I'd say number of those who can't torrent is negligent in comparison to those who can. I.e. what you call "casual piracy" is simply a rounding error. Those who can't, also quite easily can find those who can, and "casually" copy it from them without torrents. So DRM does nothing there, while only costs money to those who use it.
Overall, some sizable amount of those who do pirate would rather buy, if there were DRM-free options available. Games use case demonstrated it quite clearly.
Warnings and whac-a-mole types of methods are completely pointless, it was proven over and over. They don't do anything besides wasting resources. So DRM proponents should unstick their heads from their backwards mentality, and should start selling DRM-free video. That's the only positive thing they can do about it.
You really think that people would spend $10-$20 on a digital movie if they didn’t have to?
So the entire movie industry worth billions of dollars a year should take advice from a few random posters on HN?
These are the probably the same people who declared in 2001 on Slashdot that no one would buy the iPod - “Less space than the Nomad. No Wireless Lame” and that poo poo’d Dropbox (the only YC company that has gone public) right here on HN saying they could do the same thing with a few shell scripts...
Ask those who buy games on GOG, and stopped pirating games once DRM-free stores became available. That's commonplace. Someone should learn from good examples.
Film industry for the most part is extremely backwards thinking, driven by all kind of crooked business practices and often simply stubborn stupidity of those who are in charge. It's the same industry which for years was proclaiming that cord cutting isn't a thing, until they were literally forced to admit that it's inevitable. Same thing with DRM. They'll be stuck up until who knows when, while DRM-free market won't be addressed with legal options.
So I won't take its size for the indicator of anything positive apriory. It's just a legacy behemoth, scared to admit obvious falsehoods it's sticking to.
GOG is successful and their financial status is good and is indicating their investment in their growth (instead of lining their pockets while doing nothing). I doubt Kotaku has more info than their own shareholders.
How is a company doing well that laid off 10% of its workforce?
One person who was laid off from GOG last week offered a different perspective, saying that laid-off staff were told that this was a move made by a company in dire straits. That person estimated that the layoffs had hit 10% of GOG’s staff.
Overall, some sizable amount of those who do pirate would rather buy, if there were DRM-free options available. Games use case demonstrated it quite clearly.
Warnings and whac-a-mole types of methods are completely pointless, it was proven over and over. They don't do anything besides wasting resources. So DRM proponents should unstick their heads from their backwards mentality, and should start selling DRM-free video. That's the only positive thing they can do about it.