'Do the right thing and tell on a pirate' - software bods

What's in it for me?

So you want me to do your job for you. It's not in the public interest, as others have already pointed out, so you can't appeal to my altruistic or utilitarian principles. It's in the private interest of a tiny minority of people who mostly don't live in this country. And you're not even going to offer a tiny reward? Good luck with that plan.

One in four programs pirated?

Is he a) mad, b) a liar or c) misinformed?

Or does he consider any software which is free or which is not developed/sold by his members "pirated"?

What a load of existence justification by a leech.

Tax on a privately owned car is arguably legalized theft, and even fraud, given what the tax is actually spent on, so quite a poor basis for comparison

Use of an unlicensed copy of proprietary software is copyright infringement, a civil offense, not a criminal offense like theft of property, so FAST should be called FASCIst, it seems more appropriate!

No, staff who "blow the whistle" are greedy, annoyed, or just stupid people who are hoping that the pay off will be enough the cover the loss of earnings from later being sacked, or 'encouraged' to leave!

FAST are parasites who just want an excuse to attack businesses, whether guilty or not, to justify their existence.

Obviously any smart person will try to use as little proprietary software as possible to avoid this nonsense e.g. were possible I always prefer free libraries over paid for libraries for any software I write at work, because it is hassle to get stuff paid for, I can see the source code, and it removes the hassle a custom Maven dependency!

My first instinct

My first instinct upon reading this was it might be a laugh to turn up and start handing out Linux install and Libre office DVD's while espousing the virtues of open source software. That ought to get their backs up. :)

@Dramoth, 11:58:

I once worked as a contractor for Microsoft and one of their very senior programme directors, and a 20+ year veteran (and also, not from the UK) said, directly to me, that for a long time MS tolerated piracy for those very reasons. That it, more than anything, helped to sell their PC in every home message.

Indeed, he went on to say how they (MS) used to accept it; they couldn't directly 'encourage' it, but I'm sure would have, had they been able to - that Dad (typically) would take a copy of Windows and/or Office home to put on their computer and expose the family (kids) to it.

And that that, was the best advert possible.

Mind you, he did then go on to say that given the genious of MS programmers, they could put a completely unbreakable activation mechanism into any version of OS/program at will, so he may well have been smoking dodgy kinds of tabacco.

Sooner or later...

...most pirates will be held accountable for their crimes. Jail and large fines are a good means to teach these crims a valuable lesson.