Yes, I can clearly and with good conscious say that it is 100% a-ok to break the lock or take a cracked copy of software you already paid $10,000 for to operate with a $180,000 system if the vendor is going to gouge you over a trivial issue.

I'm really sorry that you live in a fantasy world sponsored by the MPAA and RIAA. I've already paid my pound of flesh to get my work done, intentionally not backporting a dongle driver to force upgrades at $10k a whack is the stuff slime is made of. They do this because they know very well there are not many/any alternative vendors for this equipment, which happens to be an exotic motion capture rig absolutely critical to my work. Fuck that and fuck anyone who tells me I have to grin and bear it or otherwise just wave my hands and go without all because otherwise I might offend their sensibilities over how I might see their software. Personally, I don't care about your software. It hasn't done anything slimy to me yet. You're safe.