Interesting statistics from Copyright and Technology Blog :
[...] academic research into DRM and other rights technologies in the United States has diminished to virtually nil.
(For example, a search of IEEE shows that of all digital rights-related research papers published from 2008 to the present, 40% were from China, 27% were from the rest of Asia, 20% were from Europe, and less than 4% were from the United States. Spain by itself had more activity than the US.)
