In every ordered system in which it is allowed, some element or another at some point figures out it can cheat. Little kids start blaming things on their siblings, carnivores eat herbivores, and lawyers thieve from businessmen. Well, the same has happened within the software industry. Ok, I'll be the first to grant you that the music industry was never really creative in the first place. But people did want what it had to offer. In fact, they wanted crappy music enough to pay big money for a CD.

Well, usually cheaters are not such a huge problem. Usually, non-producers are a thorn in the side of progress, but not a serious impediment. Usually, however, does not apply this time. The internet is different because it gives organized powers no control over who can peep in on their ideas and content at each hop, skip, and router. They can't fight back! DRM is the one defense that creative people have, and Stardock has made a business, in part, out of not using it. Go figure.

So, it seems that the companies  working hard to produce and create can be driven extinct by a common pirate. Piracy destroys the incentive for producers to produce, and if it gets bad enough, companies will stop producing entirely. What I find most ironic about this particularly revolting peice of human nature is that the pirate never realizes that once the creative people stop making them free games, the pirates will go extinct, too.