http://techdirt.com/articles/20090405/1806484395.shtml
freakin' weird man.
But, I agree, that the best way to combat piracy of music is to offer higher quality, and device interoperability. You can listen to it on your phone, on your mp3 player, in your video game, on your computer, watch it.. etc..
but they are speaking so much of streaming high quality, so that you don't have to redownload all 500 mp3's or movies, or whatever, so the content is stored on a database far, far away, and you can access it using any number of devices.. (ala netflix).
it's a brilliant system, and tbh I haven't pirated a movie ever since i started streaming to my xbox 360.

Eh, sounds just like the "music as a service" business model such as that used by Rhapsody and the current version of Napster. And while this model seems to be at least self-sustaining, it hasn't been wildly successful, as it seems most people prefer to own their music instead of just renting it.

yes, but given that he discussed it in 1983, years ahead of the inception of these services, it's a little spooky. And TBH, the useage rights with those services aren't really that great, I'd like to see one that allows integration with all devices instead of only certain ones, a universal type of format..

Not really. Most business ideas get thought up quite a while before the technology needed is available.

Well, the fact is, is he believes it was available at the time..

Seems he does. And if he was a communications engineer or similar at the time that belief might have been somewhat interesting. But as far as I'm aware Frank Zappa wasn't a technical expert on 1980s communications technology (feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken).

He mignt not have been an expert on communications technology, he was an expert on music related technology.
The man taped a lot of his shows and mixed live tracks from different dates into 1 track.
Some officially released live songs have instrumental tracks from different dates as he thought they sounded better (unfortunately lost the bookmark to a FZ dedicated site which listed info on that).
I don't see why he wouldn't have had some knowlegde about streaming and such.
If he tought it up, he would probably have been aware that in those days it couldn't have been done in a cost effective way.

I'll admit, I still pirate (shh) some games after I found out about GOG, mostly because I couldn't bring myself to agree to the crappy DRM (*cough* Spore *cough*). DRM is only good if it is unobtrusive and it allows the experience to be unaffected by any means.
Anyway, I think that this guy is very interesting, and that he envisioned this when piracy wasn't a big concern (at all) and that sometime in 2000, everything changed. And yet, his model still somewhat applies.

But you could agree to the crappy game?
Well, Zappa was a visionary. I think there can be no doubt he was a musical genius, and most likely highly knowledgable about the high-end electronics of the day. I doubt he would have written those things if he hadn't researched the feasibility of the concept thoroughly first.

Talk for yourself, for me it's a system I will NEVER support. Ever.
BTW Frank Zappa understood the music world more than anyone else....
Frank Zappa Explains the Decline of Music