"If the company were to release the software and someone wrote a bad review and then people didn't buy it, that would harm the company. Does that mean writing bad reviews is immoral? If someone can, through a non-immoral act cause another person harm, that doesn't suddenly render that act immoral after all. The morality of software piracy needs to be defined independently of its consequences."

Nick,
Keeping a promise (for example, honoring a contract) is usually considered ethical behavior! So Alan is not defining moral behavior just by its consequences. There is a principle involved.

An honest review that is critical of a product and thus causes its sales to fall, is not the same as stealing the product! Owners of a product do not own the right to column space in newspapers or on blogs. Therefore they cannot restrict an individual's right to express an opinion in such a column. Such a restriction would be illegal and immoral.

If you own a television, I cannot say you have economically damaged me because you have not given it to me. In almost all circumstances, it would be illegal and immoral to take your television from you. Similarly, software developers and distributers do not own the right to other people's money. So others can rightfully (morally and legally) try to convince potential customers not to spend money on a software product.

On the other hand, software developers do own their own product, the fruits of their labors. Owning something means restricting other people's rights to use it in a particular way and allowing other people to use it in a particular way, for the most part at the discretion of the owner. If you instead "pirate" those rights, by downloading software without paying for it, that is properly considered illegal and immoral because it is taking the product of the developer's labor without compensating him.

The developer would not have put in the hours to develop the product if others could simply use his product without paying for it. Stealing software is immoral for the same reason that stealing labor (slavery) is immoral. People properly own the fruits of their own labor, unless someone compensates them for their time.

By respecting intellectual property rights, Alan is defending the moral principle that coercing people into giving up the products of their labor is wrong.