Unfortunately, in my experience most consumers still don’t treat software (or DVD or Music) piracy as anything to worry about and therefore don’t have any compunction about receiving such items. Personally, I think there is no excuse - either pay for the software legitimately because you really want it, or if you can’t afford it but want some of the functionality, look to the many Open Source alternatives!

Many businesses I’ve come across have the same lax attitude. Only last week at a client site, I was asked to join a “newly upgraded” computer to a domain, which on inspection was running a rather crude pirated copy of Windows XP - complete with poorly printed media. Without being confrontational, I stated that it needed a legitimate license to function properly and the client left it at that. In this case it could easily have been ignorance of licensing issues, but I’ve seen many cases where it’s just accepted that pirated is “ok” - surprisingly, usually from Retail business owners, who I’m sure wouldn’t take so kindly to members of the public taking their stock without paying!

Education through advertisement goes someway to tackling this - so more of those “Piracy is theft!” adverts and the like you see on DVD’s and in the cinema!