> It's a common misconception that piracy is a loss of business. It's nothing more than an overestimation in profits. I used to think it was beneficial in the

> It's a common misconception that piracy is a loss of business. It's nothing more than an overestimation in profits. I used to think it was beneficial in the old days when most useful software was proprietary and few decent open alternatives existed. A teenager who wanted to make a custom 3D model for a quake mod needed an extremely expensive 3d animation package from maya or 3dstudio max. A teen doesn't have 3ds or maya money. So they pirate it and learned to use 3ds max or maya and in the process build up an actual skill. Later on when they go on to work in the industry their skill now creates actual demand for said software. In a way it was a gain.