I am with you on this Logophile.
I am a firm believer that there should be some kind of DRM in place. People deserve to get paid for what they do, writing, music, etc.
Even Michael Moore and Barbara Streisand, two people I despise. But they are entitled to get compensated for what they create, even if it is a Steaming Pantload.
I think DRM is still in its infancy. They will someday find a less onerous way. If we knew what that would be, we would already have it, of course...:)
DRM is evil and needs to die. As long as DRM infects most LEGAL downloads, it only encourages ILLEGAL ones more.
No, they won't. Because the problem in DRM is basic physics (every addition of information requires additional energy spent somewhere: entropy)... and you can't beat that. Digital signals are simply ones and zeroes, usually represented by electrons or photons, that carry information. These ones and zeroes (whether electrons or photons... or marks on a piece of paper) could be carrying your grocery list, greetings to a relative, your child's homework, or copyrighted content. How can you tell without marking, encrypting, or translating them? Regardless of scheme, DRM will require restrictions on your ability to manipulate all of those ones and zeroes in order to protect a few of them. You will have to convince your DRM that the ones and zeroes are yours or licensed to you before the DRM will let you manipulate or display the content. No matter what scheme you can imagine, DRM can only work by restricting you, the user. And convincing the DRM always requires processing power, and always is prone to error. It will always increase the price of the equipment, and it will always increase the difficulty of basic tasks (as DRM must monitor everything or it is useless).
So there is no quick fix. Only by taking your ability to freely manipulate those ones and zeroes away can DRM "protect" content...