[jiggy2011]

The questions is, how many times can something be transferred and how often?

Since digital licenses can be so easily transferred, I could buy a game/movie/book and then when I'm done with it for the day just sell it straight into the global marketplace. When I want it again (either the next day or in a years time) I just go back to the marketplace and buy it back again.

You could probably satisfy global demand for something with a relatively small number of original copies this way, especially for something like a movie. It would also mean that nobody would want to be the person paying full price for the original.

[Dylan16807]

Finding an exact line is tricky, but I can confidently say that renting on a per-day basis has been accepted for decades. I don't forsee any showstopping problems along that route from enforcing first-sale doctrine on digital goods.

[venomsnake]

That is not entirely true. First - some content is worth holding the licence to. I will never sell some book I really like - i like to reread a few terry pratchett books every year(but soul music - I would resell that given half the chance). Same is with movies and games. If you expect your product to be treated like a rental because it is generic/substandard quality - then just put a rent licence for a fraction of the price.

Second - being able to resell means that more people will be willing to take a chance on day 1. And for licences to be resold they have to be bought.

Also not everyone works trough content with the same speed - Reading the last song of fire and ice could take a month for a busy people. So for an item with strong demand it could take a lot before sufficient copies can emerge on the secondary market.

And humans are not uber efficient creatures. They don't always look for the min maxing behavior.

Also reselling digital licences will be digital in nature. So this is income that have to be declared, payed taxes on it and some more paperwork. So it won't be that efficient for the retail customer to resell everything at the earliest possible moment.

Also it will have positive effect on fighting piracy - a lot of people stopped pirating when the steam sales became the norm. With the insane backlogs people are amassing - they have no inclination to pirate.

[jiggy2011]

Under this model , the license itself is effectively a commodity since they are interchangeable. So you can think about the economics as such.

Say a new movie is released. Now, how many people want to watch this movie? Let's say 1,000,000. How many people want to watch it at exactly the same time at peak? Maybe only 10,000.

So once 10,001 copies have been sold there is now a surplus of movie licenses. This means that A) The price to buy a license will drop and B) You will always be able to buy a license if you want one and C) There is no reason to buy a "new" license.

Under that model it makes sense to always sell something that you are not using for longer than the period it takes for the transaction to complete (which would probably only be seconds). Pause the movie to go to the bathroom; Sell. Sit back down; Buy.