I haven't seen anyone in this thread defending intellectual property theft (though there are certainly people out there who do so) or the activities of these particular sites. Rather, what disturbs many of us, myself included, is government censorship without due process of law. We are concerned that once the precedent is laid, its use will inevitably expand to cover sites whose activities make the government uncomfortable for different reasons (WikiLeaks being a good example).

As a software author myself, I sympathize with your situation, but the risks here are much bigger than the loss of income to piracy.