transferability of digital content

One of the ways to appraise the value of an item is its current market resale value. So it seems if you can't resell it then it has very little resale value. To me paid downloads are only for rentals, and have negligible value for long term ownership.

- Tom

The equivalent to pressed optical spinning media can be either mask ROMs or one-time-programmable Flash ROM (the final programming step is to blow the erase/write-enable link). Nothing is hard about making a non-erasable SD memory card right now.

In either case the digital content likely can be copied to a hard disk drive. So far all DVDs, HD DVDs and BDs can be copied to a hard disk drive.

Why does having the initial distrbution media being non-eraseable really make a rational difference if the contents can be copied? If it really is required it can be made non-erasable.

I thought the question was about whether you can legally advertise and sell it, under the doctrine of first sale. Is that what you are talking about?

- Tom

Coversely, if you plan on keeping it then it's value is only based on what you are willing to pay for it in the first place. I keep everything I buy, tapes, discs, downloads, etc., so it that does not matter to me.

Yes, you can keep them. But do you expect to be able to still play them in a few years? It seems to me that, without some cracking and backup software, most download to own media so far has become unplayable in a few years for one reason or another.

Anybody know of a web site that has kept track of the various history of these things? I don't think the historical track record has been very good at all.

- Tom