[mavrc]

> And if they did and the industry said no, what should they have done?

Distribute industry content with DRM, distribute their own content without, and see what the results are.

Somebody's going to have to perform the experiment to see what the outcome will be. Since Netflix produces tons of content now, they are in an excellent position to try this.

[Ironchefpython]

> Distribute industry content with DRM, distribute their own content without, and see what the results are.

The industry content will show up on the Pirate Bay, and Netflix original content will show up on the Pirate Bay.

Were you expecting another outcome?

[caf]

..which would indicate that the marginal value delivered by the DRM is zero?

[usrusr]

Unfortunately, the cost for DRM is also zero for the content providers, as long as they are not distributors themselves.

[matt_kantor]

Netflix creates tons of original content so it is both a producer and distributor. If Netflix really believed that the marginal value of DRM was zero they wouldn't use it on their own content since it has a nonzero cost on the distribution side.

The only other possibility that I can come up with is if Netflix's original content has multi-party rightsholder situations with contacts that legally require them to apply DRM even to "their own" content (IANAL and don't know much about how these things work, but it wouldn't surprise me).

[voltagex_]

Netflix content is already on Pirate Bay.