Comment Better question (Score 1) 684
Rather than focusing on DRM itself, let's turn things back around and focus on why we have DRM in the first place.
There is a demand for rented content. A movie that I want to watch once, but have no desire to keep. A book I want to read once, but don't plan to read again. I song I want to hear when I'm in the mood to listen to music, but don't want to own. Not everyone wants these things - you might not want these things - but a lot of people do, including me. I also want to own things, but for now let's focus on the things I don't. I might be willing to pay $15 to buy my own copy of a movie, but I only want to pay a tenth of that to rent it.
It used to be that you could go to a video rental place and rent a movie on VHS. It was possible to copy them, but most people didn't own the necessary equipment (a second VCR), there was a loss of quality in the copying process, and the blank media cost about as much as the rental. Similar issues with copying a show of the TV or a song off the radio (minus the part about the second VCR).
In the digital era, data can be copied perfectly with no loss of quality and the media to store it on is cheap.
As a consumer, I want the option to rent a movie for $1.50 or buy it for $15. Content providers want to offer me this choice. How would you suggest that this should work?