Some of you might already know about this, but apparently Autodesk gives away free downloads of its programs to anyone still in school or currently unemployed: http://students.autodesk.com/. The free software includes the newest versions of Maya, 3DsMax, Mudbox, Softimage and loads more.
Of course these are for educational use only and the license lasts for 36 months, but still not bad for free :) .