Paid services are the not-free electronic commerce of digital services and information goods in digital media. Examples of digital media are for instance the world wide web or mobile media (SMS, WAP). Features of digital services are their usability, applicability and recoverability but not their exchangeability.
Paid services differ from paid content in the way that digital content can be passed on and be used by different individuals. Digital services can be characterized as a right which can be exercised, but not passed on without it being lost. The difference can be made clear by considering the differences between a MP3 music file and online games. The MP3 file can often be duplicated, passed on and exchanged - without capacity boundaries or losses suffered by an individual. These features of MP3 files as an example of digital content are one of the main reasons for the huge revenue collapses in the music and media industry since the existence of the Internet. Online games, however, as an example of digital services, is only a right to participate when the purchased input is offered and traded. This right can be traded and passed on, but, contrary to MP3 files, the vendor forfeits the benefit of this right at the moment it is passed on.
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