I've just read through this and my first thought is: this is theft, but is it really damaging your sales? My theory is that part of Microsoft's success depended on piracy - piracy spreads brand awareness, and once the next version of the software comes out you just need to try and make it more secure, so that you get more sales out of the new brand awareness. I'd be having a 'Gatesean' fit myself if someone did this to me, but in the bigger picture it might not be such a bad thing in the long run.

Generally people who grab things for free were never going to pay for them in the first place so the chances are that this isn't going to hurt ROI. market the product like hell and find a way to take control of the 'free'/stolen one by maybe releasing a free version or shareware yourself if you can. Or go down the OS route and charge for support. Everyone makes their money somewhere - Linux OSs may be free for instance, but Linux support generally costs a lot more than Microsoft support.

Finally, since politics reared its head here, a comment on that too. A good product should be ethical, but as apolitical as possible (if that makes sense) - I'm a socialist, but a realist. Its often quite amusing how some left-wingers ignore that they've got money, evade thinking about where it came from and consequently fail to appreciate that time, effort and innovation need rewarding and renumerating, while some right-wingers seem to beleive that anyone left of centre thinks that everything should be free and communal. It pays to be pragmatic rather than taking cheap shots, or using cod-politics either to self-justify stealing or to over-deterministically generalise about the political opposition's proclivity towards a free ride. Most people don't fit into either category that I described but those that do, are doing no favours for either side.

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