@ John
<< Piracy has already destroyed the music industry >>
Which music industry would that be, then? Presumably it's not the music industry that's raking it in at the moment, but another music industry we're not so familiar with? I see no evidence that the movie industry is in any kind of trouble, and it's a fact (at least for the non-specialist) that DVDs aren't as easy to copy as VHS was. According to Wikipedia (yes, I know, but it's convenient), the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' trilogy as a whole cost $665 million and took $2.6 billion worldwide. Am I really supposed to believe that that's an industry in trouble?
Yes, games cost millions to make. Yes, games are bloody expensive to buy. But, while I don't want to speak for the other commenters, I suspect the objection here isn't to copy protection as a concept, and I'm sure nobody here opposes the right of the manufacturers to make money from the sale of their games.
What people are objecting to, I think quite understandably, is the presumption by the company that ALL its customers are criminals by default; and the fact - the *fact*, mark you - that DRM software does *not* prevent piracy. The *only* function of DRM is to inconvenience the legitimate buyer (or in my case, prevent them playing something they've paid for). As already noted above, pirates don't suffer the inconvenience, because they simply remove the copy protection and carry on without it.
What you're advocating - requesting permission online every time you want to play - isn't 'a little more forgiving', as you put it: it's invasive and insidious. If I fork out £30-40 for a game, then I demand the right to play it when I choose, and uninstall it and reinstall it as many times as I choose. And sure, I'm not obliged to buy the game if I don't like the terms; but at the same time, if the games company doesn't want me playing it then they're not obliged to put the product up for sale in the first place.
Piracy is an unavoidable aspect of technology. I mentioned Positech on my previous comment here: without wanting to seem as though I'm advertising the company, you might want to check out Cliff Harris' blog there: unlike the big companies he's actually taken the time to solicit views from pirates and asked them why they do it. Sure, there'll always be some who do it just because they're thieving scum - but his results seemed to indicate that companies' anti-piracy tactics actually end up being responsible for quite a lot of it.