Marco Arment on piracy in the digital age, by way of an absurdly intuitive example I’m stealing immediately to explain to everyone I know.
But there are a lot of people who will pay to get content legally, even if it’s easy to pirate, when getting it legally is easier. (This is now the case, to a large extent, with music.)
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Relying solely on yelling about what’s right isn’t a pragmatic approach for the media industry to take. And it’s not working. It’s unrealistic and naïve to expect everyone to do the “right” thing when the alternative is so much easier, faster, cheaper, and better for so many of them.
Read Right versus pragmatic at Marco.org. I should probably stop trying to explain this stuff, and just link to his post every time it comes up.