With video games frequently having retailer or console exclusive content, it was only a matter of time before other products borrowed that model. The first one to do that in movies will be next week’s release of Star Trek Into Darkness on Blu-Ray which will spread features across three different retailers.

The standard Blu-Ray release of Star Trek into Darkness has seven featurettes included totalling a reported 42 minutes in length. These are:

• Creating the Red Planet
• Attack on Starfleet
• The Klingon Home World
• The Enemy of My Enemy
• Ship to Ship
• Brawl by the Bay
• Continuing the Mission

Missing from this list are typical DVD/Blu-Ray releases like audio commentary, trailers, deleted scenes and bloopers, among other features. However, they aren’t being included on the wide-release version of the Blu-Ray.

Instead, three retailers are going to get some extra features in their Blu-Ray copies that won’t be available elsewhere. The director and crew commentary is available as an iTunes download. Retailers Target and Best Buy will have additional features beyond the seven listed above. In other words, you have to make three purchases to get all the content that Paramount is putting out for Into Darkness.

Normally, I don’t advocate pirating copyrighted material but I wouldn’t fault anyone who pirates (be it downloading or streaming) the content limited by Paramount to select retailers. I’m not a fan of locking out content as DLC in videogames but that’s effectively what is being done with the home release of Into Darkness. It’s pretty low when you try to change the norm just to make more money rather than to improve things for your customers.