Is it inevitable that "media" will move towards being licensed rather than sold?

[Terzo]

I notice this mostly with games (of both console and computer variety) and it got me wondering. I'm sure companies would love nothing more than to license media rather than actually sell it. Why sell a game that can can later be resold, when you could instead sell a license to multiple people? I'm sure companies would love to get even a fraction of the used games market, and are looking to do so (see EA's $10 program).

Personally, I prefer owning a physical copy of something, and will only buy digitally at reduced prices. I also refuse to pay full price with platforms such as Steam where I am unable to resell or gift a game when I am finished with it.

I know there are people who are fine with that, but would the general public accept licensed only media? Instead of buying a CD, you license it. Same with movies, games, and software. Will people accept and even embrace that concept? And if they did, would other companies see a market and sell actual products rather than licenses?

I have a feeling that it might not be all that bad, given an appropriate price and model. While it's not quite in the same vein, Netflix does not give you permanent ownership of a product, but lets you view many movies or series at a lower price than if you were to purchase them individually (assuming you watch enough TV). On the other hand, I hesitate to think that companies would lower prices for licenses as opposed to actual goods.

 

[Firsttime]

I'm all about digital. I travel, move around, whatever. I really enjoy not having to take physical copies of my games or music with me. Once there is a decent movie alternative that works in Canada I'll hop on that train too. I'm liking digital distribution. Having a physical copy is nice sometimes, but the convenience of digital just trumps the ability to resell for me.

 

[SaDiZTiKStyLeZ]

It depends on the media and replayability when it comes to games. I kind of don't mind steam games, as I still like to go back and play Half Life 2 (mostly the mods now) every few years. But I still prefer to be able to sell a game when I'm done with it, and have no plans to play it again.
For cinema I prefer not to watch majority of stuff more than once.

 

[gaidensensei]

I think we're right at the middle point before it turns Minority report. Like, right there. We can only delay it with all the little things, but eventually it will come, probably with all the laws, digital copyrights, war against piracy, fiat currency ETC P&N issues that will shape media distribution.

I remember when I bought my first copy of Win7 using my school email. Here I was thinking, wow they made this really all too easy. Just buy $50 bucks and here I have a 2gb iso and a cdkey later. (I was even an alum but shh..)

It's really a matter of time..

 

[Terzo]

I'm all about digital. I travel, move around, whatever. I really enjoy not having to take physical copies of my games or music with me. Once there is a decent movie alternative that works in Canada I'll hop on that train too. I'm liking digital distribution. Having a physical copy is nice sometimes, but the convenience of digital just trumps the ability to resell for me.

Granted there is a cost in time, but you can rip music and movies from disc to disk. No need to carry around physical copies while still retaining transferable ownership.

 

[jersiq]

As long as they can decide a way to verify ownership, I think it will go fine.

I bought (not rented) a movie from Amazon UnBox via my Tivo a couple of years ago. I watched it, and then deleted it as I needed space for my other recordings. A few months go by and I wanted to see the movie again. I login to download and Amazon informs me that the studio was no longer allowing licensing for downloads via that media (or any media from what I could ascertain).

Now definitely buyer beware, and I wasn't, but it still doesn't take away the fact that I payed the same price as physical media, and now have squat to show for it. I imagine it would only take this happening twice to average consumers before most would want to return to physical media.

 

[fleabag]

I don't understand why anyone would be able to listen to a song multiple times but can only watch a movie once or twice.. Doesn't make sense to me at all...

 

[SaDiZTiKStyLeZ]

Some games require the disc to be in the dvd drive, this is where owning a digital copy would come in handy. But can easily obtain a hardcopy for $20 less. :\