"companies and platforms can make gains through a positive network effect (the more people use the product, the more valuable it becomes) and consumer learning (pirate users may learn about the product and buy the legal version later on)."

IIRC, when China was opening up and Windows and Office were listed at the top of the Most Pirated charts, Bill Gates commented that he thought it was OK because it is essentially starting market saturation, i.e., getting the Chinese hooked on Windows products.

I'm not sure it worked out so well that way. Anyone have any current data on how well MS is doing vs other software platforms in China?