It's not dead till it stops bleeding...
Screw politics.
And for the record, regardless of how you feel about software piracy, asking how to illegally crack a piece of software on ANY message board, let alone a message board filled with people who've spent money on the software, is a straight dumbass move. No exceptions. No love.
A couple things stated about the pervasiveness of copyright crime - I can attest that at least from my perspective, "everyone's doing it". If you're not, you're missing the trend, because more people do than don't. A lot of it does have to do with your "social circle" (for the puposes of this discussion, I'd like to substitute "culture" for "social circle", because that's what we're really talking about). Like I said, from my cultural perspective, it's the rule and not the exception. Mostly this applies to the downloading of mp3s (which if you take a poll is percieved as 'less wrong' than software piracy), but extends frequently into the ranges of movies, other media, games, and applications.
To the people that do this, it doesn't seem to be 'stealing' - most mp3 pirates just think they're listening to their own personal radio station, since they didn't get any of the trappings (jewel cases, lyric sheets, etc) associated with physically 'stealing' the product - the result seems intangible, like listening to the radio. When I was a kid we dubbed each others' audio tapes and made mixes. Nobody thought that was a crime (when, in fact, it's not exactly kosher legal), and nobody bitched and moaned about it either. It's even more commonplace and culturally accepted (at least in the college-age and younger crowd) to see burned CD's - who here can honestly say, "I don't own a single burned CD, I think it's wrong to burn CDs."?
For the computer-adept generation, there's a very fine line if any at all between tape-dubbing activities and installing a cracked "Doom 3". Friends got it, they give it, you get it, done deal. The internet makes it extremely easy to do this, but it would be done anyway even without the internet. Point is, some kids are going to buy Doom 3 just BECAUSE they saw or played a cracked version. Kids who never would have bought it otherwise.
The same IS true of music, believe it or not. I download mp3s. I am also an avid CD collector. I never would have even known about certain artists, let alone been interested in buying their albums, if I hadn't stumbled across a remix here, or a live set there, or a Filesharing Program User's file list containing several of my favorite artists along with some I'd never heard of... I've spent more money buying CDs BECAUSE of downloading mp3s than saving money by stealing the songs. Most of the time I end up buying albums even if I've already downloaded every track on it, just to have and hold the real deal. Artists like Jaga Jazzist, Amon Tobin, Squarepusher - each of which have multiple real CDs in my collection - I never would have known about AT ALL if not for searching for rare Orbital and Rupert Parkes mp3s. And so what, I even found those rare concert performances by Orbital I was looking for - they were files I couldn't have bought with a million dollars anyway. I also don't waste money buying Antiloop or Lawrence Garnier CDs, because one track was enough to tell me I didn't need to spend that $20.
Again, the same is true for software. If I'd rather download a track or two before spending $20 on a CD, you bet I'm going to download and check out the $800 music software before paying even the $49-$99 for it's cheap-ass competitor, let alone the full bucks for the real deal. As impulsive as I am, I'd give up on a demo (I did, actually, give up on the Reason demo, and have been soured to Reason ever since), but with the ability to play around with, say, Cubase SX for a few weeks - I start lusting after the program and think about how many more paychecks until I can order it. I've spent easily a thousand dollars or more on simple things - FruityLoops, CoolEdit, various little pieces of hardware - that I ABSOLUTELY WOULD NEVER HAVE BOUGHT if I hadn't been able to download and tweak out with cracked versions.
I'm not going to be sorry for the way I act, and I think I'm doing the right thing... some of that opinion is culturally generated (input from friends and peers), and some of it is internally generated. I weigh both sides... in my day to day life, no one bats an eye at being told "I got 3DStudio MAX on Kaazaa last night!". That doesn't mean I think it's right to steal that software, but I also know that the thief probably won't have it for long and it's merely to suit a passing fancy (like enjoying that song you heard on the radio). If they're really into it, they'll want real software to do the stuff they want. In the end, it's not really anyone's loss, it's a try-before-you-buy mentality. I grew up downloading Apogee shareware games from local BBSs (Commander Keen, anyone?), so try-before-you-buy is kind of built into my way of thinking.
Sure, maybe I'm the 'moral thief', the departure from normal thieves, who actually gives back and pays for things even though he knows he doesn't really 'have to'. But in the end, I think that's what most people do. Most of the points I've made here have been about mp3's and not dongle cracks for Cubase, but really isn't it the same thing? And if not, where do we draw the line?
Flamers - FLAME ON! Pick me apart. But I think you'll find, especially as years drag on, that music and software piracy is here to stay. If it was here and common in the days of vcr-dubbing and audiotape-dubbing, and ever since the first computer disk containing a program was distributed, I don't think that the added distribution factor of the internet is going to quell it.
And if they DO go for Big-Brother-esque online product activations, all that will do is prompt a new era of identity theft. People want things, they're going to take them. If they don't care that they're stealing from a record company, how will they care that they're stealing from Joe-nobody who's account info they just hijacked?
anyway, some thoughts - tell me what you think. Am I a bad person?
Please...
In reality, it should say that "people don't want to look beyond their social circle", not that they can't. The difference between the piracy issues, and gnomes in stomaches issue, is one of what is taught to you. People who are raised with their parents telling them that there are gomes in their stomach, and they have teachers who confirm, or will not deny that fact and never run into people who can or will tell them different, THOSE people in fact can not see beyond their social circle. 
