I am sure at some stage we all are guilty of using Pirated Software. There has been so much reported and discussed about this in recent years that it has got me thinking — Do We Really Need Pirated Software?
The conclusion I have come to is NO!
Let us first of all examine briefly what Piracy is all about?
I found this on Autodesk site and it sums up the matter quite excellently in the first 4 points, which are reproduced below:

Software “piracy” is the unauthorized possession and/or use of software. It is a crime no different from shoplifting software from store shelves. Purchasers of software do not actually own the software. What they own is the right to use the software according to the terms of the publisher’s license. Purchasers agree to abide by the terms of the license, which typically limits copying privileges to a single copy for backup purposes.
All legal software is supplied with a license. This applies whether the software is acquired for use on one machine, for networking across a number of machines, or if it is pre-installed as part of a system. The license is designed to protect the rights of software developers and is enforced by copyright laws.
Piracy may take many forms, including:
* unauthorized copying of software programs purchased legitimately, also known as “end-user” piracy. This can occur when the number of PCs installed with the software exceeds the licenses that an individual or company has purchased;
* gaining illegal access to protected software, also knwn as “cracking”; nd
* reproducing and/or distributing counterfeit or unauthorized software, often over the counter, or sold, bartered, or shared by individuals on the Internet; and software programs pre-installed by vendors who sell computers without providing the accompanying software license.

The majority of software piracy is.... committed by small and medium-sized businesses with no clear policy about proper software use. Business owners who are not legal with the number of seats used within their firm are subject to significant civil penalties.
Criminal copyright infringers include counterfeiters burning copies of software for sale on auction sites; individuals and organizations that create and distribute counterfeit CD-ROMs, which in some cases are mass-produced in government-sanctioned factories around the world; and “hard disk loaders”—those who sell computers loaded with illegally copied software programs as a purchase incentive.

3. What are the penalties for software piracy?
The criminal penalties range from fines to jail terms or both. Civil penalties may reach as high as $150,000 for each infringing work. For commercial piracy, the government can also criminally prosecute you for copyright infringement, and if convicted, you can be fined up to $250,000, or sentenced to jail for up to five years, or both..

The following are some of the risks associated with using pirated software:
* Pirated software often lacks the important elements, documentation, and comes with no warranty protection or upgrade options;
* Counterfeit disks may be infected with viruses that will damage your hard drive or cripple your network, without the benefit of technical support;
* Copying or using illegally copied software puts your company at risk for copyright infringement;
* Pirated software that is not functional, or that contains viruses, wastes company resources, and drives up IT costs;
* May lead to civil penalties and criminal prosecution;
* Negative PR about your company could result from the allegation.
So what do you feel? Do we need this aggravation? Is it necessary to take a guilt trip everytime a Pirated Software is installed?
I don’t think so! Especially not today when there are all sorts of COMPLETELY FREE & OPEN SOURCE Softwares available that does the job equally well if sometimes not better than the Cracked Pirated Version.
Here’s few useful free softwares for you…

A)StarBurn CD/DVD/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD

StarBurn is an advanced CD/DVD/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD burning, grabbing and mastering software development kit for Microsoft Windows and Linux.
Download link:-

http://www.rocketdivision.com/download_starburn.html

B)Audio Converter

Any Audio Converter extract audio from video, convert audio to MP3, WMA
The premier and versatile audio conversion tool!
You Can Get ANY AUDIO CONVERTER FREE here:

http://www.any-audio-converter.com/download.php

C)Audiograbber:

Audiograbber is a beautiful piece of software that grabs digital audio from cd’s. It copies the audio digitally-not through the soundcard-which enables you to make perfect copies of the originals.
You Can Get AUDIOGRABBER for FREE here:

http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/download.html

D)AutoRuns for Windows v9.13:

This utility, which has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor, shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them. These programs include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show other locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and much more. Autoruns goes way beyond the MSConfig utility bundled with Windows Me and XP.
Download:-

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

E)Avira AntiVir Personal – FREE Antivirus:

Avira AntiVir Personal is a comprehensive, easy to use antivirus program, designed to offer reliable free of charge virus protection to home-users only, not for business or commercial use.
You can get AVIRA ANTIVIR PERSONAL for FREE here:

http://www.free-av.com/en/download/1…antivirus.html

F)DriveImage XML:

Image and Backup logical Drives and Partitions
DriveImage XML is an easy to use and reliable program for imaging and backing up partitions and logical drives.
The program allows you to:
# Backup logical drives and partitions to image files
# Browse these images, view and extract files
# Restore these images to the same or a different drive
# Copy directly from drive to drive
# Schedule automatic backups with your Task Scheduler
Image creation uses Microsoft’s Volume Shadow Services (VSS), allowing you to create safe “hot images” even from drives currently in use.
Images are stored in XML files, allowing you to process them with 3rd party tools. Never again be stuck with a useless backup!
Restore images to drives without having to reboot.
get it here-

http://www.runtime.org/downloads.htm

G)SpeeDefrag 5.2:

SpeeDefrag is the exclusive freeware program, which optimizes Windows defrag. It restarts your computer, which refreshes the RAM and loads just the defrag.exe program. This imposes minimum load on the system and therefore defragmentation speed is increased. This small software will also shutdown or restart your computer automatically once defrag is over. It supports scheduling of defrag and now it also performs disk checking before defrag.
Licence : Freeware Size = 3.10 MB
Platform : Win Xp and Vista
You Can Download SpeeDefrag for FREE here:

http://www.vcsoftwares.com/dsf.html

H)Mp3 Knife 3.2:

Mp3 Knife is a simple tool for extracting mp3 clips from your Mp3’s.The extracted clips will be stored in mp3 format only. This is the simplest and fastest tool in its category which has ability to extract long mp3 clip in seconds. Its so simple that only three steps can extract the clip ie “Select start” – “Select end” – “Save”.
You Can Download MP3 Knife for FREE here:

http://www.vcsoftwares.com/dmk.html

I)Copy Cat 2.0:

Copy Cat 2.0 actually skip the bytes which are not readable from file and copy all other bytes therefore it extracts max data which is normally not done by windows copy operation. Copy Cat can be helpful at times when you want to copy a CD or DVD which is scratched,when you want to copy data from harddisk area which is partially not readable , when you want to copy data from floppy which is currently not being copied by windows .So download and enjoy.
You Can Download Copy Cat for FREE here:

http://www.vcsoftwares.com/dcc.html

J)iSpring Free:

Professional PPT to Flash Conversion
Now your presentation can turn from PowerPoint to Flash in one click. iSpring creates high quality Flash movies with vector representation of standard PowerPoint objects and keeps most of advanced PowerPoint features.
* PowerPoint 2000/XP/2003/2007
* Hyperlinks and action buttons
* Animations and hyperlinks on Slide Masters
* PowerPoint animation effects (180+)
* PowerPoint slide transitions (all)
* One click publishing
* Embedded music and audio narrations
* Synchronization of animations and sounds
* Embedded video clips
* Embedded Flash movies
You Can Get ISpring for FREE Here:

http://www.ispringsolutions.com/download.html

K)Free PDF to Word Doc Converter:

How to edit PDF files without purchasing an expensive PDF editor? How to extract text/images from PDF files? What you need is a PDF to Word Converter.
Free PDF to Word Doc Converter is such a desktop document conversion tool to convert Adobe PDF file to Mcirosoft Word Doc file – and it’s totally for FREE!
The program can extract text, images, shapes from PDF file to Word Doc file and preserve the layout. It can convert all the pages, or any pages range of the PDF file.
DOWNLOAD LINK-

http://www.hellopdf.com/download.php