Not crazies, and possible solution
@The Vociferous, these guys aren't crazies. Say what you want about "licensing" the content and all that, but with a book, you can resell it, and it's not going to just go up in flames if the publisher goes belly up or gets in a catfight. DRM-restricted systems have problems with this.
That said, it was made clear right from the start that Kindle's DRM was heavy, including revoking files, disable functionality of the device on certain files (text-to-speech for instance) and so on. The cost didn't help but this really cut my interest out for it.
My general idea for a DRM replacement is a watermarking. 1) Put watermarks on files and make it clear it's watermarked. 2) Find watermarked files on P2P, and hastle the owner of the file.
*Any* DRM or watermarking system can be defeated. BUT: 1) This is customer-friendly, it will not restrict backing the file up, moving it from one machine to another, etc. 2) Defeating DRM is a noble cause, it restores fair use rights and usage like in point 1, and playback of files on the hardware, OS, and player of my choice. It's obvious when the DRM is broken, the file works. This attracts talented people to breaking any and all new forms of DRM "they" come up with. 3) Defeating watermarking would ONLY be useful for piracy. This makes removing watermarks ideologically less attractive than DRM cracking. The only way to *know* if the watermarking has been obscured or removed is to put a file online and see if you get your ass sued. This makes watermark removal an unsafe pursuit, making it even less attractive. 4) I figure this would then make electronic files very unattractive to put on P2P, while restoring customer rights DRM-restricted files take away.