You can't lose what you never had.

Content is created to benefit the users of the content.  That is why it is created.  Without users, content is just noise.  It is noise of a tree falling in the woods that is not heard. 

Some articles on this:

http://copyright.nhaminated.com/intro/laws.html

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/reevaluating-copyright.html (see below):

The “copyright bargain”

The copyright system works by providing privileges and thus benefits to publishers and authors; but it does not do this for their sake. Rather, it does this to modify their behavior: to provide an incentive for authors to write more and publish more. In effect, the government spends the public's natural rights, on the public's behalf, as part of a deal to bring the public more published works. Legal scholars call this concept the “copyright bargain.” It is like a government purchase of a highway or an airplane using taxpayer's money, except that the government spends our freedom instead of our money.

But is the bargain as it exists actually a good deal for the public? Many alternative bargains are possible; which one is best? Every issue of copyright policy is part of this question. If we misunderstand the nature of the question, we will tend to decide the issues badly.

The Constitution authorizes granting copyright powers to authors. In practice, authors typically cede them to publishers; it is usually the publishers, not the authors, who exercise these powers and get most of the benefits, though authors may get a small portion. Thus it is usually the publishers that lobby to increase copyright powers. To better reflect the reality of copyright rather than the myth, this article refers to publishers rather than authors as the holders of copyright powers. It also refers to the users of copyrighted works as “readers,” even though using them does not always mean reading, because “the users” is remote and abstract.

When it comes to potential market, sure you can. If those people had no option but to buy the game, broke down and bought it, thats 15K more to their profit list

@richardhutnik
That's what I was saying. 2funky4u was the one countering that argument.

Potential market is about what exists not what could have existed.

In order to rent out a game you need to purchase a special rental copy usually directly from the publisher.  This rental copy is priced significantly higher than a retail copy as it comes with the license to rent it out.

The only problems publishers/developers face are:

1)  Rental stores that try to cheat the system by purchasing retail copies of games and renting those out.
2)  Users who make illegal copies of games during the rental period (albeit it's easier just to torrent something these days...).

Potential market = possible buyers. It can't be simplified any further.

@bardicverse
It sounds like you're implying that because a homeless man could be making money flashing people on the street if it weren't for laws, and afternoon lunches he's losing up to $50 bucks a day on the potential market for homeless flashers.

Are you even trying to have a discussion here, or just bored? That analogy doesn't even make sense.

If a person rents a game, they are obviously somewhat interested in the game. Let's take Halo, just to have a subject. People hear about Halo, are interested in playing it. This is your potential market.

They have 3 options:

Buy, Rent, Borrow (from friend, etc)

If they rent and don't buy afterwards, a portion of that potential market for Halo sales has vanished, resulting in less copies sold.

If they buy, that is the active market, resulting in sales and eventually profit.

If they borrow but don't eventually buy, it is like renting, but no money is involved at all.

So in essence, only 1/3rd of the potential Halo market will be profitable for the developer/publisher.

Now, if there was no renting option, then 1/2 of the potential Halo market would be profitable to the developer/publisher.

Follow me now?

I think they have four options: Buy, Rent, Borrow or Not Get Due to Lack of Access to a Trial Period. I think a significant proportion of potential buyers of e.g. Halo are put off by the $50 entry barrier to see whether they like it and have no access to borrowing a copy. Renting is the best solution, and if they judge the game to have enough value to last more than the rental period, they then buy it. With no renting, they wouldn't have bought it.

This has two implications. One, renting makes some sales happen that otherwise wouldn't have. Two, renting rewards those publishers that make the games have lasting value beyond 5 days. So, it's good for developers and increases game quality.