The final nail in the coffin for DRM?

..and from Google, but not in the way you would like to imagine. Google is shutting down its DRM'd Google video service. And thus, to quote Ars Technica who put it so well:

See, after Google takes its video store down, its Internet-based DRM system will no longer function. This means that customers who have built video collections with Google Video offerings will find that their purchases no longer work. This is one of the major flaws in any DRM system based on secrets and centralized authorities: when these DRM data warehouses shut down, the DRM stops working, and consumers are left with useless junk.

Furthermore, Google is not refunding the total cost of the videos. To take advantage of the credit Google is offering, you have to spend more money, and furthermore, you have to spend it with a merchant that supports Google Checkout. Meanwhile, the purchases you made are now worthless. To do it right, Google should either provide users with non-DRMed copies of the videos they bought, or they should refund the money entirely. The current option is hardly acceptable, however. Would you buy a TV, a car, a book, or anything if the guy who sold it to you could take it back at any moment so long as he offered you a coupon?

Precisely. And if thats how the Good Guys who do no evil behave, imagine what the rest will be like

(Though I am surprised there is no recourse under law for this - I would think a test case of this would be interesting, in that if there was protective law then the "cost of exit" from DRM would also rise, thus making the producers as well as the consumers very reluctant to use it)