> Apple is big enough that if they told the MPAA "unless you let us distribute your movies DRM-free, we're not selling them to consumers", the MPAA would probably budge

I think it's the opposite. There's no chance at all that they'd do that because Apple would only be hurting themselves (and likely directly destroying Apple TV in some way) and the existing industry assumptions about DRM and privacy are entrenched, if not core.

We are a long ways away from when you played ball with iTunes or you didn't play digital music ball at all.

They would also likely have legal and PR pressure to exert against such a move. Regardless of whether Apple is or isn't a monopoly, they definitely don't want a billion dollar industry going after them in that angle right now.