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The democratization of copying technology is a huge sea-change. It's the next step after the development of the printing press-- effectively putting one in every home. Given that the old laws don't seem to work that well in the current situation, and DRM seems to have failed miserably by both reducing usability and enraging a portion of the user base, the only option is to look at new revenue models.
One option is through advertising: we're already seeing this in games. I've a downloaded copy of Far Cry on this machine that was completely free. Whenever I start it up, I see an ad, and another when it shuts down. That's one model. Another model is product placement. That's already showing up in some games and may show up in more.
Another model is Baen's where what you're really paying for in many cases is time. Buy the eArc and you get it before it's out in hardcover. After that you pay the webscriptions price until x amount of time after the paperback release and then it moves into the Free Library. They aren't doing this for all books, but it's the model Eric Flint follows and it's working very successfully for him. However, it's not really paying for the content-- that you can eventually get for free. It's paying for getting it now.
We'll have to see what ends up working in the long run.
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