According to a statement Does it play? gave to Kotaku, the license-checks may have been introduced to combat refund scams, but were designed to convert into unlimited licenses afterward.
That appears to be the case, with an SIE spokesperson telling GameSpot the following:
“Players can continue to access and play their purchased games as usual. A one-time online check is required to confirm the game’s license, after which no further check-ins are required.”
So yes, it was a big brain move by Sony to make piracy more appealing by screwing with paying gamers.
Always has been, back in the days of multiple CD’s for PC video games, you could get no CD cracks that would allow you to play the game without having to swap discs, etc. Same thing for Xbox, you could load the game directly to rhe hard drive and not have to put the game disc in, etc. Piracy has always been more convenient, which Gabe famously mentioned as a motivation behind what he intended to build with Steam: convenience.