DRM: the bottom line

The bottom line is this. Most DRM methods are ineffective because they only make theft difficult for a tiny minority. Only one person has to break a sophisticated security system. The rest can simply capitalize on that pirate's ingenuity.

It's like one person jacking a box of sunglasses and leaving the box open on a street corner. The people taking from that open box are wrong as well, but you're not going to scare many people from doing something so effortless. It's sad. Get over it.

There will always be someone smart enough, knowledgeable enough, and selfish enough to crack your code. So paying someone to invent a better code is fruitless.

It's the folks grabbing from the open box that should be the focus of developers and publishers. Be it through punishments or incentives, you'll have more success reducing second-hand theft than curtailing the savvy computer nerds who make theft possible.