The whole rental business reminds me of some conversations I've had with friends trying to explain how the first-sale doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fir

The whole rental business reminds me of some conversations I've had with friends trying to explain how the first-sale doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine) increases the value of the books, movies, and games that they buy, and for that reason the digital versions which cannot be transferred should be sold cheaper, where they argue that since the experience is roughly the same the cost should be. Basically, since you have the right to resell a book, DVD or CD that you buy to the used store, a friend, or a yard sale, that copy is worth more. That value is included in the retail price. Would you be willing to pay as much for a car if you could never resell it not matter how good the condition was? As an example, take that movie you only end up watching once, the DVD and the digital download cost $20. If you get the digital download you would watch it once and that would be it, it would sit on your hard drive until you deleted it and then just be a database record on some server somewhere. If you bought a physical copy, you could sell that copy, say for 50%, to a friend who was thinking about buying it, or to at a flea market or the like. The net result is that the digital copy costs $20 and the physical copy costs $10. Which is the better deal? Sounds to me like the digital copy should only cost $10. Of course, most people don't resell their movies, games or books and end up with selves storing a bunch of items they don't need and don't plan to use again. But that's another rant.