As you say the studios are good at killing the goose: tv, cable, VHS: each a huge money spinner and each caught tooth and nail by the studios. > You don't need

As you say the studios are good at killing the goose: tv, cable, VHS: each a huge money spinner and each caught tooth and nail by the studios. > You don't need a special license to buy a dvd and rent it out to anyone. Actually the studios strong-armed Netflix into not distributing new disks but maintain a “release window”. Redbox wouldn’t do this and anyway couldn’t get Netflix’s sweet deal, so ended up asking people to buy disks themselves and send them to Redbox. First sale doctrine makes this legal in the US (as you implied) and the studios could do nothing. Now Netflix and the studios are in a Mexican standoff and the studios make less.