The Sonys and Apples of this world want to be on good terms with Hollywood, because they want to sell content or sell products which play content owned by Hollywood, in a market where Hollywood holds a big stick.
Unfortunately, true. At first, Hollywood was doing everything they could to prevent the manufacture and sales of VHS and Betamax machines, because "Oh, my gosh, people are going to buy one movie and copy it 6 billion times!"
The machines came out anyway and Hollywood's initial reaction was to sell a VHS movie for over $100. Naturally, they didn't sell very well. And those that did, were of course copied due to, more than anything, the high price.
Then they finally caught on and realized what consumers were saying all along; if you sell the movies for a reasonable price, most people will be honest enough to buy their own copy. Which came true as the prices came down to the $30 range or so.
Did people still copy them? Of course. You could sell a first release movie for a dollar, and there will still be those who would think they're getting a great deal in the form of a "free" movie by paying more than a dollar for a blank tape and spending the necessary time to copy it.
Thieves will always be out there. You need to cater to the paying customers first.