I decided to ask this after talking to some of my friends. I'm from Serbia (Balkan) and I'm very proud of the fact that I have a legal copy of Xp (I am the only one that have it in my circle of friends) and a legal copy of Game Studio. There is not one single thing made for my project that I made with illegal software and I am very careful on what I download, always checking the readme files. I don't use Max, Maya, Photoshop, Premier, Poser and similar software because I have invested a lot of time in this project and I want to be on the safe-side but...

When I find someone to join my project I'm having really difficult time in explaining why they need to buy and work with legal software. I am very new in all of this, my entire country is very new in all of this, so my question is:

At what stage of game development, or game publishing, legal software becomes relevant?

I think, it becomes relevant, if you want to publish your game(free or sell) because "the whole world" will see, if you have a legal Version of Gamestudio.

That may be true for GS but what about operating system and various 2D & 3D software used?

If I ask someone to do 2D menu for my game how can I explain the importance of legal OS and 2D software? What is my argument? When are those things relevant?

It's their own problem actually. Your argument can only be morality.

the problem is an issue of morality like amy said. truth is, there are millions of people who use illegal software. some of them dont even think there is a problem because you can easily aquire it online. but when you try to publish a commercial quality project and there is something that was used illegally and this "thing" is recognized, now you have a legal issue. in the u.s. there are pirate watchdogs! agencies who have a sole purpose of finding and procecuting people who pirate software. i have seen the fbi bust dj's and booths in the flea markets, so i know some people take it very seriously. i just think it's better to be safe. there is something called "guilty by association".

@amy:

But if morality is the main argument that would mean that there are no other (harder) consequences.

For example:
I read somewhere on the site (can't remember now where) that if game is found to be developed with illegal copy of GS, ownership of that game will go to the GS team. That's a financial consequence.

If 2D art in my game is made with illegal software can that become problem at some point? If there is no time when software used for development is relevant then I don't see a (financial) reason for legality to be relevant and that can't be right?

@Blink:

I heard about anti-pirat agencies but these would have to check every single file in the game and read data about software used to create file? Does Adobe, Autodesk or Sony hire someone for that sort of work?

yes, that is a problem, especially in the u.s. here you dont pass the rights only, you go to jail and have to pay a large fine. illegal is illegal. i don't buy games and send e-mails to whatever company designed the game and ask,"oh, by the way, was any part of this project made with illegal software"? i don't think it can even be traced unless it maybe a model, sounds or background music or picture copyrighted by someone. so, yes it does boil down to a moral issue.

Of course you should only publish with a legal version of an engine since a serial is embedded which allows to figure out the owner.

But with images, sounds, models and so on. How are you supposed to know if your freelancers use legal software? They could simply lie to you. It's not your problem. If you want to be on the safe side then simply resave everything with gimp and blender or MED before you distribute your game.

I am very new in this matter but to me it always seemed that there is more to use of illegal software then just moral issues. If this is the case then I think I had a much more restrict image in my head then the one that reality offers. I was under the impression that publishers require software licenses, work files and all other development-related informations.

So to summarize: Only time when legality of software is relevant is when someone sues you and you have to prove that your files have been created with legal software?

It's not really provable what software got used to create a file. Well, depends on the file format but like I mentioned you simply could resave everything with legal software to make sure any possible traces are removed.

If you get sued (but why?) the police could theoretically come and check all software you have installed on your computer for valid licenses.