As to the legality… why wouldn’t it be legal? You’ve been brainwashed by the studios who lead you to believe they are doing you a favor just to let you view their product.

If it wasn’t 100% legal to rent purchased DVDs and tapes, the studios (always being afraid of change they don’t control) would have put Blockbuster out of business in 1990 and purchase would be your only option.

The “first sale doctrine” says if you buy it, it’s now yours and not still theirs to control. Unfortunately this doesn’t translate well to digital and online purchases (which are easily encumbered by licensing and DRM) and is slowly being eroded.

I have the magnificent second run http://riverviewtheater.com very near my house so real theater is very close to home for $2 or 3. I took early civil service retirement and do some freelance writing. I’m a bit of a movie script writer “wannabee”. Mostly I research for other writers but the in-depth research gives movie ideas. As I said “wannabee” but if one of my ideas is sold it will likely be to an Indie, rather than a major studio. With Indies especially the commentary extras are often better than the movies themselves and a reason for buying a DVD.

I’ve noticed that in the last year or two almost all major studios have taken the “commentary extras” off of regular DVD’s. No doubt to push Blue-Ray sales. I miss it but I prefer an Indie director describing how to shoot a sceen on the cheap.

Also, the major studios put out a lot of “junk” and “propaganda”. Big name movies like “Revolutionary Road” and “Lions for Lambs” were awful. I felt only mildly “screwed” renting them from Redbox. Heaven forbid if I had called up a woman and took her to see either one at the http://riverviewtheater.com , even at $3 per ticket. Big name movies do have good special effects. I will “absorb” these at the $3 seven-hundred seat 12 channel sound http://riverviewtheater.com That is probably a better “theater experience” than more than 90% of first run screens.

I don’t see Redbox kiosks burning a disk on demand. More like a TV box of sorts or a DIVX type computer download. I’ve only bought a few Redbox “keepers” which have worked fine. I have rented a few damaged DVD’s but Redbox has always credited me. I’m sure that if I bought a bad “keeper” I could work things out with Redbox.

Redbox works because it’s cheap and mostly automated. That’s the only reason it still exists. Studios will pull power plays because they want to route Redbox’s revenues back into their own pockets. There’s nothing wrong with this practice, it’s happened for nearly as long as capitalism has existed. Mike’s just editorializing it as a negative thing because reductions in Redbox revenue cut indirectly into his blog revenue. “The Future of Redbox” is nothing more than a self-interest piece.