At least 2D Boy still earns money from WiiWare and Steam. It's very dissapointing so much gamers don't honour 2D Boy's courage not to use copy protection.

This is a sad news, in my opinion. If Ron Carmel is right (please name persons, btw, do not only name their job function), an independent, low-budget game of a young company, which does sell at an attractive price, is copied just like every other game (or worse, due to the lack of copy protection). If this is the case, any excuse of people using illegal copies in the line of "rage against the (gaming industry) machine" is once more exposed as complete bogus. I am also wondering how many people attackig SecuRom really want to install the game more than 1 or 2 times, and how many feel just pissed that their software stealing is a little more difficult? I am not trying to claim moral superiority here, as I did use illegal copies of games myself, and as it is easy for me not to nowadays -- because I get review copies, for example. But what I hate is the hypocrisy of those excuses, and the harm mindless people do to the PC gaming industry by copying everything that can be copied.

Gross.tim: +20 EXP for making "Fist News".

I'd maintain that a very large part of those 90% with illegal copies would never have played the game, let alone bought it, had there been no possibility whatsoever of pirating a copy. As with the music industry, most of these sales that supposedly fall prey to software piracy aren't real sales. They're people playing the game because it's free, and they don't care much either way. If it weren't free, they'd play something that was. No change in profit for the publisher or developer.
If anything, I'd go so far as to say that the beneficial effects, namely raising the popularity of the game and thus enlarging the potential customer base, might even outweigh the adverse.

Frankly said I think the money simply wasn't there for adding a somewhat decent copy protection to Goo. But even if that was the case, it'd have been only a matter of time until "pirates" got to that as well.

I totally agree with Jörg here. I don´t think that complains by people who´re rating games like Mass Effect (which is great by the way) with a single star on Amazon are justified. It is really sad that other customers, like me for instance, are not encouraged to buy this game (especially at Amazon) if they see such a bad rating before even reading the complains by the people. This is mere sabotaging, and I really don´t get it.
I mean, they do have a point that the SecuRom copy protection makes it hard to re-sell games, but there are companies that show how easy you can circumvent even that problem. For instance with Earth 2160 (if I am not mistaken), you also had to register the game online, but after (I think) 5 installations of the game, you could just write an e-mail or make a (free) phone call to get new installations. And this can easily be added to the SecuRom protection, and I think some developers are doing this presently.
Just to add my personal opinion, I do not like piracy with games, I mean, especially with games. I try to buy all games I really want, there are only very few exceptions (like Spore, which I wanted to try out before paying 60(!) bucks for it. And thank god I did, for I don´t like the game.). The point is, you are not even supposed to buy every game that is on the market. If you don´t have the money, you just have to decide which of the great games out there will be purchased.
The music industry is a different thing, at least in my opinion. Here, I only buy CDs where I really know what I will get (which is simple, with services like Last fm) or of rather unknown bands I want to support. But the music industry is really failing at selling more CDs. One of many examples: Last Children of Bodom CD: costs for CD - 18 euros. 10 songs. At iTunes (where I actually bought it) - 9 euros. 11 songs. In this case I actually bought it online, but usually I wouldn´t have purchased it at all.
Anyway, everyone thinks different, but games that are developed for 3-4 years cost a lot of money, and if they´re decent, you should buy them.
(I´m writing way too much here, aren´t I?)

World of Goo is still doing well through WiiWare, Steam and the 2D Boy website, but a 90% piracy rate? That is absolutely appalling. And we're not even talking about a high ticket game here. We're talking a very reasonably priced title that is worth its weight in gold.