[Vampyr]

I used to pirate stuff, but not anymore.

Video games: Like Zen said, I get little to no pleasure out of playing a game I have pirated. And thanks to Steam I can get a large quantity of my PC games for very cheap, since everything goes on sale at some point, and I feel like the developers deserve the money. Making games is hard work, even shovel ware.

The only games I ever pirate are ROM's for games that were only released in Japan and a legit English translation doesn't exist (the SNES Fire Emblem, for example). However, if these games ever do come out for the virtual console or something, I will buy it on there. I like playing games on my TV more anyway.

TV & movies: As a subscriber to Netflix, I never have a reason to. A ton of TV is streamable, as are a ton of movies. And even if they aren't, it's only a couple of days wait to get what I want. If you were to factor out everything I watch on Netflix vs the monthly fee I pay, I am getting a ridiculously good deal.

Music: For one thing, I don't really listen to music very much. When I do feel like listening to music, I use Grooveshark.

Books: I don't want to read off of a computer screen. I work down the road from a library...I should get a card there. I'm also live about 5 minutes from another library...

Software: This one is the hardest for me to resist. Some software is just outrageously expensive - the reason being that they make most of their profit off of selling it to large businesses. If I have a way to get software free or cheap legally, I usually take that path (I'm a member of the MSDN, and I can get a lot of cheap software through my University), but I don't really have a problem with people pirating software that they can't afford, even though I am a software developer myself. The biggest reason for this being that I have moral problems with the fact that any software you buy isn't really yours - you are buying a "license" for it. I just hate that. If I was a developer working on Photoshop, I really wouldn't have a problem with teenagers or other people who can't afford it pirating it. Fortunately, there are a TON of great free and open source alternatives today. People can use Linux if they can't afford windows. People can use OpenOffice.org if they can't afford Microsoft Office. GIMP and Paint.net exist if you can't afford Photoshop.

In conclusion, I think the world has caught on. 5 - 10 years ago, it would be hard to justify not being a pirate, but now we have so many options available to us that it's not needed as much. People are realizing they can found a business based on micro transactions or brief advertisements (Hulu), and I think in general people are willing to put up with those things to get something legit as opposed to pirating it.