cogadh: As for the unreasonableness of demanding all games be DRM free, the fact is, piracy does exist and publishers do have the right and responsibility to protect their product from it.
With regards to their "right" I'd argue that the right they have is to go after people infringing copyright through the courts, but that they have absolutely no right to control how I use a product I bought unless a contract was presented, negotiated, and signed at the time and place of the purchase. However, arguments along the lines of what "rights" a publisher has versus what rights the public has can go round and round, and accomplish little in the end.
What I consider of greater significance is what responsibility a publisher has. They have responsibilities laid out in whatever contract they signed with the developer, but as we often hear stories about developers wrestling with publishers on the matter of DRM (with developers typically in favor of less DRM) I doubt that "fighting piracy" is included in those contracts. If the publisher is a privately owned company then their responsibility pretty much ends there and everything else they do is just decisions that they choose to make. More interestingly, though, if they are a publicly owned company then they have a responsibility to shareholders to increase shareholder value as much as possible over the life of the company; I'm guessing this is the responsibility you were getting at. What's important to realize here, though, is that fighting piracy only comes into the picture if doing so actually increases shareholder value, or to simplify things, turns a greater profit for the company. However, given the costs of DRM in terms of upfront capital, time and effort to implement and support it (and its associated problems), as well as any customer ill-will that results (which turns into fewer sales), and most importantly the fact that DRM seems to do very little to actually decrease piracy, it could very easily be argued that the inclusion of DRM to fight piracy actually does nothing to increase shareholder value, and in fact may actually end up decreasing it.
cogadh: Given that, the fact that current strategies don't work is really a moot point, the publishers still need to make that effort.
That DRM currently is pretty much useless is an absolutely key point! If there is no ROI on the inclusion of DRM then there is no reason that anyone should be making the decision to include it, and moreover those that are making that decision could even be said to be downright negligent in their duty to maximize the profits of their company.
cogadh: When (if) TPM becomes a common thing on all PCs, then this whole debate will be moot, unless you believe that the unique hardware encryption in every TPM chip can be somehow cracked.
The whole discussion may indeed end up being moot if that comes to pass, but since there's little incentive for hardware makers to intentionally cripple their products or for customers to buy crippled products I wouldn't count on TPMs becoming common anytime in the near future (if ever).
cogadh: However, until that actually happens, it is unreasonable to expect every publisher out there to just "give up" on DRM just because we think it is a losing battle.
On the contrary, given that DRM continues to prove ineffective at preventing piracy and really only costs companies money while inconveniencing legitimate customers I say it's the decision to keep including DRM that is unreasonable, or dare I say, downright irrational.
