That isnt true. The DRM that would be included could easily be unlocked say by serial key.

Same could be said about Digitally owned movies and games. If Valve shut Steam down tomorrow they said they will make it so that every game you purchased is 100%  given to you. Meaning that they would patch it so that games wouldnt need Steam to be logged in to run and install no-CD keys for each game.

Sorry Dude you only own the physical medium not the copy of the movie.

The movie and all likeness contained within remains the property of the copyright holder !

Welcome to Crappy Corporate America

Blu ray is doing really well.

clap clap calp

No, I own a copy of the movie on the physical medium, I may not have many rights to it like to make copies, but I still own a copy. My main point was my copy of the movie cant be taken away from me,  while a digital copy can be.

Well I think your wrong regarding the legal aspects but your main point vis a vis ownership is valid.

Of course this isnt a problem for one time rental streaming.

The experience you had watching the movie and the memories cannot be taken away.

Its a really interesting time at the moment regarding movies and distribution.

More and more people seem to accept digital fast access to media as a valid distro channel.

I hope that eventually new release movies will be available in the home on the night of release.

Read the EULA for those digital copy services. Most of them have the right block your access to all movies you 'purchased' digitally. Valve is not legally obligated to give a way to unlock games games you've downloaded should they shut down. In fact i'd almost bet my left nut that they will not in fact follow through on that promise, but i'm not a betting man.

There will always be a market for digital _and_ physical mediums. Unfortunately, when digital comes into full bloom, physical medium will rise in price.

No no not digital ownership just one time streaming rental.

Its where it seems to be at in Europe at the moment.

We have a few BIG providers in the UK (Sky, BT, Virgin) and they are mostly pushing streaming rental.

I got to admit its pretty good as an experience. Sit back select the movie you want to watch. Confirm your going to be charged a set amount and then watch the movie.

No waits no trolling down to the rental shop, just a movie as and when you want it. HD is also available  but at a premium.

I do agree with you there. I seriously wish netflix didn't have to wrangle so hard to get digital copies of movies.

Thats where I think the physical medium comes in. Watch hundreds of movies via a streaming subscriptions. Buy the physical movie if its super awesome. There are still a majority of people who cannot and will not for quite a while be able to stream 1080p.

Blu-ray fills the gap of people wanting to _own_ a physical copy of an awesome movie and wanting to watch it in 1080p if their bandwidth services aren't good enough.

I think this is true of countries with poor infrastructures. However in the UK so long as you are not totally rural in locale then 20Mb Broadband is available for about 20 bucks a month.

I dont know how good the Broadband is in the States but I would assume its comparable to Europe.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't there an issue with streaming movies from all these services in that the films are not available until several months after the release of the Blu-Ray and DVD? This is always going to prove a problem to streaming taking over anytime soon as the film companies simply won't allow the movies to be released on Sky/Virgin/Netflix ect until some time after the physical release to maximise their revenue. This gives physical media a huge advantage over streaming and then by the time the film is available to stream you can often pick the DVD or even Blu-Ray for almost as cheap (and you get to keep that copy).