Getting Steamed

[Monk]

Ok, one buys ETW, activates it through Steam, copies the said files and bundles them with a copy of ETW to give away to other people. Millions of software pirates are happy, indeed.

If that's the way it works, why do I have to activate ETW online during installation?
It serves no purpose.
Wouldn't it be the same to register ETW when I would like to play online, except that an annoyance for the honest customer would be missing?

The CD key would still be tied to that one steam account, which if Steam discovered was being used to pirate and distribute the game they would ban it pretty quick. Steam is pretty diligent about banning CD keys that are compromised.