People cracking the copy protection on PC games to distribute them for free has been a serious problem for developers for decades. It's still happening on a rather large scale, but it would seem that the various systems put in place to hinder the pirates are becoming too much to handle for the computer-savvy yet financially-challenged hackers.
Despite great efforts, Avalanche Studio's Just Cause 3 has still not been cracked over a month after its release (which is a long time in cracking terms), thanks to a robust protection system called Denuvo.
On the official forum of the cracker group 3DM, which has been responsible for a lot of the cracks in recent years, a member called "Bird Sister" (who is also the founder of the group) paints a dark picture for players who refuse to pay for their games. In fact, she speculates that the copy protection software will become too sophisticated for them to break within a few years:
"I still believe that this game [Just Cause 3] can be compromised," the member writes. "But according to current trends in the development of encryption technology, in two years time I'm afraid there will be no free games to play in the world."
Thanks, Torrent Freak.