I think he alludes to "lore" more than statistic. In the CD/DVD age anti-piracy measure like region locks, DRM, but also annoying banners you could not skip would often make consuming the media with a regular CD or DVD player so cumbersome, that you were almost forced into ripping the media onto a hard disk first and consuming the media with VLC or similar.

The inability to just consume media using official device to on rented or purchased disks encouraged ripping, sharing and downloading.