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Universal to Offer its Movies Online
JoseAugusto writes "From IMDB: 'Universal expects to be able to offer movies online by the end of the year or early next year, company chairman and CEO Bob Wright said Tuesday. Speaking at a conference on piracy in London, Wright described the studio's entry into online movie services as 'something we have to do.' However, he cautioned, the studio's entry into the Internet sphere must be accompanied by fail-safe methods to prevent the films from being copied and redistributed. 'These movies are so expensive, we have to be careful,' he said.'"
Wow, the post is the entire article! So, this isn't much to go on. Sounds mostly like PR with a shot across the bow they intend to make it as consumer unfriendly as possible. (Consider "These movies are so expensive, we have to be careful" -- doesn't sound like ability to take advantage of inexpensive delivery cuts the consumer any slack.)
I still wonder:
This is spin. Whatever it is, I'm not looking forward to it.
It a cat. I also have this bag. Notice that the cat is not inside the bag.
Well then, maybe they should make more films that rely on plot and qualities other than expensive special effects.
--
A failsafe way to prevent piracy? Try never putting it on any form of media readable on a PC then. Or better yet, never put it on any media. Spoken word, live performances for a naked audience (so they can't smuggle in audio recorders of course). And still...not even close.
Come on, they just need to embrace the internet and trust that most of us will pay for it when it is easy to get. I know I will. Same with tv, when I miss my favorite show, rather than download it, I would pay a few bucks to get the commercial free version online...
"the studio's entry into the Internet sphere must be accompanied by fail-safe methods to prevent the films from being copied and redistributed."
.mp4s?
Apple DRM'd
A B A C A B B
...as further pieces of the viPod puzzle fall into place, perhaps?
Interesting.
--Petey
Speaking at a conference on piracy in London, Wright described the studio's entry into online movie services as "something we have to do."
Wow, way to be enthusiastic about it. What were we talking about, getting a root canal?
How will they handle overseas distribution? How will they handle inter-state taxes?
They say they will be online by the end of the year, but that is less than 3 months away. There are so many problems with actually distributing original content online that I highly doubt any movie company will be able to successfully make the jump.
I'd love to be proved wrong, but then again, I'd love to have a 60 inch monitor. I don't see either one happening in the next 3 months.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
You could start hiring people with talent.
Like this movie. I've watched it 5 times. One of the most enjoyable independant films I've ever seen. It cost $7000 to make. And, of course, it's geeky to the max.
How we know is more important than what we know.
it's kinda weird how people in these positions still don't realize that's not going to happen.
Because they're too fucking expensive.
Drop the price to $10 or less and I'd buy about 10x as many CDs as I do now.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
"I'm proud to have one of the most extensive Christian rock sections that I know of"
If I were you I'd post as an AC too!
Here are some better articles.
Reality test... am I dreaming?
I actually might consider buying some downloadable movies if the price was right. If they are thinking about charging $10 or more for them, I will just download them for free if they aren't anything special (and if they are, I would buy the pressed DVD). If the price point was around $5, it would make a whole lot more sense than renting the DVD, and would likely be quicker to acquire. Throw in the cost of a DVD-R, and you have the movie for a fairly good price. The movie studios do not have to go through a middleman (video store), and neither do we, and we get the movie for about the same price. Everyone wins.
I've never been that interested in paying for songs, as downloading the music is about the same price, or more than actually buying the CD. And you have to be out of your mind if you think I am paying $20 for a music CD. So I just download all the music I want for free (I'm Canadian). I would rather spend the money on going to see a live concert.
..anyways, so what is the point of having strong drm that the user will just dislike on the product? it's not like you could protect it.
to compete they would need to provide a better "product" than the torrent sites... if they just offer something that is worse, in quality or conviency, and charge for it, would they get any of those users "back"?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Impressive.
If they are just going to put their new releases online, then there is no point really. I am not going to watch the next big blockbuster online, I am going to see it in the movie (or perhaps rent the DVD).
What will make online movie rental or purchase worth something is if they can put a huge catalog of every movie ever made available for download. There are a lot of pretty obscure films out there, that I wouldn't buy the DVD, and the video store will never have, that could be made available.
It is like iTunes... half the music I want just isn't available on iTunes. If iTunes had more than your standard HMV fare, then maybe it would be worth it.
Why do they care sooooooooo much about anti-piracy when you can already download any movie from most of the popular p2p networks?
Its too late! All your movies have already been pirated!
Just forget about anti-piracy and start selling those movies. You'll make much more money this way. (And its not like your gonna lose anymore than you already have from p2p networks.)
I'm saddened that on a site as big as Slashdot, this is the best the trolls can do? The "music store owner" angle is fairly original, but consistency is the key to any proper troll - you have to make your reader believe you're for real. This post has none of that needed consistency. There really should be a website for those just starting out in the trolling art, to provide pointers and techniques so embarassments like this don't make it out it public.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
video.
You download the video with a credit car, it embeds a tag that will ID you. It will be sprinkled about in the movie so that if you put it on bit torrent they can track you down and lock you up. That sounds like it might work, eh? For kicks they can require that you give blood or something in order to positively ID you.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
Make it consumer-unfriendly, then, when it flops, they can wave some cash under the nose of selected members of the Politburo, er, Congress, and whine more about "piracy." If they wave enough cash, they can buy all sorts of nice laws that basically insure that you don't really own the things that you buy.
Oh, no! You have walked into the slavering fangs of a lurking grue!
Obviously online distribution and/or On Demand is going to be the rule in 5 years, not the exception. But I keep buying DVDs for the commentaries and extra material.
Is there going to be the economic incentive to provide all this extra material with online distribution?
What's going to happen to Criterion?
If one of those movies were to make its way onto a P2P network, God forbid, the results would be disasterous...
:q!
The movie industry still doesn't get "it". People won't buy something that is crippled. They will probably invest millions of dollars into this project, money that could be better spent on cutting the price of their products by $1-2, which would probably get them more sales and thus more profit. Really, anything over the production cost of the medium is pure profit on the better movies (that is, anything that wasn't a flop, because the theatrical release would normally already cover the cost of production of the movie itself). So, knowing that, a medium like the internet where the costs of the content itself is litterally the cost of the bandwidth used to download/stream, just about any price is greedy. Now having said that I know that is not how things work... The reason this is doomed is because people are not going to be able to use it how they want to. First off, there are too few households that do not have the capability to download a movie or even watch a video stream over the internet because no broadband access is availble. Add to that fact that people don't want to watch movies on their 17-19" 4:3 computer display if they have a 27" or larger TV, let alone a front projector or HDTV. Any DRM that is placed on the content will ensure that watching it on those displays will be very difficult unless they own a "Home Theater Personal Computer" (HTPC). Even assuming that there is a HTPC, with broadband access and everything else required, why would someone want to use your product over the more conventional methods like purchasing the DVD, or renting the DVD? With the restrictions that will be put in place to give a "secure" method, what usage will be lost to the consumer? At this point we are already well beyond the technical compitency of the average movie consumer, which means that the customer base is extremely limted, both do to technical requirements and technical know-how. You are now looking at a customer market that DO know what they are doing, and know how things work. So if your product is not as good in quality at the rental DVD that is avalible, they will simply use the higher quality product, because they actually know better then to take the PR department's word on it.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
I dont feel like typing a novel here, so I'll be brief.
1 - I buy very few CDs because I think the cost is horrific; especially when I have to work around DRM just to copy the music to my (non-windows media playing) mp3 player.
2 - The CDs that I DO buy, I generally do so because I downloaded a few songs that happen to be on the CD and enjoyed them, so I went out and tracked down the album. If I download somthing and dont like it, I delete it. If I like it, I will probably buy the album. Is it wrong for me to check out the cd before I pay for it? No. If I did not download these files, I would NOT have purchased the albums.
3 - It's people like you that can't see far enough down their own noses and look objectively for the real issues at hand that are the reason the industry is in shambles. Have you ever though that your 'Neich' market may no longer be a popular one? You said yourself that nobody listens to most of what you sell; and to be totally honest, most Christian music I have listened to is god awful (no punn intended). Have you even considered that the demographics in your area may have changed? Or that the teens (who are generally the ones buying cds) are more focused on buying the newest rap-crap the industry is releasing?
Seriously; If you would take an objective look at the issues, you might see that the evil pirates are not the ones destroying your business. Times change, adapt to them or get over it and stop complaining.
And before you go on about your financial position because of your failing business, I am also a business owner and if I was in your position, blacklisting customers is the last thing I would be doing.. Your market is going so adapt your business model to go with it.
Damn, I ended up with a novel anyways... oh well.
I disagree. There are a lot of people and companies who are paying Linux vendors for the work they do. They don't need to, but they know that if they don't then those folks doing the work will just go away. If the studios are smart, they'll cut out all of the distribution costs and deliver movies at a price that people will be willing to pay. There's tons of money to be made if you charge what people feel is a fair price.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
Guys, everyone calm the hell down. This clearly is NOT from the RIAA as numerous posts have claimed. Just listen to the lines he has used. Look at the evidence.
But now, this dream is turning into a nightmare.
Isn't this missing a "Dun dun duuhn!" sound effect?
"Dude, I'm going to put this CD on the Internet right away."
"Yeah, dude, that's really lete [sic], you'll get lots of respect."
Clearly, the kids are getting a l33t Christian rock CD, like all video gamers. Totally Xtreme (too extreme for an E) dood!.
They have fought the War on Drugs with skill, so why not the War on Piracy?
+1 irony
This evening, my daughters asked me. "Why do the other kids laugh at us?"
I wanted to tell them the truth - it's because they wear old clothes and have cheap haircuts. I can't afford anything better for them right now.
Corny lines... come on people, you must be feeling who is behind this silly post by now. It is at the tip of your tongue...
When my girls ask me questions like that, I feel like my heart is being wrenched out of my chest.
Dramatic pause... come on people, you KNOW who wrote this.
I just shook my head, and tried to hold back the tears. "I don't know, Jenny. I don't know."
If this doesn't give away who wrote this, NOTHING will. Even the RIAA could not come up with such a cliche and corney line. There is only ONE culprete he could dredge up such a crappy plot with terrible dialoge. Hollywood! That is right, even the RIAA couldn't write such a horrible piece of fiction. Either that, or the RIAA hired out the guy who wrote Alien Vs Preditor to write this touching piece.
(psst, this is +1 funny mods)
Yeah, what use is a music player that only runs vi? Bah! ;-) :%s/music/video/g :wq!
And now the speculators will tie this annoucement into the "one More Thing" annoucement that apple will host on oct 12th aren't they, just because of the red curtains on the invite. iTMS will no longer mean just iTunes Music store, but also movie (or more encompassing,) Media store
This will be known as Mutual Assured DRM.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
"A failsafe way to prevent piracy? Try never putting it on any form of media readable on a PC then. Or better yet, never put it on any media. Spoken word, live performances for a naked audience (so they can't smuggle in audio recorders of course). And still...not even close."
It doesn't need to be failsafe, any more than computer security needs to be fool-proof.
"Come on, they just need to embrace the internet and trust that most of us will pay for it when it is easy to get. I know I will."
Considering all the messages (mixed and otherwise) illegal copyright violaters have been sending over the years, both implicit and explicit (here and elsewere). I don't see why they should trust anyone with a DVD burner. Maybe blind faith is OK for those who have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
[Grey Ninja]
"I actually might consider buying some downloadable movies if the price was right."
Now can we get Grey Ninja and Jmcmunn to both agree on what constitutes an agreeable price, and if one of them disagrees? Will he turn into a pirate? Extrapolate to the public at large and now you see why the "price it right, or I will fight" argument fails. The only acceptable way to fight is to not buy nor possess, and buy from those you deem OK.
Looking at the article, I'm thinking Windows-only, WMP or propriatary program-only, low quality, only offering renting options, at a higher price than Blockbuster.
It will be used to show that online distribution of movies does not work, in preparation for pushing another anti-P2P law through congress.
If this deal ends up to be anything like Steve Jobs' bout with the music industry, the movie industry will price their movie downloads as much as it costs to rent one at the video store ($3 to $4) for a single download. May as well spend the money to go rent the DVD for the extra features...AND THEN RIP IT TO MY COMPUTER ANYWAYS! ...
Oops...I said the loud part soft and the soft part loud...ugh.
Seems to me this sets up a perfect working relationship with Apple, if Jobs does in fact come out with a video iPod as his "one last thing" at the press release.
1. CDs are absurdly expensive. They should be priced like newspapers or magazines and sold in little cardboard dust covers to reduce the storage/transport costs. With the economies of scale, and the reduced price incentives for pirating, you'd be making money hand over fist. Take note of the example of the commercial success of computer magazine cover disks.
2. Take note of the live music scene in pubs and bars. It's largely collapsed. Yes, that's largely because people are doing other things with their time. The rise of computer games into the mainstream (both PC and consoles) hoovers a lot of money out of wallets and purses.
3. The rise of the Internet as a new nearly-essential utility and the privatisation of other public utilities has meant increased fixed costs to all consumers. More money hoovered out of wallets before non-essential purchases are even considered.
4. All the music released today sounds like over-produced American Idol contestants and the content's watered down to the lowest common denominator. Yet, the studios make their back catalog of prior good stuff largely inaccessible.
People flocked to my store, knowing that they (and their children) could safely purchase records without profanity or violent lyrics.
Families don't buy music, young people aged 14-40 do. Learn your demographic.
So that's my idea - a national blacklist of pirates.
Bound to fail for the same reasons the US War On Terrorism fails now: the security infrasture to police it will bankrupt you and for every pirate caught, another springs up in their place.
Er, No, not necessary.
Here's how it works, Bob: you make it possible for me to very easily pay you a price I like and I won't pirate it. Because, you see, it's to my advantage to pay for it.
Basically, Bob, you're a hooker: you got something I want, I got something you want, and we gotta agree on a price.
Indeed, you're one of three hookers on this block. You lucked out: the only parking spot was around the corner, so you're the first hooker that's got something to offer. There's another hooker half-way down the block: she's the "reparatory" hooker. The one at the end of the block is the "blockbusters" hooker. And past the end and across the tracks is the "torrent" hooker. All the hookers on this block are looking pretty much the same, but within that range, you're definately the tops, Bob.
Now, Bob, you seem to think you're worth about twenty-five bucks. Because by the time I pay for my ticket and my wife's, we're getting into that range.
I want you to know the reparatory hooker only wants twelve bucks. I just have to walk down to her; not long, 'cause I'm not so overwhelming horny that I just gotta get blown right this second, Bob. And the blockbusters whore, why she's just four bucks -- but she'll blow me twice and I don't have to leave my house!
The torrent whore gives free blowjobs, but she's got ragged teeth and is pretty de-rezzed. I'm not such a cheap sumbitch that I'll go to her, Bob. I do pay for my movie entertainment.
Anyway, Bob, my point is this: you're an overpriced whore. I almost always rent the DVD; when I don't, I almost always end up at the reparatory. The last mainstream cinema showing I attended was Lord of the Rings. Exceptionally few films justify the first-print, top-rate quality, IMO.
So anyway, my point is this: so long as the free whore is skanky-looking, I'm not going to pirate: I'll take whatever reasonable cheap alternative provides me a home-system-quality experience. That experience is not going to be worth more than a DVD rental.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Having trouble getting excellent films that report real issues in a truthful manner? Can't get through to www.infowars.com or www.prisonplanet.com? Well, guess what, it is Time-Warner and AOL ISPs filtering the DNS. Fancy that. (Traceroute is great.)
Just go to infowars.net. They overlooked that one.
Go there and get your free movies and info-links about real issues as reported in major news media.
Those hypocritical Christians again! Making trouble for the rest of us.
Don't they know the 11 Commandments? Thou shalt not infringe!!!!
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
I personally think that the parent makes a good point. I liked both Enterprise and Firefly. My problem what that I just can't live by the damn TVs schedule. I am far too busy to be tied to a certain hour each week. Further, I really only want to see the show in order. This is exactly who I was more then happy to shell over money to Netflixs to see Enterprise and Firefly. Yes, I could have easily pirated both of those shows, but if you give me an easy way to pay for them, I am will happily take it.
Now, take Battle Star Galactica (BSG). I love the show. It is the first show in a very long time that I have tried to sit down and watch every single show. The biggest problem is that some times I miss a show. Once I miss a show I can either
A) Wait for rerun and watch the shows out of order
B) Wait for the DvD to come out.
C) Just go download it so that I can watch the next show in order.
Guess which one I pick?
I would be MORE then happy to shell out $5 to simply not go through the bother of getting it via bit-torrent and all the irritation that finding a decent connection can bring. Hell, I would pay them $5 to get tracker from their website and get the double satisfaction of gettin the show easily AND contributing more money then they make on commercials per person. They could even kill me access to the video after a week or two and I wouldn't be upset.
They don't though. If I miss an episode, the only option I have is to go pirate it. If some stupid bastard would simply let me give them my money, I would.
These businesses vastly underestimate how much people will pay for convince. iTunes is a perfect example. You can get anything you can get on iTunes via pirating. Yet iTunes some how manages to do AMAZING business. Why? If given the choice between shelling out a few dollars or pirating, most people will shell out a few bucks. Will there be people who pirate anyways? Sure. Who cares about them? Think of all the other dumb bastards that are aching to give you money if you would just FSUCKING take it.
Yeah, I hate this world where there are one or two mega players with enough clout to define the market. Apparently Universal was part of the Vivendi idiocy and was recently sold to NBC (a Division of GE now called NBC Uni).
Anyway, I decided to look up Universal Studios to see if they had a beefier press release. Here is a slightly longer article on Reuters. It sounds like NBCUni and Microsoft are siting in a back room brewing up some sort of concoction that the rest of the world will regret. This efforts appears to be part of something called BASCAP (Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy).
I wish these people would just realize that the way to beat piracy is simply to establish channels for distributing the movies that are neither too costly nor too burdensome to the public. Instead, we have monopolies working in backrooms with monopolies making something that is both expensive and restrictive to the point that piracy will continue to prevail.
What's more, watermarking as a deterrent/detection method for piracy is supported by the EFF. This won't be particularly useful for DVDs (as there's no way to link watermark with purchaser), but it could be very useful for DRM-free Internet distribution.
Or you can make them so affordable that it's not worth the time to pirate.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
price,speed,quality.
it's well within studio's power, they WILL make money off it, the only thing stopping them is their own stupidity.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Dear God, why wait so long? I want Serenity now.
$ whatis themeaningoflife
themeaningoflife: not found
There's also music I bought instead of downloading, didn't like, but did pay for.
Usually about half the tracks of the album they came on.
In the end, we're even.
>Every day, fewer and fewer customers enter my store to buy fewer and fewer CDs. Why is no one buying CDs? Are people not interested in music?
Bingo! I'm no longer interested in music. There's so much noise and talk and shit about "intellectual property" and "copyright" and "theft" and whatnot that I simply disentangled myself from all that crap. I read books, I play games, I sometimes listen to Virgin Radio Classic Rock. And that's about it. I don't buy CDs, download music, or care what the whole scene is harping about.
I. Just. Don't. Care. Anymore.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
wookie from the planet Kashyyyk...
HAND.
I suspect what we really want are free movies and that the 'downloadable' mantra was just a nice excuse.
I disagree. While I'm sure that for many people, they just like collecting "free" stuff like baseball cards, for the majority of the population, they've always wanted the instant gratification of downloading. Especially since many music albums are impossible to find in the store, but are easy to find on the internet. (I'd never even heard of Etype before I found them on the internet, and I was never able to find an album of theirs IRL.)
I said it back when MP3s first appeared, the music industry needs to sell the music online or the piracy will get worse. What happened? Napster, of course.
Now I sit here as a customer of Movielink (a legal movie downloading service) and I'm frustrated by the lack of selection.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I feel the exact same way, although my situation is a bit different; I have a HDTV set from my days of living in a house (I live in a small 1br in Manhattan now) and there's no reasonable way for me to get OTA HDTV broadcasts without upsetting the board or the wife. Every show I like is OTA. So, my options are:
1) Bend over a chair for HDTV cable (very pricey in Manhattan), just so I can see the shows I like (which are all OTA)
2) Watch OTA analog broadcasts (I can get a signal by plugging in the cable, doesn't work for HDTV as a lot of you probably already know), reception's not too good but at least I'm _seeing_ it.
3) Download HDTV rips the next day.
Guess which one I go with?
I would be OK with paying a couple of bucks per show, or (even better), "subscribing" to the show for like $25 / season, with HDTV versions available online at the time of broadcast. But, here's another idea, and I think it's a good one: highly targeted ads. Have subscriptions to the show be free, but before you can sign up, you need to fill out a 15-minute survey with all the standard marketing data (age, gender, income, hobbies, neighborhood, do you have kids / do they watch the show with you, etc). After you fill out the survey, you get a login which can then be used to download any show that the network offers subscriptions to. Using your login, you can download a version of the show(s) you want with specifically targeted ads (ads for the Mexican restaurant two blocks from your place, ads for the local plumber, ads for stores / boutiques / games / etc all based on your survey). You're still watching ads, but they're ads that are really specifically targeted for you! A lot of people might not mind seeing that kind of ad, and even if you do, you can still FF or skip over it (it's a high-quality avi). Can you still share that? Sure, but if you can get it from the source just by filling out the survey (and hey, you might actually see an ad for something you _want_), why bother going the BitTorrent route?
Yes, I know there are all kinds of technical hurdles here; bandwidth for the servers with tons of people dl'ing high-bitrate video files, how to inject the ads properly in the first place, how to store all that stuff (since theoretically you've got a seperate file for each dl'er), and of course the algorithm to choose which ads go to which customers. Tech hurdles, to be sure, but how much harder is it than the rat race of copy protection?
Which brings me to the second point (probably echoing a lot of other people here) - why go through all this trouble to install copy protection on your downloadable / Internet-deliverable content? I mean, if I want a pirated copy of something, I can get it _now_ from someone who ripped a DVD. What exactly would Universal be trying to prevent? The worst-case scenario (people are taking the content and sharing it illegally) is already happening! Why not focus on giving people a good experience for a reasonable price? I think a good percentage of people who download something illegally would happily pay a reasonable fee for it, and the lower the price, the higher the percentage of people who would do it. Make a less-than-DVD-quality version available (particularly of movies that don't rely on special effects or other visuals) that's quick to download, charge $1 and see how many people purchase it. What's the risk? That people will illegally share and download the medium-quality version (as opposed to the high-quality versions that are already floating around the BT universe)?
Seriously, I often wonder if I'm missing something here. All this fuss about making content available online to prevent piracy. News flash: piracy is already here - you should know, you're the one putting those god-awful commercials at the beginning of movies. So what exactly are you trying to prevent?
--Nate