Originally Posted by sensoria:
“This is a real negative for me about the whole digital industry.
The whole thing about reading and listening to music even dvds and the like is sharing things with people and introducing people to different things.
If I buy a hard copy of a book I can give it to a friend, i can give it to a charity shop or I can sell it on a boot fair. I am free to do what I want with the the thing I have bought. If that means give ti to someone else then that is my choice.
I dont see how this cant be done with digital products.”
There is a one word answer to your question: lawyers!
Do you think publishers (of books, music, movies, or anything else) like the fact you can give your DVD to a friend after you've watched it? With the introduction of CDs, the record industry made a fortune selling people songs they already owned on vinyl.
But the problem was you could still share a CD or sell it on the second hand market with no profit for them. Now with non-physical content they have finally worked out how to control content so you never actually own it, you just have the right to use it in very limited ways.