NetHead wrote on Feb 13, 2016, 21:25:

As for piracy on the whole I don't think it's worth getting to wound up about, while I can only pull general and generally anecdotal numbers out of a hole (like everyone else is ultimately limited to on this subject) there's no way the average "pirate" who pirates a lot could afford to buy everything they pirate. I'm sure there are instances where someone has missed out on money they deserve and otherwise would have gotten were it not for pirating, I don't see anyone disagreeing with something like that, though just as sure as I am of that I'm equally sure that the amount of time and money spend on combating piracy far outweighs the cost of piracy itself.

There are other factors to consider in the very eager fight against pirating, which is that these companies have and like control. Control through licenses (which are only legal in certain places which is worth keeping in mind) and enforced through DRM. It's the kind of control that limit a consumer who's purchased a song only to playing it on one device or through only a certain service, even make them pay for the same thing at a later date on a different media format because the old is no longer in use.

DRM is not about fighting piracy, piracy is collateral damage which they would like to stop anyway while also being a very convenient scapegoat. DRM is about control, control over the paying customers for a lot of reasons in their view.