When it comes to digital rights management for music, I think it will always be hacked if the price isn't right. As a geek, I have certain expectations of my computers which I won't allow to be crippled. Some of that might be considered illegal, but I'm just subverting a business plan which I think stinks. It's not my fault that the 'right' issue can make Congress work on the weekend. When it comes to music, the average Joe has it pretty good. It can all be hacked.
I think that the biggest problem with P2P is that it's too big. Which is to say that a peer network of real people that actually know each other could use fairly simple methods to go beneath the radar of RIAA scrutiny and work around the 'theivery' argument. I'm going to start doing that tomorrow. My peer? The public library.
Anybody on any day can walk into a public library, get a music CD, take it home, rip it and have those tracks absolutely indistinguishable from any track they purchased on a CD from the record store. If DRM means that I have to register the serial number of every music CD that I purchase and rip, then let it be. I hope the economics of that idea breaks the record companies, because anything short of that is going to fail to stop the Library Hack.
The second hack requires a bit more thought and a little hardware, but can be easily accomplished. This involves recording the signal you get on digital cable. This one is unquestionably legal and it's a loophole nobody really cares about. That's probably because nobody has yet made a popular client, and you do need the hardware. But in every town with digital cable, there are music channels that broadcast music 24/7. It wouldn't take long to fill up your hard drives with that signal.
Apple has proven exactly what I've been saying for years, that Hollywood just was too thick to understand the technology and too retarded to work up a good business model. The Apple Music Store, iTunes and iPod are the market they are because... well because Hoolywood is stupid when it comes to IT. The fact that Apple has done all this in a relatively closed system rather obviates the need for DRM in music, you need skill to wrassle them musical dogies, not lawyers. And the right skill is technology product marketing. Apple hacked the music business too.
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