While I don’t support piracy in any way, I am against aggressive software protection, too. Let’s take for example Windows XP. On one hand it takes days if not hours for pirates to crack the protection while on the other hand the built in protection might cause huge problems to legitimate users.
Check out this article:
http://www.crn.com/sections/breakingnews/breakingnews.jhtml?articleId=197000116&cid=CRNBreakingNews
IMO the only real protection is in added value (support, development) not in all sort mechanisms that causes all sorts of problems and pain to legitimate users. And beware, those protections can put your computer at risk, too, just remember Sony and its “root kit protection” for CDs.
Don’t worry, things are just getting worse. Vista is brining complicated DRM protections built right into its core.