Personally, I think piracy is a tool of the desperate, the disheartened and those that don't care for awarding merit. The desperate if a software is too hard to come by legitimately, the disheartened as a form of protest if the software/company has draconian practices at play, and those that don't award merit because they would, if not never, at least rarely buy/rent anything if not forced to.

FOSS is nice and all, but do mind people are expending their time in such projects, so if you think a project is good and you can afford it, I'd suggest supporting financially the creators.