I didnt mean to offend you Mike
.
Software like photoshop would have never become industry standard without the pirates!
The entire user base was built by students ripping it for free, then when they went into business, guess what they did? Thats right, they went out and bought a legit copy of the software that they were now extremely familiar with.
Hobbyists cant afford the ridiculous price tags that software companies put on their products.
Autodesk, used to, maybe still do offer a non commercial student copy of their 3D program Maya, only limited by a "watermark" imposed upon output.
This is the way forward.