While I'm often a member of a rather small group of people that think this way, I actually believe very strongly that spending time and effort figuring out how to make it harder for dishonest people to take things from you is generally a waste of time.
security is all about steadily making it harder for dishonest people to try stuff.
Piracy happens in just about every industry, but the impact that piracy has on your business largely has to do with how you choose to fight it. If you take an active approach and invest multitudes of time, effort, and money into combatting those that have no appreciation for the value of your product, you will actually undermine the intrinsic value of the product. How? Simply by investing time, money and effort in the wrong place. I prefer to take the time, effort and money that I could use to fight piracy and invest it directly into real customers and the people that have an appreciation for what has been built. Is some money lost due to piracy? Maybe. Is a whole lot more gained by investing in the customers that matter? Absolutely.
Well said! Too much pursuing of piracy only ends up inadvertently treating your true customers as criminals as well. I often tell our customers that we treat them with respect and trust. And in exchange for doing the right thing we continue to make the great products that they love.
Your software quality, great support, and generous giving of your time in the WP community are so compelling that I am more than happy to support your efforts with my wallet and encourage others to do so too.