Derek, overall a great posting with some interesting thoughts. I’d agree that for many people – academics, consumers, even legislators – to accept DRM, the DMCA (or parts of it…there are many provisions to it, of course) is a big issue. Perhaps the subject of my next copyright essay….

There’s nothing ‘wrong’ or unfairly restrictive about DRM. It’s simply encryption.

It may be ineffective. It may be bad business, and it may well constitute customer abuse, but any vendor should be free to shoot themselves in the foot by treating their customers like criminals if they want to.

DMCA is the thing that’s totally wrong by making it a crime to ‘decrypt’ or ‘circumvent’ DRM.
If DRM is so good, it doesn’t need any protection. If DRM is so bad that it does, then the DMCA is simply a way that someone can say ‘this information is 100% mine to control – it is a crime to disagree with me’.