[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] kt-Froggy:
Oh boy... Bringing up topics like this, and the inevitable resulting holy war never cease to amaze me. :rolleyes:

Like stated already by some people (surprisingly few, to be honest) in this thread, copying is not theft. As for "moral issues", people who actually use someone else's software commercially, i.e. to make money, have to pay for it. Pirating an app (or any intellectual property, for that matter) to profit from it IS wrong, and should be prosecuted. Pirating for your own personal use is NOT. To me, this is where piracy and actual theft are fundamentally different -- whether you steal a car for a joyride with girls, or to make a getaway from a bank robbery, it is still wrong, as you are taking it away from the rightful owner, plain and simple.

I am not a lawyer, but from my perspective, based on plain logic and common sense, the current copyright and patent laws are a cruel joke, to say the least. It would be funny, if it wasn't so sad...

The most amusing aspect of such debates is that most people viciously arguing against piracy are nothing but hypocrites. Please don't take it personally -- this is not directed to anyone in particular on this forum, as I simply don't know people here well enough to make statements like that. However, this is an observation from a ton of publicly available information, as well as from my personal discussions on the topic IRL with people I actually know. Some of the quotes from well-known (if not famous) people are just hilarious, like the following passages from Steve Jobs:

1996: "Good artists copy, great artists steal. And we have always﻿ been shameless about stealing great ideas."

2010: "I'm going to destroy Android because it's a stolen product."

Funny, isn't it? This tirade being directed against Android makes it even more so to me... :) And of course, this is all about making profit from stealing, not just doing it for personal fun. In Russian, there is a saying (rough translation): "Seeing a speck of dust in someone else's eye, and not noticing a log in your own". I'll say it again: hypocrites.

Personally, I admit to using pirated software on my Windows PC. Less and less, though -- most of it is just because I am used to particular software. But I take any opportunity to switch to freeware or opensource. Actually, my primary home laptop is now running Ubuntu. On my Android phone, so far I have no pirated apps. Zero. Actually, installed and tried one, but decided not to use it, because I didn't like it that much. This is definitely not due to my conscious choice, but because I am just perfectly happy with free alternatives...

Before replying and accusing me of being ignorant, arrogant, dumb, immoral, and so on, and so forth, please carefully read the discaimer:

1. This is not an argument. I am not trying to convince anyone. This is just "my 2 cents", as the title says -- nothing more.

2. I couldn't care less about any opinions to the contrary (and no, I am not a "dumb teenager" -- far from it).

3. Last but not least -- I couldn't care less if anyone actually cares about my opinion. :p

A quick summary in the words of another famous, yet fictional, character: "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn".