Digital items are a completely different story. You buy a digital item, and you can make 2, 20, 200 or even 2,000,000 copies, and still have access to the original. I don't believe DRM does anything to stop the truly determined, so I'm not arguing for DRM, but at the same time I can understand corporations that want to at least place a measure of security to prevent casual copying. Ultimately, Steam's DRM is the least intrusive of any of the choices out there, and I - for one - am perfectly content to accept it until such time as it proves otherwise.
So, because of the "different story" of the nature of the digital goods, somehow overreaching policing becomes ethical and dropping presumption of innocence becomes OK as well? I don't think so. That's a very poor justification of using abusive policing.
And DRM doesn't stop anything at all. "Truly determined" and technically adept pirates break that DRM (which happens quite quickly), and the rest of undetermined pirates simply copy the DRM-free result from the above. Purpose defeated. I.e. pirates enjoy the DRM free result, while paying users are punished with having to deal with DRM restrictions and risks. So "smart" really.
