one of the problems with software is that it is so easy to make a full duplicate of the product at a small fraction of the selling price.
when you make something physical, piracy don’t occur simply because it’s not practical to do so. even if they do, the ‘authentic imitation’ would generally be inferior or perfect. in the case of the latter…
say i somehow have the resources to make an exact duplicate of a prada bag. i make a million more and give it away free. am i in trouble? perhaps. but those people who got the bags certainly aren’t in any moral predicament, maybe not even if they paid for it.
That’s rationalization, and it’s a good one, but you seem to understand that what you are doing is wrong. Most people accept that if you can’t afford something, you do without. The fact that you wouldn’t buy it if you had the money is your rationalization for not earning what you use. It’s much easier to just copy.
You obviously value the product, otherwise you wouldn’t have gone through the effort to acquire an illegal copy. Why would anyone ever pay for it even if they had the money? I can always use your rationalization to get an illegal copy and donate the money to charity? I don’t see why you would ever buy software that you can acquire without purchase while you have debt? Is there any software you consider worthy to purchase, and why?
Dunno about Vista, but I picked up a legal Chinese version of Office for 170 RMB (~$20 US). That’s about 1/15 of what Office Xp was retailing for in the US at the time. No grey market problem, as all the installation screen, EULA, dialog boxes, and menus are in Chinese.