You're never going to stamp out casual copying. We know that doesn't work. Even in a healthy market there will always be some. Rampant copyright infringement is

You're never going to stamp out casual copying. We know that doesn't work. Even in a healthy market there will always be some. Rampant copyright infringement is a sign of an inefficient market; supply is limited (e.g., geo-locked) or the price is too high. But there's always going to be some person who rationalizes liberating a $2 game because "you can't steal bits". We've been over the arguments. I've written copy-protection code, I've gone out for beers with self-professed software pirates. None of this is going away. In your patched-up analogy, someone has to pay for that first billion dollar gallon of gasoline. Someone did pay for the exploration, drilling, extraction, transportation, refining and marketing of the fuel; they paid for equipment, for people's salaries, for mineral rights, for the overhead of keeping a company running. It's a lot of money; it's an investment, and the investors expect a return. Take away the return and you'll find that none of the exploration, drilling, refining, etc. are going to happen. Have fun starving in the dark. Software is no different, except that the "transportation" costs are close to zero. None of the other costs are zero, but the cheapness of that COPY command is all people really think about. They don't want to think about the engineers, the animators, voice actors, IT staff, management and rooms full of equipment necessary to create the product. They don't want to know about buying servers, spending money on marketing programs, creating sales pipelines, paying taxes and permits and making sure companies can hire and retain the folks necessary to make more product. I guess it's inconvenient to the rationalization.