Licenses and Property
It certainly doesn't help that the makers of digital content do not take advantage of the most efficient ways to let people try out and even buy their content. In fact they make it hard to buy their content, much harder than it is to download. I think the problem is less about money and more about ease of access to that content.
As for the licenses, we need the government to come up with a licensing scheme which separates out the physical property of a CD/DVD which is yours to use as fire lighters. And the license to the content contained there in. For instance if I buy Die Hard 2 on DVD It should come with a little card which is the license, this allows me to have Die Hard 2 and any other materials contained on the DVD in any format, I can see the license to someone else, borrow it, give it as a gift whatever. The point is that I can now legally download Die Hard 2 online since I own a license for the _content_ not for the content on a DVD. I see no reason why these cards could not be rendered in an electronic xml fashion such that they are easy to print out or store elsewilst connected to the sale to make copying suspect.
Notice how none of this requires technical measures, people downloading content and playing it without a license are in trouble if the old bill drop round for a visit to have a peek at their content collection.
But instead of _trying_ to come up with a useful and complete scheme for digital and old content, the government are pissing it up pandering to lobbyists from BigBiz PLC.