It is an interesting case in piracy, as being the go-to software for reverse engineers, it also has the biggest target on its back for software crackers. Despite this, newer versions are not always cracked and released publicly so quickly.
It seems each license owner gets their own custom watermarked build of the software. The crack of version 7.7 was leaked from Think-Cell, the excel add-ons company. 8.3 was recently seen released, with an anonymous supplier and Vietnamese cracking group behind it.
The funny thing is IDA added an x64 decompiler for the free version right after the post. The piracy could have been avoided if it wasn't for the timing.
I wouldn't say _technical_ but some of the recent ones have Empress and Skidrow feuding and there's some dialog about the peripherals of how the cracks are made (in between the slurs and personal attacks). For example https://i.redd.it/p3s5d14i7hib1.jpg
Private services like this exist. For $40 a year one lets me stream any show/movie on apps across all platforms including android tv. Seamless netflix-like sync across devices, family profiles, selectable video/audio quality up to 4k, etc
If you're not going to make money off it, my opinion is you can use cracked VSTs without any concerns of "is it right".
In fact, as with a lot of pirated soft/media the experience is superior. Licensing and DRM of music software is a headache - dongles, software centers and other bloat. Scene groups like R2R even optimize performance and patch out bugs in addition to cracking protections, making their releases superior than that of the original developers.
Otherwise have a look at Splice rent-to-own plugin licensing.
The descriptions are salty at every genre that is even somewhat popular. God forbid people actually enjoying the music without being under influence of several drugs
