Steam on the other hand the legit version offers many benefits that you don't get with a pirated version, like cloud save data and no need to hunt down the game discs if you re-format your PC.

In my experience the only real benefit Steam provides when compared to pirated versions of a game is support for achievements (which are sometimes useful and sometimes a distraction, which depends on the game and so I'm not sure they're a net positive). The other supposed benefits though I don't necessarily believe are that useful:

* Cloud saving - there have been occasions of cloud saves destroying local data (and hence the real savegames) is the cloud thinks it's not in sync and wants to match the local to the cloud, which might be empty or have an old save. I've had this happen with Plants vs Zombies, and there are many comments about this happening with the Torchlight games. To be fair, in most circumstances the game will ask if you want it to sync, and if you're aware of these problems you'll always choose to keep the local data. But it's dangerous regardless. Since I only play on the one machine I just preferred to backup the Steam folder as most games keep their saves there anyway.

* Hunting down discs when reformatting - anything which is pirated will likely come as an ISO. Keep the ISOs on a separate partition with all your other data and it'll survive a reformat, and you won't need to deal with physical discs.

* Automatic updates - people like to use this as a benefit to Steam, but again, it has its downsides. RAGE for example - the version that originally appeared on Steam was quite moddable, and there were instructions on how to unlock the console and change the visual settings to appear much nicer. But there was a patch that disabled the console unless you use a particular launch option to enable it again, but even then, almost all commands entered won't have any effect. The 1.0 version was hence much more valued. If you were aware of this you could have told Steam to not auto update, but people only find these things out once the update occurs so it's not a workable solution. There are hacks to downgrade back to 1.0 but they will screw with Steam somewhat and honestly, it's worse than just having the ability to not apply a patch in the first place.

As for the DRM, my stance is that it's entirely worthless and ruins the long term value of any game. I don't' use Steam anymore precisely because it and if that means I miss out on a lot of AAA game, so be it.

Because of his freedom of speech rights, few U.S. courts will assert that his websites are truly libelous

Freedom of speech in the US seems to be continually misunderstood - it means you have the freedom to talk smack about the Government and they won't seek repercussions. No matter what you think about the state of the country, at least it's safer to criticize the Administration in the US than it would be in, say, Iran or North Korea or even China. And that's all because of freedom of speech.

This does NOT apply one bit to citizens having a go at one another, and if it can be shows that it's truly smear and there's nothing tangible to the accusations, then it can most definitely be treated as libelous and freedom of speech is irrelevant here. You can't just say whatever you like without there being consequences, particularly if you lie.

Agreed. I too an an open source fan but will pay for something if it fits my criteria (no DRM being a big factor). If it doesn't for whatever reason, I don't buy it, but I don't pirate it either. You can't effect change or at the very least have a principled stance if there isn't' even a little bit of self-sacrifice.