> "The decision by several mods" 

A single moderator closed the question, everyone else who voted to the close the question, were regular users.

> "This question's answer is by no means opinion-based"

I disagree, many people do not agree, on what exactly is the legal status of pirated software.  Besides, questions if something is legal or illegal, is out of scope here at Superuser.

> It's copyright law, straight up, no chaser, easily answered from authoritative sources. Yet, several of your folk decide it's out of bounds. Why?

Except copyright law isn't about computer software.  We cannot conclude if something is illegal, we can only conclude if something is against the terms of use.  Sometimes even questions with regards to the license to use the software are too broad.

> Yet, several of your folk decide it's out of bounds. Why?

There is an entire [SE community](https://law.stackexchange.com/help/on-topic) dedicated to answering a question like this.  Just because the software is not supported, by the manufacturer, does not mean the copyright on it is no longer valid.  

However, here is where opinion based answers will be encouraged, **not everyone will agree that pirated software violates copyright laws.**  I could expand that line of thinking, but my opinion on the subject would be clear, which isn't useful to the community.

I should be clear the close reason actually was, "This question is not about computer hardware or software, within the scope defined in the help center." which simply means the question was not within the scope as defined by the help center.