Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Disney to Make Movies Available Online

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the pay-to-play dept.

musiholic writes "Disney has cut a deal with Movielink to make various Disney (and Disney subsidary) films available for 30-day paid downloads. Users can watch the film an unlimited amount of times before the movie expires. The movies requre Real Player or WMP."

2 of 355 comments (clear)

  1. Good by digital+bath · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Now if only the RIAA could follow this lead. I don't seen anyone hating disney - oh wait, they're not suing the youth of America.

    --
    find / -name "*.sig" | xargs rm
  2. Why would _Disney_ do this? by jdbo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While I may have a misunderstanding of Disney's market, I am under the impression that they primarily sell family entertainment, esp. movies for children.

    Now, children's entertainment is a special category, in that kids watch movies OVER and OVER and OVER again - more often on VHS format than DVD, due to the relative durability of the former (though this may be changing). because of this, families tend to BUY disney movies (vs. renting); if they rent, it's to check something out before buying it.

    Now what aspect of the above market does Disney hope to satisfy with downloadable movies?
    - these movies will have to be accessed on the computer (not as easy as VCR/VHS, let alone half as childproof)
    - these movies expires after 30 days
    (not as permanent - and kids will obsess over their shows for far longer than 30 days...)
    - the cost is $3-$5 dollars per download (cheaper than rental for the amount of time, but even considering an optimistic 1-hour download time, it's still going to be faster to drive to the store and back (for most US citizens) than to download - and (I believe) that there's still not much coverage for broadband in most rural areas...
    d) Also, for those who don't mind waiting (or lack broadband), Netflix (and its competitors) offer a similarly-priced, keep-as-long-as-you-feel rental system.

    Now I realize that Disney is not just a kids' movie company, but I still don't see how this system makes much sense.

    OTOH, I am pleasantly surprised to see (even this much) innovation from a company with such a draconian distribution history.