About 15 years ago, I was working for a small company who's owner couldn't seem to pay for employee raises or software, but COULD pay to fill her closets with clothes and shoes (the business and house were on the same property, in separate buildings). She had intentionally pirated Macintosh versions of Studio 8, Director, PageMaker, FreeHand, OS 6.4, and others by renting them (you could do this back then) from a place in Texas, and then returning the software AFTER she had us copy all of the disks and manuals.

After I left, she didn't want to pay my accrued vacation; it took prodding from my state's Dept. of Industry, Labor and Human Relations to force her to pay up. Once I had cashed the check, I turned them into the Software Publisher's Association (precursor to the BSA). A year later, the company was out of business.

Do I regret it? Nope. If your business is dependent on that piece of software, you need to pay for it, plain and simple. If you don't like it, don't go into business.

They like to say the toes you step on today might be attached to the butt you kiss tomorrow. I would return the butt you kick today might be attached to the hand that e-mails the BSA tomorrow. Turnabout IS fair play.