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Serious criminals are undeterred by DRM. It does zilch to protect digital property from this crowd.

People who engage in "casual piracy" do so unwittingly (most probably don't know what they are doing is illegal). It is the most natural thing in the world for someone to lend their friend a CD or a book.

This also happens to be the base of paying customers, folks that publishers and authors should try to avoid alienating. DRM is extremely alienating. Have you read the posts on Sony Reader reviews around the web by confused nontechies asking "why can't I read Kindle books on my Reader?" This is very frustrating to these people, it seems to have no logic at all. We can't expect them to "get" it -- frankly it is totally unnatural.

What publishers and device makers can do to protect themselves from "casual piracy" is to make it less convenient for people to forward stuff than it is for them to go to points of purchase. An example: it'd be silly to have a button in the Sony Connect software that allows the user to forward a book to friend. But it'd be really cool for there to be a button to send your friend a link to the book so she can buy it.