It's not a yes/no or on/off thought process.

It is "did it work well enough", and they believe it works well enough to continue justifying doing it. They apparently do because they still do it.

I don't realy think it worked for the music or movie industry. Nobody liked the DRM that was used in in music and even companies understood that DRM wasn't the solution because people wanted to download DRM-free mp3 that work on every computer and MP3 player they own.
The DRM used in DVD's didn't work at all and the DRM used in BR's isn't a great solution either (slow startup, trailers, ...).

If they didn't think it worked, then why is it still implemented? ;)

Here is the MPAA's current mindset for you: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...t-rip-dvds.ars :D

There are no technical reasons for not using 1080P through high-grade component cables, but the content industry has made sure you can't use them for legal 1080P content.

Because of the content industry high-end graphics cards must have integrated onboard sound in order to support their closed-loop DRM protection scheme, and you have to pay for it to be added and integrated into each GPU regardless if you have a sound card with the codec support or not.

You also pay for the right to have HDCP support in every device. Monitors, TVs, Blu-ray players, and sound receivers all have to be HDCP compliant, otherwise no HD video/audio for you. All manufacturers must annually pay DCP a licensing fee to incorporate it into their products, and every device you buy has the fee built in.

Apple used to charge a higher price for their DRM-free tracks, but that seems to be moot now that the majority of iTunes is DRM free. Or at least the music is, the shows and movies still have DRM. And even DRM-free you still can't legally use iTunes music on your other devices, just as you can't legally "backup" your DVD's in the US. If anyone had questions on Apple's real mindset on "DRM", maybe this would help: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...r-lock-ins.ars

Still, DRM is far from dead. Read up on ACTA, it is frightening. There's a reason it's all behind closed doors. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...ility-laws.ars

Console games, DVDs, and Blu-ray media are all still protected with regional encoding, and the content industry even made sure regional disc support was built into each Windows/OS X release. Here's a read on AACS: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/20...-tentacles.ars

It isn't just the content industry's mindset, it's the mindset of quite a few large corporations. Stuff like this is typical with content downloads: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2...amers-sony.ars

This story might be somewhat amusing, but it shows just where ACTA and the DMCA might show up, and the lengths some companies go to use DMCA as a legal excuse: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...-my-garage.ars

Frankly the mindset is stronger than ever in the movie/media industry and they have made sure the tools to implement it are well locked into place and not going anywhere for the next 10 years. We're just seeing attempts by EA and other game studios to implement the same protections into their own games, but because they started after the industry was created it's too late to go against the flow. It probably won't be the last game dev or studio that will try though.

Latest news on ACTA: http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=17761