A Workable Downloadable Movies Business Model?

sane? writes "Following on from the music industry attempting to push up the cost of iTunes music downloads comes word that Sony is looking take robust control of the pricing for legal movie downloads - to the tune of $8 a movie. What is the maximum acceptable price that slashdot readers would give to different types of downloadable product, taking into account their perception of its true value to them? How can sensible pricing and workable business models be reconciled?"

Comments

iTunes

[BWJones]

Well, if Sony is going to be trying to install rootkits onto my computer, they could not pay me to download their movies. Screw-em.

However, barring malware distribution by major corporations, I believe that Apple has showed the industry exactly the business model to follow for media distribution, so, provided a fair and reasonable DRM policy like that of iTunes, I would be more than happy to pay $5/movie, but not more than that. Come on now, the industry has the opportunity here to make far more money off of not just recently released movies, but following a long-tail model, they could make obscene amounts of money off of older movies/content that is no longer available or being distributed. Think about all the old classic Sci-Fi movies or classic movies that are only available on TCM on occasion? What if you really could watch them "on demand" rather than waiting for them to rotate through. How about old TV shows?

Being able to watch movies at home on your computer or on your laptop on the plane is not just a convenience that they should be charging premium costs for. It is a mass market scheme to drive insanely high revenues if the price point is made attractive. If they were smart, these movies would be made available more cheaply and the "premium" experience could still be had at the theatre.

So, for an industry that already is sitting on media that is no longer generating significant income, they have the opportunity to create potential huge revenue streams for media already bought and paid for, so why gouge the customer? It is a surefire recipe for slower adoption, delayed revenue streams and potentially failure.

Re:iTunes

[BWJones]

Don't try your mind tricks on me young man. :-) Seriously though, the amount I will pay is what I believe it is worth to me, and that is up to $5.00. I go to matinees specifically because the average Hollywood fare is simply not worth the $7-14 that theaters charge for prime time showings and it is not because money is tight for me. Quite the contrary, I am more than happy to pay extra for quality products, but in this case, movies are entertainment that while entertaining are usually are quite dispensable and having to deal with an increasingly rude population who does not have any concept of proper theatre etiquette simply drives me away from theaters. There are rare cinematic exceptions however.

Re:iTunes

[Michalson]

believe that Apple has showed the industry exactly the business model to follow for media distribution, so, provided a fair and reasonable DRM policy like that of iTunes

Could you explain that point further? If you want everyone to follow Apple's "Fairplay(TM)" DRM model, what is it specifically about that model that makes it more attractive then the others? What where your logical reasons for choosing that as the best DRM solution?

It can't be the robustness of the data - if the latest iTunes update (or OS X update) kills your harddrive (again), or the computer simply dies as they sometimes do, it's Apple's policy to charge you for the music all over again, even though they have the records showing you legally own it. Apple DRM certainly isn't making digital music as long lasting as the physical disk technology. Even Apple's closest competitor offers a partial though far from perfect solution - the proof of ownership can be backed up seperate from the music (meaning you can make as many copies as you want), and then can be used to obtain the music without being charged again if you suffer a harddrive crash.

It can't be the number of copies you're allowed - most other DRM schemes also allow 3 copies (again, Apple's closest competitor allows any number of copies to be specified, and can even allow the ability to create "lending" copies - you can give a time limited copy to a someone to try out, and you don't have to worry about them returning the licence to you)

It can't be the ability to burn to CD - again, Apple's competitors support this too.

It can't be the future proofness of the format - "Fairplay" is currently glued to Apple, you can't play Apple DRM music on anything that doesn't have an Apple logo. One of the best arguments for open source is that closed source software leads to documents that can no longer be opened because the application required only exists for an obsolete platform. With "Fairplay", all the eggs are with one company - if Apple, just one company, disappeared, your music would left stuck in a format dieing of player entropy. This is what we call "vender lockin", and it's a bad thing. Some of Apple's competitors avoid this through partially open standards, other avoid this by spreading the format to as many companies as possible - if one dies, the others can fill the gap.

So please help us understand what specific, technological or contract, parts of Apple DRM we should be trying to make more widespread. Why is "Fairplay(TM)" so superior, other then the fact that it lives within the safe confines of the Apple reality distortion field, guarded by a phalanx of Apple fanbois?

Re:iTunes

[2nd Post!]

If you step on your CD, it is Best Buy's policy to charge you for a second CD, even if you have a receipt proving you legally purchased said CD last month.

Apple's policy, however, does not prevent you from doing four things:
Burn the music to a CD (something like 10 at a time; change the playlist and burn ad infinitum)
Burn the file to a CD (infinite times)
Copy the file to another HD (infinite times)
Load the file to an iPod (infinite times)

In any event, only an act of God would wipe out your clever backups.

The model that Apple has demonstrated to it's success is threefold:
1) Software doesn't suck. The same software and interface used to interact with your own music library is the basis for the interface for their online music store.
2) Hardware that doesn't suck. The iPod
3) THe price doesn't suck. If Sony wants to charge 8, I'm willing to bet Apple will charge less ($4.99? $3.99?) for a movie.

Fairplay can be actually played on HP Media Center PCs, Motorola ROKRs and soon RAZRs, iPods, Macs, and PCs. More to the point, you can burn to a CD and play on any CD player you want; there are also numerous unlocking tools of dubious legality, but not of dubious morality.

So if Apple disappeared, no, the music would not die; you would still have your iPod, still have your iTunes, still have your CD player, etc.

The reason Fairplay is superior is that it was the first that allowed you to:
1) Connect a song from a PC to an MP3 player without extra charges
2) Burn said song to a CD any number of times, with a few constraints
3) Make as many copies of the file as you want

If the other DRM have caught up, it isn't because Fairplay isn't superior; it's because it is, and the others adopted Fairplay's design.

Not $8 for Consumers

[duerra]

FTFA, $8 is the price that Sony is expected to be charging the content distributors. This is not the price that we would be paying as end consumers, which would look more like it would be to the tune of $10, or something along those lines.

Of course, this would probably all be highly compressed, DRMed to hell video files, too. Given that I can go to a local Wal-Mart or Target and get a lot of these old titles for $6 at full quality, and make my backups using something like CloneDVD, I'm not likely to be purchasing a $10 movie download anytime soon.

Re:Not $8 for Consumers

[NoMaster]

$20 New DVD
$02 But I don't get packaging. Minus $2.
$01 I don't get fixed media. I have to store this myself. Minus $1
$05 DRMed to hell! I can't make backups! Minus $5.
$05 I have to download it and pay for the bandwidth. Minus $5.
----
$8

Not being able to perform simple subtraction? Priceless...

rental cost

[SamSeaborn]

Unlike songs, I don't want to *own* movies. Just watch them once.

For me, the cost would have to be the same or less than a movie rental for me to buy in. $8 is too much. I'd say $2.99 is about right -- and I don't care if the $2.99 movie expires after a certain period of time or anything. Like I said, 99% of the time I just watch a movie once.

Sam

Hard Copy

[NETHED]

If I can burn it to a DVD, watch it on ANY DVD player, and treat it as if it were mine (IE, let my friend borrow the disc), then yes, I'll pay 8 dollars/movie. Otherwise, I'll keep my netflix subscription thank you very much.