Today I came across a website called “The Pirate Bay” that hosts the full version of TopDesk 1.4.1. I’m normally indifferent about TopDesk being pirated, since it’s always going to happen and there’s nothing I can do to stop it, but these guys really got up my nose.
Not only are they low enough to pirate a $10 application from a small developer, but they have the gall to build a business around copyright infringement, asking for donations, selling advertising, and even sell t-shirts and clocks.
Pirates often justify their actions by saying “all software should be free”. That’s a noble, if unrealistic cause, and other people have taken a better approach to the ideal, but where exactly does selling t-shirts come in to it?
What kind of twisted worldview do these bottom-dwellers have that they think it’s OK for them to make money off the hard work of other people while preventing those same people from earning a living?
On the plus side, the comments on their TopDesk download page were universally positive about the application, so I guess that’s some kind of comfort 
.