We are starting to hear more and more doubts expressed that DRM can be a viable business model for the media and technology companies. The "stay the course" voices sound shaky. The problem? It seems that we - their users and customers - don't like DRM, and we won't accept it. We refuse to purchase from them, some circumvent the restrictions and most just go elsewhere. Eric Pickard is the director of advertising strategy and emerging media planning at Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions, and his message to the Big Media companies is simple: The people are in control...

".... Just get it through your heads that people are in control of their media consumption and you can't control their consumption habits the way you used to. ...so many business models are based on controlling people's access to media that this seemingly simple concept will create an amazing amount of pain before it sinks in. ...Distribution has always been a control point, and it's been leveraged masterfully for hundreds of years by media companies large and small ...That's all ending."

"Marshall McLuhan envisioned everyone having his own television channel. He was really talking about the Internet's promise -- and that was only a piece of the story. He didn't quite envision the complexity of social networking, and we're only now beginning to see the power that will evolve from the intricate web of connections that are forming and what those will mean. One thing that will become quickly apparent is that if people can share media content that they're passionate about with their personal networks, their friends will consume those media."

Read the full article here.