The problem with the premise that media companies (successful or not) being made up of smart people is a strange point of view. The RIAA up to this point has proven they are not clued into what we as consumers want. Period.

They maybe be smart in the ways of generally accepted business practices. But there’s a good reason there’s only one Apple. Nobody else gets it, because they are afraid to stray from those generally accepted practices. That’s why Real has never dominated streaming media. Why only iPods have been successful in any way shape or form in the MP3 player market. Why the RIAA is still suing single mothers in rural Oregon. They don’t get it. And that’s why Steve Jobs is credible when he says we’d be better off without DRM, which the RIAA and their ilk think that would be the death of the music industry. They just don’t get it. Because Jobs’s argument creates too much cognitive dissonance in their echo chamber.