If you can't beat them, hire them, provided that they have the necessary credentials and skillsets required to achieve the task that you're hiring for. That's a little wordy to serve as a business motto, but it's a philosophy possessed by Just Cause 2 developer Avalanche Studios founder Christofer Sundberg. In a recent interview with CVG, Sundberg explained that though piracy is worrying, "50 percent of the people that work for me come from a hacker background."

Sundberg added that though some pirates "see us as evil," that "in Sweden the [hacking] scene was huge... As a studio, we've found that there's definitely a lot of talent [in that community]." Also, it has the added bonus of cutting down on piracy, since all those hired pirates (privateers?) are probably going to get free copies of the game they made, anyways. That's just smart.