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It seems to me that "piracy" is like shoplifting. A certain amount of it is just going to happen. The problem is not to prevent it, but to limit it to the least possible amount, taking into account the marginal cost of additional limitation.
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This is a popular meme on this forum, but the people in the industry, who have access to the actual figures , strongly disagree. Could it be possible that the people in the industry may know more about the true cost of piracy than a bystander without access to inside info? Just sayin'.
I would note that people in the retail industry do not treat shoplifting ( which they call shrinkage) as a minor inevitability, to be shrugged off. If you go to any major store, you will find:
*CCTV cameras
*security guards
*RFID tagging of merchandise, plus RFID tag detectors
*sequestration of small, valuable items(jewelry, ipods, eg) in locked cabinets
*storage of items on the shelves in hard-to-open plastic packages
All of this is expensive, and often inconvenient to consumers, but stores find it necessary to carry out these measures in order to remain profitable and to survive. In the retail industry, better customer service and convenience are the right responses to competing stores: the right response to theft is .... anti-theft measures.
I would pretty much guarantee you if you went to any retailer who was struggling with shrinkage, he would not welcome your suggestion that he should abandon anti-theft measures and just focus on customer service.
I think its time to face the fact that piracy really does impose significant costs on content providers and that these costs are passed on to honest consumers.
Unfortunately, one of the costs may be less privacy , as ISPs begin to take on the task of ferreting out and stopping pirates. It would be helpful if the wider community treated pirates as what they are-thieves who make it worse for honest consumers- rather than as an inevitable,inconsequential and and even benign presence .