I don't think I would classify the problems with "licensing" of digital property as an erosion of the idea of ownership necessarily, though I can see how you got there. Personally I think that the destruction of consumer protections when it comes to digital property is a temporary situation. EVERY industry has tried this. Out of sheer stupidity, producers think that if they can destroy aftermarket and secondhand market dealings, they will somehow improve their business. They're dead wrong, and history backs me up on that.

History also shows that they will fail. Along with every single industry previously trying to destroy or severely restrict the property rights of consumers, every single one of them has failed. The automobile industry tried to make aftermarket car parts illegal and the courts said no. The movie industry tried to make secondhand markets for DVDs illegal and the courts said no. We do have a slightly dicey situation with digital content in the US (which like it or not sets the standards for more than its own shores) due to the DMCA. It is used in many areas to facilitate all of the things that courts forbade in other industries. It should have been overturned back when Streambox VCR was on the chopping block... if only they hadn't run out of money fighting their court case. They won every single case, and every appeal, up until the point where they had to give up as they couldn't afford to keep fighting against RealNetworks. The only good bit of that situation was the fact that RealNetworks themselves got nailed by the EXACT same law a few years later for permitting users to create backup copies of their DVDs (which involved circumventing DeCSS).

Right now, if you read a "license agreement" for digital property, software moreso than music, books, video, etc, and games especially, it's pretty ludicrous what they try to get away with. Many of the licenses I read would have to get rejected by any court if ever challenged. They exempt the seller from ALL responsibilities, and do nothing but outline a litany of rights which are DENIED to the purchaser. Nowhere do they mention obligations on the part of the licensor to the licensee. When people buy much software, and basically any videogame, legally speaking, all they are doing is throwing money in the publishers direction and hoping they'll get access to the content. The license doesn't actually guarantee them access to it. It doesn't guarantee anything at all, in fact, except that the purchaser will not be allowed to do X, Y, or Z. A license agreement is supposed to actually place obligations upon the party granting it, and provide guarantees to the licensee. That has been abandoned when it comes to software licenses.

But like I said, this is old ground. We've been here before. When someone pushes it too far, and they will, and it goes to the courts and gets heard properly, the world will change for all of these companies who think they can continue to have complete control over things they sell even after a customer makes a purchase. And the stupidly frustrating thing is that it will be the best thing that could possibly happen for their business. The emergence of robust secondhand markets (as will happen when licenses to digital property are legally required to be transferrable and re-saleable) will, as it has countless times in the past, provide an explosion of business. Things which are now-and-then luxury purchases will transform into habitual purchases, and the overall number of sales of new products will grow even faster than the sale of secondhand licenses. Look at the home movie market, for example. It wasn't until DVDs came around, with their ability to survive without any quality degradation for years and through thousands of uses, and their secondhand market, that it became normal and expected that people would own a large number of movies, and regularly purchase new ones for a personal collection. That never happened with VHS. The secondhand market was handicapped by tapes which degraded on each play.

One day, millions of people will wake up and find themselves locked out of access to a large amount of digital content that they "bought" with the original licensor demanding some additional money to re-unlock access to that material. And those people will quickly discover that they do not have a legal leg to stand on in terms of complaint. The license agreement they "agreed" to provides them no guarantee of continued access to the content, and explicitly reserves the right to revoke access at any time for any, or no, reason at all. Their only option will be to pony up more money or kiss that media goodbye. It will probably happen to gamers first, and though they will whine about it online, they'll just open their wallets and pay. So it'll work for awhile. But then someone will try it in an industry with customers who have a spine and actually expect property rights. There'll be a class action lawsuit, courts will re-evaluate the condition of digital property and realize that it bears no remarkable dissimilarities to audio CDs, video DVDs, etc, and will extend the First Sale Doctine and other consumer protection laws to cover all digital property. The publishers will wail and gnash their teeth. Gamers will come to their defense. But it will rapidly be revealed that sales spiked, and remained high, the day after, and the publishers will quiet down.