Live Free or Die Hard to Offer Free Digital Copy

So, this is interesting.

Yahoo is reporting that Live Free or Die Hard, due out in November, will include a digital file on the DVD that will allow folks to download the movie on their computers or portable media players.

From the site:
"In an industry first, 20th Century Fox is expected to announce Tuesday that the special-edition DVD of “Live Free or Die Hard” will come with an electronic copy of the complete movie that can be played on a computer and select portable video players. 'This may be the killer app, where you have physical media that allows you to have a big-screen experience and at the same time move the file around to other devices and have a great experience there as well,' said Mike Dunn, worldwide president of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, the studio’s home-video division."

Piracy, anyone? Sure, they'll try to lock this down so that nobody will be able to copy it, but you just know that some genius kid in Idaho will crack the code and start his own brand of distribution rights. What these means to the industry is potentially huge. Will others jump onboard? Bien sur! Warner has announced that in December, the latest "Harry Potter" will offer the feature. More will follow.

Not that any of this is expecially new, mind you. "Superman Returns" included something similiar on its DVD when it was initially released. One can only imagine that BitTorrent loved that feature.

But the industry is shifting, and it's curious to see how it's going down.