Yes, I agree. Many DRM attempts have been a desaster. Still, that doesn't mean one has to stop, right?

A good example is the game industry. DRM has always been a huge issue there. And some solutions are downright dirty (StarForce anyone?). Others a little nasty (needing the DVD all the time to play sucks for people with laptops or UMPCs for instance). On the other hand, Blizzard's model with World of Warcraft works beautifully. In fact, people do not even realize that WOW has DRM in it. And that is the best kind of DRM: The kind that honest people never even know is there, while at the same time, there is a 0% chance of theft.

Markus



>>No doubt, many models that vendors have chosen suck. But DRM doesn't mean that you have to be restricted in a specific way. It just means that the rights can be managed any way the providers sees fit.
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>>The right thing to do is to simply not buy content from providers who have a boneheaded model. I think the market will work itself out nicely...
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>Nice in theory, but practice hasn't worked out that way, so far - or at least, not very often. About the only decently-reasoned argument in favour of DRM I've seen in the last year or so is http://www.chiariglione.org/contrib/060209chiariglione01.htm . He argues that GSM is a good example of "DRM done right".
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>For people to accept DRM, they have to consider it a "good deal". One basic principle of a good deal is that both parties think they've benefited. Most current DRM implementations are extremely one-sided in favour of the provider; benefits to the consumer are few.
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>You should also bear in mind that every audio subsystem and graphics adapter you buy in the future will cost more, be more complex and purposely less fault-tolerant because of DRM requirements. Not to mention potential driver/device revocation: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html#revocation . You'll pay more, and get less regardless of whether you want to access protected content or not. This is not optional - your choice is gone.
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>At this time DRM is fighting its current perception of offering neither benefit nor choice.