Like I said in my last sentence, there is a difference between not paying suppliers and lying to customers, and using warez in a start-up. It's like saying that

Like I said in my last sentence, there is a difference between not paying suppliers and lying to customers, and using warez in a start-up. It's like saying that since I think downloading music is ok (I don't), I must also think killing people is ok (I also don't), because both of them are bad, and I justified doing one bad thing. There are probably a whole bunch of morally ambiguous situations that aren't patently illegal to the extent your talking about. Would using warez software be illegal? Yes. But would it do any tangible harm to anyone else, as, for example, not paying suppliers for their services and products after you signed the sales contract, or not following compliance rules [which could cause a host of issues]? You might argue for the software companies that distribute the product and their lost profits, but if the choice is either 1)Pirate their software and use it or 2)use an alternative, there is not a hidden option that appears that says "3) Find money that doesn't exist and pay for the software right now!", so the loss of the sale of the products is, in a sense, never materialized to begin with. Again, I am not advocating that "anything is justifiable if you need to catch up to the competition" (as I also said in my last lines of my last post), nor that using warez software is at all 100% permissible, especially in a start-up past the initial stages. I am saying, however, that I see scenarios where the situation could be at least partially justified, and I don't think every start-up that did it should be vilified as it seems like the comments in this whole thread implied. Perhaps not entirely condoned, but not vilified.