This conclusion doesn't seem highly improbable to me. Who wants to pay money for something that:
may or may not work on all your devices, may have special software installation requirements, licenses to download? Some cases a DRM scheme that works now, but is cancelled by the company a few years down the road, leaving the consumer with nothing but a bunch of useless files. It makes the choice of going to an "illegal" source and download a higher quality product that will work on all your devices seem a lot more attractive

ALL consumer research points to the fact that that the primary reason people download illegally is that they can get the content for free. While DRM might be an additional reason I highly doubt that people do not buy content because it is copy protected. Blaming DRM is just a way for people to clear their conscience. People should man up and just admit they are cheap...

Which research would that be? All independent research that I've seen points towards the conclusion that file sharing has little to no impact on actual sales.

I do not know which research mr. DRM refers to, but our own research (Feiten om te delen, in Dutch) points to similar conclusions. This is a study of file sharing research (I can send it if you like).

Indeed most consumer surveys show that getting content for free is the most important reason for downloading from an illegal source. DRM has only limited impact on the decision of consumers to not buy content. So I feel mr. DRM is right.

The point you make (impact on legal sales) is actually a different and more contested point. Most (academic) researchers find a substitution effect between 5% and 30%. However, finding a clear causal link between filesharing and legal sales is notoriously difficult due to the endogeinity between file sharing and lagal sales. ALL research has this problem regardless of the outcome. However I think it is safe to say that there is indeed a substitution effect.

You can find the study here by the way: http://www.considerati.com/publicaties.html

There seems to be a difference in reasoning between film and music. An Australian survey showed that for music the nr 1 reason was getting MP3 without DRM (and the nr 2 reason was convenience). For film, price was the nr 1 reason (with convenience right behind it), and for television it was the waiting period. I'm not sure what areas the survey above covered, but for music (and for games too), I can easily understand how less DRM would lead to more sales. Films are mostly bought as dvd or blu-ray, and the DRM on those disks is more a pain to developers than to customers, while the DRM on downloaded music and on games can be a real pain to customers.

That could be. However, there are many surveys (both in movies and music) that show that free content is the primary driver of piracy.

Most of these surveys however were either performed by or paid for by the entertainment industry. I haven't found such results in most independent studies by universities for instance. Lack of viable alternatives is usually given as the reason there. Also: if prices are perceived as being too high, that doesn't imply that people want things for free. It just implies that the entertainment:price ratio cannot match that of other (legal) alternatives of entertainment. As shown by numerous studies: people still spend about as much or more on entertainment, but the spending has shifted away from printed media. People can only spend their money once after all. As such, it's highly unlikely that if my some miracle copyright infringement would be stopped completely, the entertainment sector as a whole would benefit.

The fact that a stduy was paid for by an industry body does not disqualify it in my opinion, if the methodology is sound than I don't care who has paid for it. I would love to see any additional independent studies. We have discussed over 200 studies in our 'facts to share' research, but if we missed studies I'm eager to find out how and why they come to a different conclusion.

It is actually not the question whether people want things for free, it is the question whether they are willing to pay the price set by the owner of the content. Furthermore, price perception is also influenced by the fact that there is a free (illegal) alternative.Perception of a fair and reasonable price might differ in the absence of a free alternative.

Spending has shifted away from physical copies, but it is by no means compensated by digital sales. This means that people have either shifted their time towards other forms of entertainment (e.g. gaming), which research shows does not really seem to be the case, or, more likely: they download stuff for free now, thereby keeping money in their pockets that they can spend on other forms of entertainment and goods (e.g. going to concerts, buying an iPhone or going to the cinema).

It doesn't disqualify the results, but it cannot be seen as independent either IMHO. If there's one area where results can be painted any way you like it's in surveys. In the mean time, according to studies by PwC, the overall spending on entertainment (including games, cinema, concerts, etc.) has increased over the last years, which seems to indicate a shift in spending rather than a drop in spending on entertainment. Without doubt people make an entertainment vs price comparison, and have found such forms of entertainment more to their liking, though (illegal) free alternatives to printed media may have had their impact. As you stated: such impact seems to be difficult to prove. Question remains of course what, if anything, should be done to change this situation. Will artists benefit if copyright infringement is stopped? Will the entertainment sector as a whole? Can copyright infringement even be stopped, and what price are we willing to pay for (possibly futile) attempts to get there?

With regards to the article above: does it even matter if DRM or price is the main reason for people to infringe on copyrights? The correct question should be: does DRM prevent more copyright infringement than it encourages? Considering that by definition DRM is incapable of preventing copyright infringement, yet regularly stops users from performing (otherwise) legal actions on their bought media, I think the results of the RUDU report really aren't that surprising.

Looking at the Game console business I would argue DRM is highly effective: closed platforms, protected by strong DRM. Whether this is a good thing is a different discussion, but from the perspective of controlling and monetizing an environment I would argue that DRM can be quite succesful.

Console games do get copied quite a lot too, but it's true that a complete closed platform does help prevent copyright infringement. In the world of music and film that's harder to do though: people don't want a different dvd player for every movie studio out there, and there are a lot more companies producing such equipment than there are in the console business.

By the way, would it be smart to start making proper distinctions between TPM and DRM? It's hard enough to explain to politicians which is which without us mixing them up in our own discussions. :)

DRM only hurts the paying customer.