I've noticed a lot of people state that #4 is unethical, but really, I don't think it is depending on the circumstances... It's generally unethical for someone who already knows how to use the program and is experienced with it. I don't see it as unethical for someone gets it that way who wants to learn the program. That's called a student, in my book. And I don't see them as lying, either. Enrolment at a university shouldn't be required to be considered a student. Being in a state of learning a new skill should. I do see it as particularly unethical for them to get it for the particular purpose of doing commercial work with it. Silver: More of you have DL'd them than will admit. Perhaps a better question would be 'How many of you are using ZoneAlarm, and what's your excuse?' atthisstage: I think you're using incorrect terminology. Software piracy is unethical, but it's not stealing. If you went to the grocery store with 20 cents and stole an orange, you'd have an orange and the grocery would have one less orange. You would still have 20 cents, and the grocery store would not have your 20 cents. That's stealing. However, if you had a handy-dandy Star Trek TM transpoholoduplicatifier device that could COPY that orange, and the grocery store still had the orange, but the Transpoholoduplicatifier did require an orange to make another orange copy of, you would not be stealing, because the store is not out an orange and you leave the store in the same condition it was when you entered it. Now, here's where it gets weird... say instead of produce, you walked back to the books and stationery aisle and transpoholoduplicatified a copy of The Two Towers or the latest VC Andrews or Michael Chrichton or Stephen King novel (those see to be the only things in there -- those three authors and whatever the big movie of the moment is). That would not be theft, either. It would be a copyright violation, however. But it would only be a civil liability. If you sold it, however, it would become a criminal activity in many places. If you rented the transpoholoduplicatifier to someone else and they made a copy, it would be their problem, not yours. That's why you can copy from books at Kinko's on the self-serve copiers but they won't do it behind the counter. I've had them try to refuse to make copies of my own artwork because I had a copyright symbol on it, even though I showed them my ID. Tards. As to whether it would be unethical to copy that book, yeah, pretty likely. Would it be unethical to copy that orange? It's perfectly legal. Partly, because such a device hasn't been invented yet. Partly because no one owns the rights to 'oranges' but youer deity of preference, if any. Or perhaps Disney -- after all, they own California and Florida, and that's where oranges come from. Would the existence os such a device be ethical? It would completely change our entire world, stop hunger and greed everywhere and collapse the entire economic system. If it had filters, it would even make it possible to cure diseases, heal scars, and so on. That grocery store would go out of busines in a fortnight if everyone had one. And they wouldn't care, because they wouldn't need money anymore, because they could have all the stuff they wanted, including more money if that floated their boat. And eventually, everyone would be happy. And it would probably, as a result, be the most illegal thing ever invented. Everyone: There's a much better way to get software without paying money for it, and it's ethical and legal and accepted. Get a contract doing some sort of work of this sort. Require the contractee to purchase a licence of the program for you, to remain yours after the time of the contract ends. Most will go along with this, because if you do good work, they don't need to buy that the next time and you'll work well with them because they were so generous. Another sort of roundabout way -- if you buy it for business and use it for business, expense it. Take it off your taxes. You are only supposed to be taxed for your profits not your losses.