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Download-to-own Films Coming Soon
riflemann writes "CNN is reporting that Universal Pictures will soon launch a service whereby films can be downloaded legally to own, i.e. non time-limited digital downloads. Currently most legally downloaded movies are time limited. Buyers will also receive a DVD version in the post. Is the movie industry finally listening? And how will they define 'own?'"
That's way to expensive. These guys still don't get it. Designed to fail.
cheers
"Security measures will make it impossible to e-mail the film to somebody else."
What else will they prevent us from doing?
$35? It won't take off until it goes below $20.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
I predict at least two of those, probably 3. The second on the list (Windows only) is almost a certainty. Good luck to them, this sounds very good, but my experience tells me there are some major catches in there that we can't see yet.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Let's face it, most downloaders aren't in it for the convenience. Whether it's an ideological beef with the MPAA, lack of funds, or just plain stinginess, most people don't want to pay for these movies. This might catch on among people who don't feel like going out to the store or waiting for it to come via online stores, but it's not going to curb illegal downloading.
This service could really be huge if they implemented something vaguely similar to FairPlay in the sense that you can put it on a few other computers, and instead of putting it on your iPod, you could have a 30 day "timeout" -- if you don't connect to the internet in 30 days and reauthenticate your DRM'ed movie, you can't play it. This way it'll still work if you go on vacation or whatnot.
The big issue here is we're talking about a movie -- a multi-million dollar venue, corporations don't lightly toss around the idea of letting you put a $500 million production on five other computers for nothing. Hopefully this is a step in the right direction and not just some kind of sick ploy, like if they load it with horrible DRM that eats your soul and then afterwards (when the service rightfully bombs) they just say "eh, there's no market for this kind of service" and never try again. Anyway here's hoping.
This is so obscenely overpriced at $35 per movie, hell, you could buy 2 or 3 DVDs for that price. Do the studios not realize that they are driving customers away by price-gouging? This is the same crap we heard from the music companies when vinyl records were going up to $9 and CDs came out, they were supposed to be cheaper than LPs because they were cheaper to manufacture. But music CDs are still way more than $9 (even accounting for inflation).
The media companies look at every new format as an opportunity to raise prices, even when the cost of manufacturing and distribution drops significantly.
"And how will they define 'own?'"
I OWN a car, I can lend it to anyone I please and I can drive it on all public roads in my country. Yes there are limitations, I can only accomodate as many people as the law allows. But if I am not allowed to lend it to anyone i like, I dont own it. So no, this does not actually satisfy my definition of OWN
I agree. I rent movies all the time and when I do, usually a few other people watch them with me. I also lend them out when I'm done with them. I might keep a film -- if it's genre inspiring (like Devil's Rejects, for example).
Typically a factory-direct model like this is CHEAPER than going through the middle man. Why would we pay MORE for it?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
My bandwidth is too valuable to waste on stuff I can just go and buy at a video store for about the same price (and considering I could be back from the video store in about 10 minutes, I'd have the movie a lot faster getting it myself too).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Where has everyone been? The porn business has been doing this for ages, once again proving that pornographers are miles ahead of everyone and on the cutting edge of technology!
For that Price... They are betting on "impulse" buyers. And everyone is right, it is setup to fail. Movies are not the sort of thing "You JUST MUST HAVE NOW". (Not for $35) If you consider thet latest articles on /. - The Taxation (extortion) that is proposed on bandwidth hungry sites. Shipping Costs etc etc. Yes, someone is going to comment on that the DVD/Movie industry is over priced and they could afford it. But which studio is going to come forward as say "Welp, the consumer was right, we were ripping everyone off, the new and improved price is $...." While the rest of the pack growls and attacks. (other studios) Price Structures are very difficult to change. Especially when it seems to be "a standard"
:)
To throw some oil into the water so to speak, in order to download A MOVIE... Youre talking about 2-3 hours for high quality... (your really think they'll use a fancy codec (xvid etc etc?) Thats 2 hours too long as your nearest blockbuster/walmart,bestbuy is 30 min away at the most, and you can take your family out for ice cream
Theres ALOT at stake here. They have a HUGE piracy issue at hands, the wood they are throwing onto the fire better be wet.
And no, I didn rtfa.
-- I Dont Deserve A Sig I Have Bad Karma
At the speed of my connection (at home, not at work, and (alas) no longer at college), it'll be faster for me to wait for them to mail me the disc. On the other hand, at the price point they're offering, I may as well just buy the disc online and splurge on the second-day shipping.
Your feeble marketing skills are no match for the power of the Postal Service! You will pay the price for your lack of vision!
I'm serious about that lack of vision thing. I give them kudos for at least trying, but trying in a way that is bound to fail isn't innovation - it is just plain stupid.
Apple is widely rumored to be in negotiations with the studios to add feature films to the iTunes Store, but the major hangup seems to be that the studios are insisting on a $9.99 a month subscription to keep a constant flow of cash coming their way, with an extra $13 or so on top of the monthly fee to keep movies after the term of the subscription ends. Jobs is having none of this, insisting on a $9.99 per movie fee with no monthly charge. You pay $10 and it's yours forever, and you don't have to keep spending money every month to maintain access to your files. The iTunes Music Store has had an enormous amount of success with this compared to the subscription models offered by other services, and it is more compatible with the existing customer mentality that when you pay for a film, it becomes part of your collection forever.
The service proposed in the article is a perfect example of what we would get if the music industry got their way with iTunes music pricing. The labels are insisting they be allowed to charge more for newer, and more popular music (driving the prices of digital content closer to that of physical media) while offering "lower" prices for older content (Steve Jobs is resisting the increases). The Universal movie service will charge you $35 for new releases, and offer an "incredible" 50% discount on older films, which brings the price for the back catalog down to what you would pay for a physical DVD.
Economics dictates that they can charge whatever the market will bear, but I think the past few years has proven that the market simply will not bear what the conglomerates are demanding. They have this fantasy that if online stores offer the same products that they aren't selling enough of in brick-and-mortar stores at the same, or a higher price than the brick-and-mortar stores, that sales will increase.
The prevalence of file sharing had a lot to do with the convenience, but it was also much more a direct rebellion against the pricing schemes that the cartels had shoved down our throats for decades. iTunes killed two birds with one stone and took away the incredible premium they were demanding in retail stores, and adopted the convenience of the file sharing networks. Sales rebounded, and now they feel as if their original methodology was somehow correct and they can begin maximizing their profits by demanding more money for less product.
They are unable to accept the notion that they have been wrong all of these years, and are terrified that Apple is increasingly making them irrelevant in the marketplace. They are not producing any physical product, the overhead and media itself is being paid for out of Apple's tiny cut (they've only recently passed break-even on the store) and they are collecting a lionshare of the proceeds for doing nothing but allowing Apple to reproduce the content they did not make. It's a zero-risk, zero-investment game with high returns for them and them alone. With fewer bands (even established ones) getting any attention from the marketing departments at major labels, the day is coming when they will be cut out of the arrangement altogether and bands upload their music on their own (as they can do right now when they lack a big-label contract prohibiting such things). If you're not getting any airplay, the only thing you need is GarageBand, a tour promoter and an iTunes merchant account. The 90% take the labels claim on each sale, and the indentured servitude they put bands in for the ridiculous expenses they charge to each group just isn't getting anyone but a few main artists any kind of return.
The film studios are well-aware of the trap the music labels walked into, and want to ensure that any movie service has no room in it for the individual copyright holder and is arranged so if the movie studios are the only source for content, they get a monthly cut and there is no ability for individuals to upload their own films, as there is no way for them to tap into the monthly revenue stream going back to Hollywood.
You will not make backup copies of your files.
.. You have four friends over for poker, that's a club. Don't even think about letting them watch a movie with you! They make it pretty clear that they'd really like to fine you for letting anyone who isn't immediate family watch it with you, if only they could catch you at it. And somewhere an MPAA lawyer is working on a version that forbids viewing by families with more than four children too.
You will not have your files on more than one computer.
You may not share the files under any circumstance.
Standard DRM stuff. Wouldn't surprise me in the least.
You may not playback the movie to more than 5 people.
The usual wording is more like "For home viewing only. This film may not be rented or shown in public, clubs, schools, churches, prisons, etc"
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$35 for new releases, $17.50 for older movies? What a bunch of crap. For the less popular new releases, you can buy the DVD for less than $20 and you still get the extra scenes and other junk that comes on the DVD. Why am I going to pay MORE for a lower quality version when I can go buy it cheaper and then rip it to whatever quality I want.
I suspect their argument will go something like this: "See, nobody is buying them. Selling online doesn't work because everyone is pirating it." When I saw the headline I was surprised and optimistic, but then I read the fine print and it all made perfect sense.
Oh well, the MPAA and RIAA are just putting themselves out of business. Too bad for them.
Price the movies equal to the admission of a theater ticket (thereby eliminating the theater's slice of the pie) and they will explode in growth. I don't
mind paying $8 for a movie that I can watch in comfort at home with my own food.
I think they could really make it big. But at $30 it's a no brainer...no one would use it
iTunes became big because it's fair priced. $1 is not that much and you feel good about not pirating.
Now. http://www.fsf.org/
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
What do I own? For both music or video it averages about $5 a disc (on sale, ebay, cdbaby, Costco...)
Priced more than that? I somehow find other distractions to fill the time.
For me (and I am in the uber-top % of wage earners, per this site) it just isn't worth more than about $2-3 for a whole CD of music or $4-5 for a DVD. For others it might be less - but it is worth something. Downloading stuff for "free" isn't free - it takes time, burning it to discs cost money, and hey, you have evidence of a felony laying around now... who needs that?
I do have an iPod - But I have spent $0 at iTunes. Why? Because CDEX and my own Discs work just fine, thank you.
All my CDs and DVDs are from eBay, Costco, the "bargin bin" at Circuit City, etc. Full-retail just doesn't cut it. Even the annoying "join-now-get-X-discs-free" clubs work out to about $6/disc if you join, do the minimum, and quit.
Whatever happened to the concept of "making more profit on volume?" Media companies are missing out on a lot of sales, IMO, with their current pricing strategy.
While broke kids will always download stuff "for free", regular honest folks will buy tons of stuff at "Wal-Mart" prices - or not at all, when it comes to non-essential items like music and videos.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
WHY would I want to do this?
If I can get the original media for, as you point out, £14 rather than £20, watch it, and if I so desire, trade it, sell it on, etc. I can then rip and transcode it, and play it on the device of my choice. Very useful for my work laptop, which is from the stone age and has no DVD-ROM.
Or I can download it for *more money*. And get a complimentary physical backup of the DRM-ised file, which I cannot trade or sell on.
They are either not thinking this through at all, or they are just waving it in the breeze as a token gesture to the courts ; "look, we tried, but those smelly hackers kept on breaking the law!"
Don't forget, the car automagically stalls on a randomly defined half of the roads, because those roads don't support DRM (or the right kind thereof).
It of course showed no signs of that on the show floor.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!