Rent to Never Own

"This is not about Digital Rights Management. I'm not against the idea of DRM per se—it can have its uses, as the sales of DVD movies clearly show. This is about something more insidious—an attitude. The entertainment media companies are increasingly acting as if you have only the right to borrow their content—not own, not even license. Just pay for a peek, if you will. Then pay for the next peek…and the next. Certainly DRM is a tool that enables this idea, but DRM can be relatively user friendly, as we've seen with iTunes.

Despite all these efforts, illegal copies of games often show up on pirate sites before the actual day of release, and pirated DVDs or music CDs can be purchased for a few dollars on street corners and flea markets around the world. Media publishers often treat these as root causes, when a lot of us see them as symptoms—symptoms of a creative malaise, overpriced media and increasing restrictions on fair use. The next thing you know, book publishers will force public libraries to charge a fee for every book that's checked out.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a world where every artistic endeavor is metered by the minute. The next thing you know, you'll have to put coins into slots at museums to see each work of art." [Extremetech]