It bears repeating given the amount of misunderstanding apparent here - nothing is being stolen from Amazon, there is no illegal hacking going on here. All that happens is that the Amazon page has a link to some search results from ThePirateBay put in alongside the normal page. All nicely client-side and without anything malicious going out to anyone.
The_root_of_all_evil said:
To Amazon, this is the equivalent of a junkie sitting outside your shop doors and promising to nick anything you want without the shop owner even being aware of it.
It's a lot more like a customer asking someone to come in with them, follow them around and let them know where they can get the things they see in the shop for free, from somewhere else.
The_root_of_all_evil said:
Possibly, from what I've heard of Greasemonkey, it's almost considered an exploit in itself.
Then you've been listening to the wrong people. Greasemonkey can only be used to edit the html of pages after they've been downloaded to your own machine - maybe you want it to find words and replace them with humourous alternatives as in the "Surf like a pirate" script, or seek out autoloading media players and deactivate them, or use it to put a button on the page to download the video you're watching.
Sure, it can be used to help you do things that are morally dubious, but all it actually does is edit a web page (entirely for the purposes of your computer alone) before it gets displayed... nothing illegal or exploitative there.
fish food carl said:
It's a stupid outlook, when you look at pro-pirating arguments. Just tell them, "Are you taking something for free, when you should be paying for it?"
"Well, yeah"
"Then it's theft. It's not that hard to comprehend."
Theft and piracy are distinct crimes, theft is not piracy and piracy is not theft. They are covered by different laws and have different penalties, and depending on what country you're in it is possible for one to be legal without the other. Of course if it's been legalised then it ceases to be piracy or infringement (because it's legal) but you know what I mean.
Both are, in most places, illegal, but theft is generally considered a more serious crime than copyright infringement (and technically piracy normally involves boats).