I'm not sure how it's not black and white.
Someone spends a lot of time and effort (and in a lot of cases MONEY) to create something. They let you use it in exchange for some of your money. If you like and it want to use it, you should pay for it. To not do so is enjoying the benefits of someone else's time, talents and effort without giving them their fair compensation.
Like I said earlier, I spend 40-60 hours a week (time I could otherwise be spending with my family and friends, enjoying my hobbies, etc) working. I've invested thousands of hours of hard work into my software and my business partner and I have paid our employees hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years to develop, test and support our software. Our software offers much value to those who decide to use it. In exchange for that value that we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and an untold number of hours on creating, we ask for a small one time fee.
If you pirate and use my software, you are taking money out of my wallet that should otherwise be there. You are benefiting from the monumental effort that goes into that software, but you didn't pay for it. It would be like hiring someone to mow your yard or clean your house and then refusing to pay for it. It's theft, pure and simple... or, if you'd like, black and white.
