Quote:
Originally Posted by Fake51
I spend money on a lock for my door because the things inside will be gone if they're taken. If someone could come along, take a copy of my things and leave the originals completely intact, then for everything except the most private things people are free to copy away.
In other words, your analogy fails because you're talking about deterring people that steal physical things while DRM is about deterring copy-making.
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But your analogy fails too. What if the items in your house decreased in value every time somebody copied them? For example, if you will allow me yet another dodgy analogy: imagine you could make a perfect copy of banknotes. You wouldn't be stealing from anybody -- all the people in the street still have all their money safe in their wallets. However, if these perfect copies became common enough, inflation would rise and everybody else (except you) would be worse off.
The problem with copying software is not that the original is now gone, but rather, that it has lost some of its value.