LinuxQuestions.org - LXer: I predict a DRM riot

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DRM is, it seems, doomed to fail in the short term. There is just no way around the fact that for now keys will always get cracked and when they do that crack will always find its way into the public domain. ... The same will happen again, and again, and again until the powers that be realise that DRM in its current guise just cannot work, it is a dead duck.

But, and here is the kicker, this has frightening consequences for anyone in the business of protecting their intellectual property. ... Information may want to be free, but in the real world someone has to pay the developer for the work required into producing that information in the first place.

What’s the answer? I wish I knew,...

What the corporate world is going to be forced to accept is that it is the concept of closed source software that is the "dead duck." The days of artifical price management of digital products are gone. Indeed the producers of digital information (the actual programmers, artists, etc.) will have to be paid for their work, but there is no longer room for corporate conglomerates to control and dispense that product under their own terms.

Consumers will be happy to pay a reasonable price for quality merchandise, but that price is not high enough to support a vast contingent of lawyers, accountants, sales reps, and promoters. The product will have to stand on it's own merits.

A while back I ran across a few paragraphs on the subject of Excellence and it's (mis)use. I edited it to my own taste, and have used it often.

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Excellence is the manifestation of superiority in some form of endeavor. It is established by those who can create it, hailed by those who can recognize it, and finally used as a tool by those who can do neither.

It is generally ignored by the majority of any society. It's presence reminds the majority of humans that they are not superior. If that demonstration of excellence is great enough, it can be humbling, and humans dislike being humbled.

Excellence and popularity are seldom manifested in the same work, because popularity derives from the ability of humans to identify with the creator or the endeavor; and few identify comfortably with genius.

From The Octagonal Raven by LE Modesitt (edited)

Hopefully we are seeing an end to this paradigm.