[ghostwheel]

DRM are a very simple thing: a con invented by device makers to lure the publishers into the digital market. Publishers are horrified by the prospects of books and magazines available in digital form. They think it'll break their lucrative business - and it probably will. The process already started with scientific journals. No one will need the middleman. Anyway, there is nothing the publishers can do - the flood is coming, and they know it. In addition, the incentives are huge - Apple in one fell swoop became the major player in the music industry. Everybody wants to make the iPod of books.
So, device makers invented the impossible: "put your books on our devices. We'll make sure that they are non-copyable. We have DRM, a magic snake oil that prevents the reader from reading the book when he wants to copy it, but allows him to read it when he wants to read it. It'll work - you can trust us."
And, luckily the publishers are falling for it, though they don't really have a choice, in the long run.

There is one way to protect the digital books: morals. If people will think it is wrong to copy books instead of buying them, and wrong to keep a copy from the library at home, then the market could survive in a similar form to what it is now. And it doesn't matter if people think it is immoral to copy a book, or if it is immoral to break the DRM and then copy the book. You still need morals to protect the current market. DRM is nothing but a sticker saying "please don't copy this book". Except that it is a huge heavy sticker, that mainly hurts the customers. DRMs will simply disappear once we conned the publishers into the digital market.