Penny Arcade Calls It.

I normally have a hard time reading the main page text of Penny Arcade. Tycho's proclivity for plethoric verbiage can make reading his writing onerous. My eyes tend to just slide off of it.

But sometimes he just calls it completely perfectly:

It is not a mischaracterization to say that conversations with the hardcore PC community about software theft follow these tenets:

- There is no piracy.
- To the extent that piracy exists, which it doesn't, it's your fault.
- If you try to protect your game, we'll steal it as a matter of principle.

It's like, who wouldn't want to bend over backward in their service?

I would also add: "Trying to protect your game never keeps anyone from stealing it no matter what ever."

I've harped on DRM a lot in this space, and I imagine I will continue to do so. There's a good reason for that. It is THE issue now for music and software and (as eBooks become more popular) publishing. Intellectual property gets easier to steal pretty much daily. Coincidentally, profits at game developers, music publishers, and (soon) book publishers decrease on a pretty much daily basis.

It's a process, and we have not seen where it will end. No matter what your views on copy protection are, this should make the topic of great interest to anyone who likes music, books, or video games.