http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/693342/Live-Blog-DICE-2009-Keynote---Gabe-Newell-Valve-Software.html
He says some things that we already knew and some things that are generally insightful. However, he says it all with some humor, professionalism, and, most importantly, DATA!!!
Topics are generally around DRM/piracy and digital distribution.

"DRM decreases service value for customers. It also makes pirated copies of games look more appealing. Anecdotal evidence appears to suggest that DRM is increasing and not decreasing piracy."
It's nice to see that someone in the industry is beginning to understand this.

Suck on that, Steam haters!

Perhaps they will see the light and make Steam a bit more like GoG?
edit: @ fuNGoo: I will never stop in my irrational hatred of steam! NEVER!

It's not irrational. They make stupid demands, and they don't treat all their customers the same.

I agree with many of these points, but strongly disagree with the statement that pirates aren't really in it because they get stuff for free. Free is the biggest reason that people do it! Sure, they come up with excuses like "I'm sending a message" or "I'll just try it", to make it sound like they aren't doing anything wrong. It's always wrong. My past isn't exactly clean, and every time I decided to use shady methods to get something, I'd always feel ashamed of myself. I will do my best to never resort to this habit again.

*insert generic complaints against Steam's anti-Europe practices*
One Dutch study concluded that pirates spend more on games than those who don't download games illegally. So... Non-piracy is killing PC gaming, then?

I actually heard a great point about piracy today.
Before we had the magical interweb, we all had to buy tapes or CDs from an actual shop. This cost money, and limited the availablity of music available depending on where you lived, and how much you could afford.
Next thing you know, there are people ripping CDs and exchanging them over the internet (rather than lending them to friends locally), and many peoples interests in music were expanded.
The industry tried to stop this at first, and was successful only in the short term, as these "pirates" as they were now known, continued more strongly each passing year.
Next thing you know, music was being offered online for download, and starts to increase its market share. MP3 players become popular, in particular the iPod.
Here's the killer point: Without piracy, we wouldn't have many of the structures we have today for legal music downloads (or perhaps with gaming either). There would have been no pressure to change the established model.

Funny how he always says the DRM is dumb. And yet, DRM graces every game that shows up on my computer connected to Steam. Unless there's some secret DRM definition I don't know about, IT'S DRM.

Well, there are some valid and some rather strange points in his speech. For example, why would I want an application like STEAM on my console? The whole point is to have one common system to manage everything and not having separate systems for separate games. The update system looks the same for all PS3 games and so does the message system, the friends list and so on. Why would I want another layer on top of it? Also, given the business model of console gaming, how can console publishers allow third parties to publish applications themselves? They'd go bankrupt if they did!
As for the whole gaming-as-a-service talk. I agree on many points: The best and only way to defeat piracy is by providing better value. By making downloads easier to locate, applications easier to install, easier to update, easier to play. By constantly adding new content. If pirated software is better than what people can buy, you won't stand a chance convincing people they should buy it. I'm not saying this will immediately kill all piracy, but it at least allows people who want to pay justify it for themselves.
I'm not necessarily agree on how he wants to achieve it: In the world he describes, a typical gamer would end up with dozens of installed clients that all handle differently and provide different services. You'd have different accounts, different friend lists, different update procedures and a lot of power being wasted by keeping all of these running in the background. How about common standards instead? How about a common, open code base that gets integrated directly into the game and run only when the game runs?

You are able to see the difference between the account-based Steam that comes with a slew of other features as well, and something like the typically disc- and activation based SecuROM, correct? There's your distinction.

The usual definition is actually the other way around: DRM means that an "authority" of some kind exists that denies or (much more common) grants access. Without an OK from that authority, access is denied.
The other kind (I won't mention SecuROM here, because it actually includes both) is just a simple requirement of some kind, like "a disc with this or that data has to be in the drive". There's no authority, just a need to fulfill the requirements.
But I think the point here is not really how the offline data is protected, it's about how added value is provided: The base application may not require anything at all, no OK from the server, no disc present, no nothing: instead, added value is provided to users that sign in to the service, like additional content, serverlists, global rankings and so on.

It's a What You Have vs Who You Are model. About the only game I can remember using a What You Know type of security system was Leisure Suit Larry where it tried to stop underage people playing it by asking (very easy) pop culture questions from the 60s & 70s that only adults or people with a sense of history could answer

Hahaha... at least you admit your irrationality.
But I am honestly, sincerely confounded by people's hate against Steam. Maybe you n00bs just need to get computers that aren't from last millennium so you can actually run more than more than one app at a time.
I mean a platform that offers an entire digital library of titles at your disposal to download, install/uninstall, and update all seamlessly. Where is the downside?