whole thing obsolete while luddites cry about “stealing from artists” and stuff like that.

> But people are stuck on these archaic unrelated terms for now

Seen it in media for decades at this point, which makes sense, most people can't tell up from down.

What's sad is hearing those things echoed here of all places, a community for hackers, and people are repeating the words of the MPAA.

>luddites cry

oh come on I thought we had gotten past this crap

When I moaned to the Adobe support person about a recent price hike they said "It's a real shame you haven't signed up for a free educational course online, like the ones from Google, that would qualify you for a student plan. Or have you? I'll wait here while you tell me if you are enrolled in one of those free Google courses. Take as long as you need."

So now I'm getting an education too.

Cracked software has risks attached to it, such as malware.

Spare me the morality play. Apple gifted Donald Trump a 24k gold statue! They will gift me an educational discount to Final Cut Pro.

There was no morality play. My point is your copy/use of software is equally "illegal" whether you just download a cracked copy or pretend to be an active college student and pay the student price, when you are not in fact an active college student. Either way, you won't have a valid license. So why bother paying?

This is quite the slippery argument IMO. So it’s not about morality, it’s about legality. But also it’s about paying for a valid license, so they shouldn’t pay at all?

I mean, why not? I barely use FCP, sometimes to trim a movie in places. I'm still going to be subsiding other users. I'd rather not pirate.

won't somebody think of the poor trillion dollar company!