The server side software on most MMO's is a tiny fraction of the overall code. People have reversed engendered World of Warcraft and some people play on private servers. However, in both WOW's and Facebook's case it's the hosting of all that data that's valuable not just the code.
Which comes back to my main point, there are DRM free ways to make piracy irrelevant. If someone was trying to sell a nuclear submarine by walking door to door in a trailer-park people would have no problem suggesting they were an idiot. Yet, for some reason people get all up in arms when someone suggests selling prepackaged media is a poor decision.
This implies that the cost of producing unprotected digital goods in general can only be covered by selling some non-digital good or service in conjunction with it.
My impression was you did not agree with this point and where simply bringing it up as a topic of conversation.
Clearly many individuals and companies do make a lot of money selling content. I simply feel that what's needed to keep that model working in the long term is more costly than the value of content it protects.
I was bringing it up as a topic of conversation, mostly in the hope that someone would argue against it convincingly, because if such an argument can be made, I'd like to hear it.
Which comes back to my main point, there are DRM free ways to make piracy irrelevant. If someone was trying to sell a nuclear submarine by walking door to door in a trailer-park people would have no problem suggesting they were an idiot. Yet, for some reason people get all up in arms when someone suggests selling prepackaged media is a poor decision.