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Originally Posted by Man Eating Duck
And this is one common reason that I hear for adding DRM in the first place, not to hinder mass copying from torrent sites, but to lessen "casual copying" to friends and family. The hardcore pirates will *always* find a copy on the darknet, but most people are honest and wouldn't do that. They might have no qualms about casual lending, however, especially if there were no technical safeguards in place to hinder them. All this does, as you state, constitute a significant amount of copying that might have been additional sales instead.
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This is certainly a thorny problem, and no-one has a solution which would satisfy all parties as far as I know.
And - <slashdot>it's not "theft", it's copyright infringement  *ducks* </slashdot>
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Yes, I too have noted that there's a common perception that when the copyright infringement
additional protections were added, that it somehow changed IP theft to "not-theft." I'm not going to get into the semantic argument.
Also, the DWA's statistics--garnered by answers from users of digital material--actually indicate that between deliberate taking and "casual" theft, nearly 4 out of 5 users are helping themselves to material for which they've not paid. Thus, the argument that the "vast majority of people are honest" isn't borne out. I used to believe that. I don't now. If you don't work in, or own, an environment in which you have to deal with theft daily, impacting your own livelihood, or ability to pay your own employees, it's nice to hold on to the idea that "most people are honest," but I wish I could still believe it. Anyone who wants an inside look at MY books, when I allowed clients to "pay upon completion" (no longer allowed) is welcome to the very ugly snapshot of humanity I can show them. Technically, people who ripped me off, by taking their completed books and not paying me, aren't "thieves" either; they, too, have "only" violated contract law. They "only" didn't pay me for our work, just like an author or publisher not being paid for his/hers by infringement. Funnily enough, I don't feel one iota less ripped-off, and calling the theft something
else doesn't help me pay my vendors, employees and bills. (Dang...I
did get into the semantics, more or less.)
@cybmole: I guess my 50+ years of buying books for my own private library, for my own enjoyment, makes me think that people who want to read can bloody well pay for THEIR private copies. If they want to borrow a book, there are plenty of mechanisms by which they can do that, both digitally and in DT versions. I can understand people stealing food, or medicine. Other vital necessities. Can't quite wrap my head around the idea of being "forced" to steal
entertainment.
Hitch