Limited-Use DVD Technology

ps_inkling writes: "Two companies are creating different techniques to make DVD discs unusable after a set period of time. SpectraDisc has a patent on a limited-play DVD technology; FlexPlay is currently developing limited play DVD technology. The SpectraDisc technique is to coat the DVD with a film, then wrap the DVD in an anaerobic package. The idea is to sell these 'play-once' DVD movies at a substantial discount to regular DVDs as a way to compete with pay-per-view or movie ticket outlets."

Comments

waste

[Krimsen]

"creating more waste faster than ever imagined"

I don't get it.

Re:waste

[Tom Davies]

From FlexPlay's FAQ:
It is interesting to note that a recent scientific study found that because Flexplay discs will eliminate unnecessary trips by car to video stores, they will actually result in a net benefit to the environment. The study, conducted by Jonathan Koomey, a noted environmental expert, concluded that if Flexplay discs constituted 10% of all rentals, the technology would save 50 million gallons of gasoline, eliminate 111,000 metric tons of carbon emissions, 700 tons of hydrocarbons, and 1,000 tons of nitrogen oxides every year. These emissions savings would be equivalent in their effects to removing 82,000 passenger car and light trucks from the road permanently.

Re:waste

[dozing]

Now here's a thought. If I rent the movie, but don't have to take it back to the store then I won't look at other titles while I'm returning this one. Hence, I won't be compelled to rent another on impulse. This acctually sounds like a poor marketing decision.

Re:waste

[Safety Cap]

...they will actually result in a net benefit to the environment.

Kind of like how all those AOL DVDs are a net benefit to the environment, huh?

It'll be a net benefit, alright, when no one buys it!

Re:waste

[damiangerous]

Hence, I won't be compelled to rent another on impulse.

Of course you will. How did you get the first one? The idea is not to have specific stores for them anymore, but to make them ubiquitous. You'll see them every time you go grocery shopping, or to Wal-Mart, or even fill up your gas tank.

Re:waste

[cdrudge]

According to the Blockbuster web site, the rent on average 1700 videos an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They also have about 1/3 of their market. So, so total market size for video rentals is around 44.6 million videos a year.

This figure is for total number of rentals, and might also include video games and non-video rental items but just for the sake of showing how off these figures are, let's just assume that this is only DVD rentals.

So 10% of this figure would be about 4.4 million DVD rentals. That means that people use over 10 gallons of gas per video rental and 25 kg of carbon emissions! I think that 10 gals/video is quite funny since Blockbuster claims that there is a store within 10 miles of almost every metropolitan house.

Re:waste

[cdrudge]

Doh....It is here and you actually are right...that should have been 1700 per minute. I guess the figures are slightly skewed. :)
So that should be 2.68 billion rentals per year. But that is of total rentals (VHS, DVD, etc). I would guess that they do less then 30% in DVD. So the number comes down to 804. 10% being 80.4 million. So that comes out to about .62 gallons per rental, maybe more depending on the percentage of DVD rentals. So my numbers are a lot smaller and make more sense, but I think that they are still very high. And it was 10 minutes from a store, not 10 miles.

Re:waste

[poot_rootbeer]

You do remember the videotape-rental fad of the mid-1980's, don't you? You could rent movies from just about anywhere -- video store, supermarket, drug store, even the convenience store on the corner.

How many of those places still rent videos? Provably just your neighborhood Blockbuster.

It costs a lot of money to:
a) set aside retail space for movies
b) keep the section stocked with the latest and most popular movies
c) produce and distribute the media containing the movies

You won't ever see these degradable discs next to the magazine rack at the local 7-11.

The other shoe...

[ryanr]

So, now we see why they were so keen to eliminate DVD copying software. If only they hadn't made DVD copying a complete and utter technical impossibility.

Read-once - Copy-once?

[mskfisher]

Will this technology fade once DVD-R comes into the mainstream?

I thought this had been done with DivX...

[WildBill1941]

And it failed miserably. My uncle's got a DivX player that's near-useless. He should've got one that also played regular DVDs - but hey, he was an early adopter. I don't think limited-use discs or other media makes sense. People want to *own* the movies and music they buy. Otherwise, everyone would listen to the radio all the time, or get pay-per-view movies on their cable or satellite. But hey - what do I know? I'm just an American Consumer - I vote with my dollar. And my dollar won't be buying a use-once disc. Unless you can rip it to DivX;-).

Re:I thought this had been done with DivX...

[Malcontent]

"I vote with my dollar. And my dollar won't be buying a use-once disc."

You seem to be under the mpression that this technology is aimed at consumers. It's not. It's aimed at publishers. You will not have a choice of paying one dollar for a one-use disc and 10 dollars for a unlimited use disc. You will only have the choice of paying 10 dollars for a one-use disc.

Re:I thought this had been done with DivX...

[cadallin451]

Exactly, one of the huge things that companies have been able to miss (although I have no idea how) is that most people are honest, but you can push them to far. If they feel they are being cheated, or otherwise screwed-over, they lose their moral hang-ups over breaking the law. The real answer to this is to create a few open, easily used formats. DVD is about right, although macrovision should be removed, since it's a pain. I'd also favor widespread use of a 3in DVD format like the Gamecube media, for the purposes CDs are currently used for.

Widespread paranoia over piracy is completely unfounded, the only example of an unprotected format, the CD, was wildly successful, while overly protected ones have failed miserably. I would even go so far as to attribute DVDs success to the cracking of its copy-protection.

The media industry now faces a choice, they can either listen to consumers and release unprotected, recordable, easy to use formats, or die, as consumers turn to other (possibly illegal) sources for the products they want.

Nitrogen

[1/137]

Wouldn't that make Nitrogen gas illegal under the DMCA as a circumvention?

One time? Pfft...easy..

[SamMichaels]

Once is all I need to copy it :)

Bad

[oregon]

The next thing you know, they'll be trying to sell us eat-once popcorn to go with our play-once dvd

Re:Bad

[jellybear]

I like eat-once popcorn too. The other stuff is shit.

Re:DivX

[DouglasA]

The biggest problem with DivX was the requirement for specific hardware. If these DVDs play in any DVD player, and they're sold for cheap (approximately rental price), it certainly could work.

I rent movies constantly, and buy those I like enough to watch again. If I could pick up a disc for $3-4 and not have to return it to the store, that could be extremely convenient. As long as I don't have to buy a special player, hook it up to my phone line, and shop only at Circuit City. That's why DivX failed, not because the concept was necessarily bad.

Biodegradable

[sgtron]

How about DVDs that disintegrate after a period of time? Maybe after subjected to the heat of a DVD player or something. Then you have no waste. Like those packing peanuts made of starch. They disolve in water so you don't have to worry about styrofoam waste from packing material anymore.

Re:repeat?

[oregon]

Yes, you're right : Self-Destructing DVDs: Son of DIVX just over 2 years ago

Re:Gotta love capitalism...

[Hal-9001]

As far as I'm concerned, the concept is flawed, and I will vote against it with my dollars.

Why Would I Buy This?

[kmactane]

If I just wanted to watch a movie once, I'd rent it from my local Blockbuster or similar video store. Those places carry DVDs now.

But if I buy a product, I damn well want to use it more than once! (Well, a data-carrying product, anyway. Food is a different story...)

I'm sure they could have tried to make VHS tapes, audio cassettes, and so on, that would only play once. Nobody was fool enough to try it until now.

I predict this thing will crash and burn at least as badly as DivX did.

Difference

[emmons]

The difference between Circuit City's fiasco and this is that divx required a special player which dialed an 800 number to see if you're eligible to play the disk. That part wasn't so horrible. The bad part is that CC wasn't making any money with it so they dropped it and screwed all the people who had paid extra for the specialized players.

These new ideas are entirely different.. they rely on the disc itself to limit how many times you can play it. I, for one, wouldn't mind paying $1-2 for a DVD which allows me to watch a movie a couple times until the coating on the disk makes it unreadable. You only have to read it once to rip it. ;)

This technology was already pioneered...

[Xpilot]

... on Mission Impossible. Jim sticks in those shiny discs in and it self destructs after it plays once...

Do they want to compete with PPV?

[Guppy06]

I'm not sure if there are any official numbers attesting to this, but the few people I know of that actually spend money on pay-per-view (and I do mean "few," since it tends to cost more than a 3- or 5-day VHS rental) videotape the PPV broadcast.

All I can see this doing is either removing the middleman between the movie company and the "unauthorized" copiers or flopping on its face when these kinds of people run into copy protection.

Shooting itself in the foot

[Platinum Dragon]

An introduction of this technology will almost certainly increase DVD piracy, as people will see an opportunity to get a full movie cheap. FlexPlay, at least, claims their discs will work in all DVD drives, including DVD-ROMs. The market for DVD burners, currently technophile and media professional toys, may witness a small upsurge in demand, and ripping tools will become popular as the damn-copyright set notes the obvious ways around the time limit - make copies of the discs.

There's no way this can come to any good. Abort mission.

Re:Shooting itself in the foot

[Platinum Dragon]

How is this different from renting from blockbuster and copying it?

Not much, on the surface. The first difference is that with the Blockbuster rental model, you know you can always go back and rent the disc again if you want to watch it at some later time, but don't want to completely buy it. To some people who skirt the edge between respecting the existing rules and breaking copyright, this can be a deciding factor. Admittedly, this would be a very small set of people, but why go through the hassle of copying a disc you can just rent again?

The FlexPlay/SpectraDisc systems remove this possibility. Part of what the backers of Divx envisioned was selling the discs in grocery stores and other non-rental outlets for impulse buyers. I think this is what Flex/Spectra are trying to do, so it's not as if you can return the disc once you're done with it. There was also a well-founded concern that certain studios, namely Disney, intended to release certain movies exclusively on Divx, preventing ownership and ensuring a permanent revenue stream. Should a movie get the permanent-rental-window treatment, there would almost certainly be a demand for copies that don't die after three days.

My point about burning may be nullfied by reality. One issue with consumer DVD burning technology is the single-layer nature of the formats; you can burn a single layer with a maximum capacity of either 4.7 or 3.95 GB, and that's about it. Many movies require two layers to fit. This holds for the rewritable specifications, AFAIK. Professional pressing machines are mad expensive, probably not even for the determined small-time pirate.

Of course, a mass influx of limited-use DVDs may create a push for a consumer-level writer that can produce multiple layers, though I don't think a writer that can fit in a computer case, or even a small room, is feasible on the consumer or prosumer level right now.

This will increase piracy.

[MikeFM]

To me this would cause more piracy. If I rented a disc and knew it was going to expire the first thing I'd do is copy it. Once copied I'd know it couldn't expire so I'd give the original to the kids and put the backup into my own collection.

I do the same thing with CD's now. I make a copy which I use, keep a copy on the hdd, and put the original into a safe spot. I've done the same thing with DVD's from time to time but not as much as the cases for DVD's seem to work better in my experience.

Re:New DivX??

[helzerr]

I don't see what the big difference is between paying Blockbuster $4.95 for a limited time rental and purchasing a limited life time disc for about the same $$$... Oh, except I have to return the disc to Blockbuster or face late fees. Why exactly is this so bad?

Also, imagine a day when you can walk into the Blockbuster and instead of seeing miles and miles of movies taking up valueable space, you can pick out the movie you want from a kiosk, with access to more movies than you could squeeze into acres of Blockbusters, and a DVD-R burns it for ya with the time limited coating... That makes sense to me.

play once dvd + betty and joe customer = bad

[DRACO-]

A play once dvd priced at $5.88 or just a buck would severely break a store. Customers wont know the difference from the play once dvd's or the standard dvds. They will see that cheap price for say, Fast and the furious and nab it before someone else does. Then when they get home the kids will spark up the dvd player while mom is in the kitchen cooking. Mom calls the kids for dinner and the kids stop the dvd player and have dinner. The family retires back to the living room and starts the dvd from the beginning only to find mom is not going to see any of it because the dvd has alredy burned off it's boot sector.

You will turn up with upset customers, fast.

I work at a walmart in the nortwest houston area. I can vouch for the fact that customers are not very quick at understanding things much less take the time to read anything. All they see is a Price, and an object they want. A while back we were stocking Jarassic part 3 in dvd. One full screen, one wide screen. Most customers dont have a clue there a difference and have a problem with the wide screen letter box format. Most of them come back and ask about full screen. They didnt see a little sliver of text at the bottom of the dvd that said wide screen.

Customers arent very bright when they come in stores. They will plow through water on the floor, spilled legos, anything. They never see signs higher than 6 foot, (never can find the 2 signs in the store both with 3 ft letters saying restrooms).

Customers seem to check their brains at the door and dont understand what Out of stock means and ask, "well, what does that mean?" Out of stock means out of stock, there is not a magic hat we can pull a 19 inch tv out of and if you ask me again Im going to scream!

These things are going to be bad stuff. Just think, they might write games to these discs. Then we will have a war on our hands.

DRACO-

Not a bad idea.

[acet]

You know, not simply to be controversial, but I don't understand the big problem a lot of people here seem to have with this idea. People are comparing this to DivX (evil). This is *not* DivX, not even close. DivX required special hardware. DivX required that the user give over their credit card info and hook the player up to a phone line. DivX required the user to live with the fact that someone, somewhere, was recording everything they watched on their DivX player. This is not DivX.

What this is, however, is a pretty revolutionary idea for the world of video rental and I'm suprised more people aren't seeing this. This, if successful, has the full potential to completely change the way people rent movies. Suddenly, with this technology, any retail outlet has the full fredom of becoming a video-rental store, without any of the additional overhead involved of tracking discs, late returns, lost/damaged media, collection agencies, etc. Instead, any convenience store owner can go down to Costco and pick up a box of movies, rip open the top, and set the box on the counter next to the cheap lighters, beef jerky, and plastic roses. Consider that. How do you think this is going to affect rental chains like Blockbuster if every grocery store stocks the latest movie releases in the impulse-buy section of checkout lines, between the tabloids and the candy bars? It won't completely kill video rental stores, to be sure, because there still needs to be a place to non new-release movies, but it will take a chunk of their pie.

Additionally, this promises to change the whole distribution method for existing video rental stores. Previously, when a new movie was about to be released, discs and vhs tapes would go on the market to rental outlets for an extreme price of like $80 a pop, and this is how the publishers would make a good chunk of money off of the rental market. Only after the rental outlets have had a chance to get the latest-greatest movies, would they go on the market to the general consumer at a more normal price. This technology allows publishers to do away with that step, and release new movies to rental and consumer markets simultaneously. Of course, how many people are going to go to a video rental store to rent the latest and greatest when they can get it in the checkout line of "Safeway" remains to be seen. But the argument remains that, on the distribution side for movie rentals, this technology would simplify things immensly.

Some people point out that with this technology, you could by the disc, take it home, and rip it to make a copy. Sure, but couldn't you do that already with rental discs from a video store? Nothing has changed there. There are no new copyprotection mechanisms introduced with this tech. All the same all circumventable copy protection techniques still apply. If you want to pirate, you still have just as many options as you had before. In fact, this tech gives you a new one cause, unlike with traditional rental media, shop owerns aren't going to be so paranoid about people shoplifing movies.

The one significant concern that I've heard and I completely agree with is the environmental issue. Yes, this further advances the disposable society by giving us one more thing to clog our landfills with. Is it a huge issue? I don't think so. We throw more material away when we toss out an empty full sized bag of doritos. However, there is a certain "save gas/polution cause people don't have to take it back to the store" factor.. tho I'm not sure how much I'd trust the little environmentalist's report on how significant a savings that would be.

Anyways, I could go on but this is long enough. In short, this isn't the next frontier of evil in the media universe. It might even be useful.

Capitalism Beats Environmentalism once more

[gessleX]

The United States, a disposable nation. We build our lives around the convenience of Dixie cups, Saran Wrap, dime store paper plates, a Ziploc bags.

Now, disposable movies. Like we needed one more thing for the landfill?

CSS encryption + these two companies = more AOL cds

Waste products.

As Nancy Reagan was once said, "Just Say No!" :)

Re:One time? Pfft...easy..

[squaretorus]

Exactly. For those of us with the kit to copy this is great, but we are not the target.

Blockbuster want these more than life itself. They can finally forget about dealing with returns - and always have inventory as they don't have to play the averages game. Just order a stack of disks and send them out.

It IS wasteful, not only do we have 20 CDs falling out of every computer mag we buy - we'll have a DVD to bin every time we 'hire' a movie.

This has to be weighed against the real waste of returning to the shop with the watched tape, all the time and effort involved in dealing with the returns process etc... Its still a bigger waste, but probably not by much.

The masses (and I dont mean that in a condescending manner) will love this.

"you mean I don't have to go back to the shop with the disk!! bingo!"

This technology is actually coming on line slower than I expected. Give the consumer what he wants. He wants movies to watch once, cheaply, when he wants it, with minimal hassle. This is a better option currently than movie on demand over a bit of wire.

Another benefit is that Blockbuser after Blockbuser will close as people get used to ordering films like pizzas. I can run to three video shops while holding my breath from my front door - bet thats down to 1 within a year of this hitting the street.

Maybe they'll fill those empty shops with coffee shops! ;-)

DivX is not the best comparison...

[singularity]

The best comparison to this technology is renting a DVD from your local Blockbuster. While I am not a big fan of Blockbuster, per se, I see absolutely *NO* advantages of this technology over renting at Blockbuster.

At Blockbuster, I walk in, give my $4, and walk home with any movie on DVD. I can watch this movie any number of times in a certain time period. With these discs, I walk into Blockbuster, put down my $4, and walk out with a movie on DVD that I can watch any number of times in a certain amount of time.

Why, then, would anyone get one of these?

Well, I suppose you do not have to return these new movies, but is that a big enough incentive?

If you charge $3.99 for one of these movies, I assume that Blockbuster is going to walk away with $2 per disk. That is a 100% return. On the other hand, if Blockbuster buys a new DVD for $20 and rents it 15 times at $4/rent, that is Blockbuster walking away with a 300% return on the investment.

On top of that, Blockbuster still has the movie! They can continue to rent it out, or sell it as a previewed move for $10, making even more.

No, this makes no sense for consumers or for the rental people.

Re:DivX is not the best comparison...

[Rain]

While I think your comparison is ultimately correct, it costs a lot more than $20 for Blockbuster to get the movie, thanks to the wonderful people at the MPAA. If you read the copyright notice at the beginning of practically every DVD/VHS, I'm nearly positive that it forbids you from renting out a regularly priced copy. Instead, Blockbuster et al. have to buy a very price-inflated (I don't know how much, exactly, but I believe it to be >$100) copy of the DVD to be able to legally rent it out to customers.

Because of the high cost, the read-limited CDs may interest the smaller rental chains: it may be more profitable, and certainly more profitable in the short run, to sell the defective DVDs.

Of course, I really doubt this will get far. We all know the legacy of DivX (which is a better comparison than nothing), and judging by how people react when told about the DMCA and friends in plain terms, the MPAA and RIAA are already getting away with a lot more than J. Random Consumer would like. If they aren't sneaky about it (and I don't know how they could be here), I doubt people are going to go for it.

Re:DivX is not the best comparison...

[mattbee]

On the other hand, if Blockbuster buys a new DVD for $20 and rents it 15 times at $4/rent, that is Blockbuster walking away with a 300% return on the investment.

For new movies, Blockbuster are more likely paying $120-200 per disc. I remember trying to order a movie that hadn't quite been released on video to buy yet (can't remember which one) and the people in tBlockbuster said I could have it if I paid the 'rental store' price for it, which was about £80 at the time! They only drop the price once they've advertised a consumer release for purchase.

Re:DivX is not the best comparison...

[DragonMagic]

Actually, no, this is not correct.

DVD and VHS are different in the respects of licensing. With VHS, Blockbuster made a deal with many of the studios to give them a portion of rentals (I do believe, though, that late fees and previously viewed purchases are not included) and a guarantee on titles that are anticipated to be high rentals but low sales that they'll be priced for rental chains only. That is why you see some video, still today, as $100 titles when they first arrive, instead of the $20-$30 they are in places like Best Buy.

However, such deals do not exist with DVDs. Movie studios do not get a portion of rental fees, so there's no incentive for them to market any for rental chains first. What's the purpose to pricing them at $100 on release if the video stores will keep all the funds, instead of sharing the loot like VHS?

Plus, I still haven't seen a case precedence where renting a physical media such as VHS or DVD was illegal when there was no license purchased to rent them. Isn't there a case precedence already for software companies suing the public library system in the US for lending out software for free?

Re:DivX is not the best comparison...

[mosch]

Sorry, but you're wrong.

VHS has rental pricing and regular pricing, with the rental version being released earlier, and actually being made of higher quality tape. DVD only has one pricing model, so Blockbuster gets those DVDs for whatever the wholesale price is for each disc.

Re:Gotta love capitalism...

[skotte]

on the contrary. buying a one time DVD is not at all like renting or pay-per-viewing.

pay per view is conducted entirely fFrom the comfort of my house. all i have to do is (depending on my provider) make a phone call, or switch to the desired PPV channel and hit 'select' it requires little to no planning, and creates no effort on anyones part. in effect, it is pure money fFor the cable company, and simple entertainment fFor me.

renting a movie meanwhile allows me to view a movie a dozen times over a weekend. or at least replay a specific scene i might have missed while the phone rang or whatever. call me spoiled, but i absolutely love replaying cool/weird/important/packed scenes.

single use CDs are a stupid stupid idea, because they contain all the inconvenience of renting a movie, with all the inconvenience of PPV.

(this is not a troll)

Tiny margins

[Squirrel Killer]

With some DVD's breaking $7 at Best Buy, they're going to have to go pretty far below that to entice customers. ("Why should I watch once for $4, when I can buy it for $7?") That means tiny margins and shaky business models, not as bad as the .coms that had negative margins, but still not very enticing for the investors either.

Yeah, yeah, that $7 is for the Cindy Crawford vehicle Fair Game, but maybe good DVD's will drop in price like that, and at least you didn't pay to see it in the theatre.

-sk

Re:One time? Pfft...easy..

[FastT]

Blockbuster want these more than life itself.

Wrong. Late fees, which frequently cost more than the original rental, are a major revenue stream for Blockbuster and other movie rental companies. They don't have any incentive to back this sort of technology.

Another reason we'll never achieve 'Star Trek'

[Fantastic Lad]

Yet another reason Star Trek will never become a reality.

I don't know about anybody else, but when I signed up for the "Future" and this digital revolution, it was partly so that all non-physical art; literature, music and film, would be publicly accessible, for free, from a discreet and tastefully designed computer consul. --Preferably on a spacious and graceful starship.

The entire Star Trek universe was/is a weird Freudian hallucination wherein all the races are rarified aspects of our current selves.

This idea of taking something purely digital, something which is reproducible with no threat of waste or effort, and tying it to a wasteful, laborious and greedy method of storage and distribution is so bloody Ferengi, it makes me retch.

The flowers of humanity are not shared openly, but dangled like carrots in an infantile effort to 'get something'. How ugly and foolish!

We're a bunch of silly hobbits, squabbling over Bilbo's estate gifts, getting the name tags lost and digging holes in his basement.

Hooray for us.

I can't wait to start ripping off the media giants and distributing their crap for free to anybody who asks. Too bad most of it is unwatchable. --Though I suppose it'll make stealing it less time consuming in that I won't actually have to view any of it. . .

-Fantastic Lad

Re:One time? Pfft...easy..

[EasyTarget]

Wrong. Late fees, which frequently cost more than the original rental, are a major revenue stream for Blockbuster and other movie rental companies. They don't have any incentive to back this sort of technology.

There is another point about this, by having to return stuff to the shop I'll bet they get a reasonable number of additional rentals from impulse decisions while returning itemsf.. At least for those who do it during opening hours.

On the other hand, if returns stop they can reduce staff counts, this may seve them more money than they loose..

But they still have ways to get additional revenue streams to partially replace these. How about an environmental charge, similar to a deposit on glass bottles (common here in Europe). You pay extra 'up front' for the disk, but if you bring it back this gets refunded (CD's etc have a very small recyclable content/value, but since when have people in the entertainment biz. let the facts get in the way of profit?). This way they get extra money from the lazy and drag you back into the shop too..

Meybe I ought to patent this as a business model?

An Application

[rlp]

How 'bout a copy of Battlefield Earth that self-destructed before you watched it. I'd pay some bucks for that ...

Honestly...

[PhotoGuy]

Man, far more than the usual number of knee-jerk reactions, this time :-)

First of all, didn't Divx require you to buy a special Divx player? That's a big difference, investing in a new technology that *only* supports limited use.

Second, regarding the waste factor: have you ever been to McDonald's? Or any fast food place? The amount of trash one gets is huge as compared to a single disc. (And the disc seems to start biodegrading anyway, the minute you open it :-) Have you ever subscribed to MSDN? You end up throwing out dozens of CD's a month (or a DVD or two a month now). And I've certainly created many times more coasters than the number of movies I've watched in my life.

I'm not saying more waste is good, just that in perspective, this isn't a huge factor.

This needs to be compared to rentals, not purchase. I've spent more money on Blockbuster's annoying but smart (for them) return policy; midnight the next day. It lulls you into a sense that if you don't get around to it tonight, you can watch it tomorrow, and return it before midnight; tomorrow night comes, you watch the movie, and are too tired to return it (I always :-). They spent a lot of time coming up with that policy. So I end up paying late fees on top of the not-so-cheap rental. I personally find returns horribly inconvenient. And the rental companies no doubt find them extra labour to process.

The rental places could also have a better rate at movie availability. I would guess that they could predict the total number of rentals more easily than the daily rates. So they stock up, and you can be assurred the movie will be in. In fact, the day the movie is released, you stand a *greater* chance of being able to get it. That's when people most want it, too. That kind of works out well.

The main disadvantages I see are 1) storage space required in the store will be greater; 2) there will be less older run movies available, since they don't stick around. If this takes off, six months after release, it may be very hard to get a copy of a movie. And, as mentioned, there will be some waste, although that can be played off a bit against gas, pollution, and labour in handling returns.

I wonder if they could make them taste like chocoloate or nachos? $2 or $4 for a rental, that would be a nice tasty snack afterwards would be very cool, and avoid the waste problem, too (well, at least modify the waste problem to an organic one :-) There'd also be something symbolic in becoming one with a movie you really liked, and even one that sucked and deserves no better fate than being eaten :-)

-dale

A replacement for Product Activation?

[danielrendall]

Surely this is an obvious replacement for Windows product activation? Just sell XP on a CD which will survive long enough for you to install it once...

Warner Brothers = cheap

[LetterJ]

I read an article in the paper this week that pointed out that Warner Bros Studio is irritating many other studios with their pricing strategy. WB wants regular DVD's to become impulse items like magazines and priced accordingly. They are already pricing new titles at $15US and many at $10US. If WB keeps up this strategy, it'll be pretty hard to sell a one-view DVD for $2US when many full DVD's are only running $5-7US.

'Fraid not...

[mblase]

Studios race to choke DVD copying

Re:DivX

[telecaster]

(AP) - Hollywood Exec's have filed a lawsuit against... All of Mankind.

Hollywood Executives today have filed a lawsuit and a motion to stop all
of Mankind from infringing on what they calling "long-term memory copyright infringment".

It seems that Hollywood fears that Mankind might actually retain copyrighted
material in long-term memory -- which Hollywood claims is a violation of the
digital copyright laws.

Tom Werner has been quoted recently as saying: "We've suspected for a long time
that most people retain what they see on television or in a movie for months, and we
believe that we are losing millions and maybe billions of dollars of revenue
because of this phenomenon. What we'd like to see is that all of Mankind simply
forget what they just saw within in a reasonable time frame, or atleast until
AFTER a show goes into syndication, and NOT steal copyrighted material by holding
it in memory."

The Holywood heavyweight and creator of Friends, a popular televion show which
airs on NBC, has been working closely with lobbyists to try and move a
bill into congress that would mandate all of Mankind to simply erase what
they watched on televsion or saw in a theatre within in a "reasonable time frame" before
they are in a 'copyright violation situation'.

Opponents of the law are having problems the language, mainly around the
terms "reasonable time frame". But insiders believe that eventually Hollywood
will be succesful in moving this law through congress and by doing so it will
require all of Mankind will to eventually forget anything that has been
copyrighted or trademarked. If Mankind does not do so in a "reasonable timeframe",
they (we) could stand to pay another "rental or transaction fee comparable to
the original fee."

The Artist Formally Known As Prince, has issued a
press release by saying, "The System is broken and now they need to find another way to
make more off the work of the actor, artist and musician. The artist is the
real loser in this situation. Now company's want to collect on copyrighted material
that you've remembered? Where and how does the artist get paid for this?
And what if two people want to swap memories? How do they handle that?
I think this will only force more artists to move towards a 'lifetime
memory subscription model', this way it will cut out the middle man and ensure that
the artist gets what he or she deserves."

...hey, its friday

This is the immediate thought...

[Svartalf]

It requires polycarbonate to make CDs and DVDs. Polycarbonate that's generally not recyclable or biodegradable. If the disc self-destructs, it's landfill fodder- which means they're going to be choking up the world with nigh worthless plastic discs, using precious resources (the plastic, the materials to make the disc, etc.). All of this to make that precious pay per view they've been seeking all these years realistic and to do away with rentals (Realize that the media companies view rental companies as the enemy (except Viacom- they own one of the largest rental companies out there...) because they don't control the situation themselves. Rather than fostering their own rental company as Viacom did, they'd do this instead...)

I guess they have to have that object less in, "greed destroys all..."

This depends on good copy protection

[Grax]

For this to be worthwhile for them they must have good copy protection. However, copy protection is an impossibility.

The goal of copy protection is to create something that copies perfectly to a display device but fails to copy to a recording device. Simply creating a recording device that more perfectly emulates the display device and the signal is copyable.

Copy protection screws things up. That is how macrovision works. They screw up the signal coming out of the vcr so that recording devices with certain circuits will not record a good picture, then they lobby congress to make it illegal to produce a vcr without those circuits. (We pay the congress to work for Macrovision, what kind of a scam is that?)

DVDs don't have copy protection. If you copy an encrypted DVD you still have all the data that was on the original. Region codes and encryption (encryption is maybe too strong a word for what they do) do nothing except for make you life difficult when you are trying to read the DVD. Region codes mean that in order to watch movies you purchased you may have to buy up to seven DVD players (or 1 code-free DVD player) although it is likely that most of your movies will be from your home region.

Worse than Divx

[sterno]

If I bought a Divx disc at the store, at least there was some opportunity to permanently purchase the disc. In this situation, I buy a disc, and it becomes useless. If I happen to really like the movie, then I have to go and buy it again.

With the advent of Ebay I can't fathom why any of these companies are even bothering. I can go to Amazon and order a brand new DVD, or perhaps even pick up an early used edition at Ebay. If I don't like it, then I just put it out on ebay and offload it to somebody else.