Righteous Digital Management

No, sorry, I don't buy most of that argument. To begin with, there still is virtually no evidence that 'copyright infringements' - massive or not - are 'hurting' the record industry; a report last year found that the net effect of filesharing is 'statistically indistinguishable from zero', for example. Filesharing can be said to lead to more sales (as an involuntary form of viral marketing) as much as it may reduce revenue. And let's not even get started on the suggestion that the oligopolistic transnational music industry cartel can somehow be construed as 'our' (or anyone's) record industry! You also write:

The only problem is that any Digital Rights Management provisions will have to be subject to the exceptions to copyright infringement such as fair use.

How is adherence to law a problem? Fair use provisions are there for a purpose - to protect the public from overly restrictive copyright provisions and to uphold customary usage rights. Already fair use has been undermined far too much (for example, at present many music schools at universities can't include recordings or musical scores in their course materials, because they can't afford paying to buy a licence to copy this content - some of them go to the trouble of having this music broadcast on community radio in the wee hours of the night because 'fair use' regulations allow them at least to use content that has been recorded off the airwaves!). The real problem, in contrast to what you say, is that current DRM systems include virtually no provisions at all to allow for fair use! They simply ignore such copyright exceptions, and so far are largely getting away with it. Even in legislations where users do have the right to make copies of musical content for personal use (e.g. making tapes or CD-Rs for the car or portable CD player), such DRM systems prevent users from exercising this right - in essence this means that the DRM-controlled product sold by the record companies is inherently defective.