In fact, encouraging piracy has been practiced for many years now, with a handful of devs embracing it as a valuable marketing tool. For Laborde, though, this is no longer a viable strategy.
There’s hyperlinks in the article in that section with other sources. I can’t hold your hand here, the piece is also a little op-ed too, of course the writer is going to have a bias. Especially when they imply they’ve used it or know its benefits previously.
The creater of Minecraft endorses piracy even, it’s in the one of the hyperlinks, only handholding I’ll give you here.