If you look at everything in a deterministic viewpoint, it is true that nobody is really reponsible for their actions.

I'm not singling out negatives here, I'm saying everyone. That succesful businessman, who makes all the right "decisions", that Nobel prize winning scientist who's a "genius". Every single person, I'm saying that even great people, they aren't really responsible for their actions either. Do you really understand?

ElectricNZ

There is a slight hole in this theory, one that society doesnt seem to emphasize enough. If you add a certain ingredient to the nurture component, the rest of the nurture component is rendered pointless. When people are taught to think about past occurences and analyze them in a setting free of emotions, they can effectively counter whatever they have been taught over time.

Most people do remember there past but don't bother analyzing it, they simply keep on going down whatever road they have been set down, ignorant to the forces subtly manipulating them. Once people become aware of those forces, they generally lose effect because people don't like being manipulated and will work to stop being manipulated.

And this is where school comes into play, and how the current education system fails miserably. They pride themselves in discipline, knowledge, skills, and "being prepared to be a contributing member of society." They are building the masses. They are building people up to join the crowd of people who stop asking questions and are punished for doing so. Free will becomes lost in a pot of swirling social values, morals, taboos, and conventions. Few dare to ask why to anyone but themselves, and even fewer attempt to find out for themselves...

Now back on topic of piracy, generally the people hurt most by piracy are infact the developers and anyone who works below them. Those least impacted are the big corperate execs and the stockholders(aka the actual publishers), although they sure kick and scream about it. Most developers are hardworking, intelligent individuals who live on a mid range salary, and aren't driving around in rols royces like so many people like to think.

The pirates themselves pirate for a number of reasons. People who pirate copies of windows and adobe creation suites do it because it costs hundreds of dollars. People who pirate videogames do so generally because either they like pirating or because they feel pirating is easier than going out and buying the game, mostly the first and the second generally only applies to college/high school age people who have lost the ability to get games due to either budget constraints or parents getting in the way or them just being jerks.

EDITED FOR LENGTH