The people distributing the software are at greater risk than those downloading it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fastlink
The EFF exists for a reason. Hopefully not a reason that you'll ever personally need, but if that day comes and the hammer comes down on you, you'll be thankful people prepared for that situation.
The eff doesn't exist to defend pirates so that is irrelevant.
Pirating in every shape in form has to be one of of the lowest crimes to get caught for. And most cracks come from overseas so good luck there.
That depends on your definition of piracy. The EFF strongly fights against the DMCA.
> Pirating in every shape in form has to be one of of the lowest crimes to get caught for.
Low in terms of what? Punishment? A fair number of people have received harsh punishments, as already mentioned. You mention you were caught distributing a lot of pirated material, so the probability of getting caught seems high. The fraction of people that received a non-trivial punishment of those caught distributing a lot of pirated material is higher than 1/180 million.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=138975038570173...