Here's an interesting, and somewhat unorthodox, justification for pirating cooked up by The Ish blog. As the author notes, what happens if the stuff you get for free is flat out BETTER than what you get by paying iTunes?

The above picture reflects the differences that can occur between using iTunes and piracy and, as noted in the article, there's quite a large difference between the two:

As you can see in the above image, by purchasing the episode from iTunes rather than just pirating it, i actually get less of the show. Â?and to be honest, pirating this episode took maybe 2 to 3 minutes more work (emphasis theirs).

Of course, that isn't to say it's full proof. DRM is still an issue, even if Steve Jobs himself is trying to make it a non-issue. Quality will also be an issue depending on how much "ARR!" you put into your piracy activities. Still, there's an important point to be made here: If a service can't live up to the expectations of consumers, and there's a free alternative that's equal to or better than the service given, what good would it do for us to pay?