[johnhess]

I have to disagree. As creators, we should expect to see the behavior our designs encourage.

The fact is, if it's harder to buy something, would-be buyers choose another route.

Imagine something of trivial value that was very arduous to obtain. Say, the scores to last weekend's football game are only available via sending the NFL 2 cents taped onto a postcard then getting a user account and password back in the mail. Yes, you could apply for an account and who cares about the 2 cents? But most people wouldn't and who could blame them? There'd certainly be a market for pirated 'score data'.

But, if you just put ads on your site (the NFL does), voila! You make the same amount of money and people are happy to use your service. Netflix, Hulu, iTunes Store and Spotify all get this. If you make it a pain to do something, you can't feign surprise when everyone goes around you.

Is it legal to circumvent something just because it's arduous? No. Is it ethical? Not completely, but downloading pirated football scores wouldn't keep me from running for office.