being lenient to piracy is an indirect yet effective marketing tool.
It allows players to use the game, but not all of it's features. After all, pirated copies of Blockland cannot access Blockland's internet capabilities because of the authentication system. Soon enough, owners who pirated the game would most likely purchase the game for it's internet capabilities and other various features that require ownership.
Markus Pearson, the creator of Minecraft, is lenient on his opinion on piracy.
http://notch.tumblr.com/post/1121596044/how-piracy-worksI'm not saying we should promote pirating; It's still a bad thing, but we should keep in mind that these are only potential customers. nothing was stolen from badspot except for his potential profit.