The next step in this trend would be to dictate what you are allowed to wear with your designer jeans, or what brand of gas, oil, wax, etc... you have to use on your car. After all they only have to "sell" them under a liscense agreement. This is how they are getting away with this type of control. Average Consumers have no idea that they are not purchasing the movie, game, or music, but instead are only purchasing a liscense for limited use of the product. This type of control was to protect the companies, or individuals from having copyrighted material "shared" and therefore robbing them of revenue. Traditionally these liscenses have not had an expiration, so the only way to have them expire is to not allow archiving (CD's and DVD's have a ten year life expectancy.) This denies the consumer the right to protect thier investment, while increasing revenue for these companies. This denial of protection is secure ground for a class action lawsuit.
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The next step in this trend would be to dictate what you are allowed to wear with your designer jeans, or what brand of gas, oil, wax, etc... you have to use on your car. After all they only have to "sell" them under a liscense agreement. This is how they are getting away with this type of control. Average Consumers have no idea that they are not purchasing the movie, game, or music, but instead are only purchasing a liscense for limited use of the product. This type of control was to protect the companies, or individuals from having copyrighted material "shared" and therefore robbing them of revenue. Traditionally these liscenses have not had an expiration, so the only way to have them expire is to not allow archiving (CD's and DVD's have a ten year life expectancy.) This denies the consumer the right to protect thier investment, while increasing revenue for these companies. This denial of protection is secure ground for a class action lawsuit.