Movie Downloads to Coincide with DVD release

gihan_ripper writes "The movie download firms Movielink and CinemaNow have made a deal with the big five studios to ensure that downloads will coincide with DVD releases at Blockbuster and WalMart. Unlike previous deals, these will be full purchase downloads, and not merely for a rental period. The move is aimed at stemming the rising tide of pirate downloads, and DRM will be in force to prevent copying the movies to DVD. The first batch of downloadable movies will include Brokeback Mountain, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and King Kong."

Comments

Order of the Phoenix?

[rosalindavenue]

Wow-- talk about a quickly released download-- they haven't even shot it yet! http://tinyurl.com/p58qk

Brokeback

[celardore]

I guess the fact they're releasing 'Brokeback Mountain' as a download is a good thing, for all those too embarrased to see it at the cinema or go out and buy it.

Re:Brokeback

[orangebook]

Can't decide what's worse, the fact this happens in this country or the fact there's people who makes comments like yours.

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

At least this story fits those two tags which seem to be applied to every slashdot story now.

Re:Brokeback

[xtracto]

Why would somebody be embarrased to see a 2 hours Marlboro commercial? well ok ok, only the first half of the movie was, but seriously I was just waiting to listen to the man saying "come to where the flavor is, come to the Marlboro Country" (or the equivalent in the USA ad)

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

January called, it wants it's outraged Brokeback supporters back. It also wants to remind you that people have been yukkin it up over this movie since he passed, please report to the laugh factory, your giva-shitter needs to be turned way down.

Re:Brokeback

[chrismcdirty]

Cigarettes haven't been advertised on television in the USA (at least where I am) for quite a while. All we have is cigarette print ads.

Re:Brokeback

[xtracto]

Oh in that way sorry, I was just recalling that when I saw the movie, the first half reminded me of a Marlboro TV ad I saw sometime ago in Mexico, it had really similar photography as the movie (the cowboys and the sheep herd and all that) and at some time a man said: "come to where the flavor is", hehe, I was holding my breath to avoid laughing when at the movie theatre, personally I did not like the movie anyway.

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, anyone as afraid as you to be associated with anything gay is a lover of teh cock in denial.

Re:Brokeback

[heinousjay]

I know what's worse - that there are tolerance police who feel they must control people's opinions through any means necessary. It's really annoying when I'm not allowed to dislike something without being labeled a throwback.

Re:Brokeback

[InsaneProcessor]

I can't decide which is worse; the fact that someone actually financed it or that anybody watched it.

Re:Brokeback

[Phantom Zmoove]

The only thing I know of that movie was the skit on Comedy Central. That Mencia guy did "wetback mountain".

Which was pretty funny, but I don't know much about the original.

Re:Brokeback

[dr_dank]

Why would somebody be embarrased to see a 2 hours Marlboro commercial? well ok ok, only the first half of the movie was, but seriously I was just waiting to listen to the man saying "come to where the flavor is, come to the Marlboro Country" (or the equivalent in the USA ad)

So when the Heath Ledger character said "I wish I could quit you", he really meant the cigarettes?

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's even more annoying when people decide to dislike something due to reasons that have nothing to do with the thing they're disliking. Like juding a book by its cover, only worse... the cover not being very representative of what's actually inside.

I'm just sayin'...

If you actually saw it and didn't care for it, that's one thing. But an awful lot of people trashed the movie without having a clue what it was really like, and their assumptions and presumptions were generally way out of line.

For the record, I thought it was a very moving, thoughtful picture.

Re:Brokeback

[SpryGuy]

Heath Ledger's character never said that line... It was Jake Gyllenhaal's character. And it was "I wish I knew how to quit you."

Just FYI :-)

(yes, I've seen the movie four times in the theatre... so sue me)

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you actually see the movie? Or read the short story? It's a beautiful story, told beautifully. It was actually a great movie, worthy of its Best Picture nomination, in spite of all the jokes made by those uncomfortable with the subject matter.

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, anyone as afraid as you to be associated with anything gay is a lover of the cock in denial.

This is true, and parent should be modded UP, not down. Studies have shown that men who are most vocally and viscerally anti-gay or homophobic are exactly those who are struggling with same-sex attraction within themselves.

People secure in their sexuality can go see this movie without freaking out about it (and in fact I saw tons of guys seeing this in the theatre with their girlfriends). Or they can watch an ad for the movie and not giggle or grimace. It's been hilarious watching some of the homophobes cringe or crack jokes to deal with their uncomfortableness with the topic. You just know they're afraid that if they see this movie, it'll unleash some sort of flood of feelings that they are terrified to deal with.

Either that or they're just really immature. Whatever.

Re:Brokeback

[SpryGuy]

I guess the fact they're releasing 'Brokeback Mountain' as a download is a good thing, for all those too embarrased to see it at the cinema or go out and buy it.

I'm guessing you're right on this one... Brokeback Mountain has been the number one seller on both DVD Empire and Amazon.com for weeks now, topping King Kong and Narnia in orders/pre-orders. Go figure.

Re:Brokeback

[iamhassi]

"topping King Kong and Narnia in orders/pre-orders. "

wow i'm so not impressed considering both those movies tanked at the box office too.

Re:Brokeback

[cayenne8]

"If you actually saw it and didn't care for it, that's one thing. But an awful lot of people trashed the movie without having a clue what it was really like, and their assumptions and presumptions were generally way out of line."

Then again, some of us have no desire to see to gay cowboys do whatever they do on the range.

And frankly, we're also a little puzzled why anyone straight would care to see that either....

But, hey, it is a free country...

Re:Brokeback

[SpryGuy]

Narnia made $290,821,636 domestic, and $718,262,636 world-wide.

King King made $217,958,250 domestic, and $546,973,600 world-wide.

Brokeback Mountain made $82,851,000 domestic, and $165,851,000 world-wide.

None of them "tanked" at the box-office, though King Kong didn't do quite as well as was expected.

Having Brokeback Mountain outsell the other two on DVD release says one of two things: Those that saw it in the theater liked it enough to want to own it, while those that saw the other two movies didn't... or that a lot of people who wanted to see Brokeback Mountain either couldn't see it or wouldn't see it in public. Maybe a little of both. Either way, it's pretty astonishing for a little art film like this to not only do those box office numbers, but to be ranking so high in DVD pre-orders. But then again, it is one of the most universally well reviewed movies released in the last year, and winner of the most awards and prizes of any movie released in the last year. That might have something to do with it too.

But then there are also those that just see the word 'gay' anywhere associated with the movie (the word is never spoken in the film, neither is the word 'homosexual') and dismiss it out of hand, or run away from it as if it might be 'catching' or something.

BTW, kudos for not going with the obvious "top" joke :-)

Re:Brokeback

[Flimzy]

It is illegal to advertise tobbacco prodcuts on television in the U.S. It has been since 1965.

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

Then again, some of us have no desire to see to gay cowboys do whatever they do on the range.

Sheepboys, dammit - not cowboys! And besides, sheep lie!

Re:Brokeback

[mfrank]

Or, maybe they're buying King Kong at Best Buy, and buying Brokeback Mountain on Amazon where nobody's looking at 'em like they're gay ;)

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think it's just a "gay cowboy movie" then that's where you're wrong. And of course, you could use that sort of dismissive "why would anyone want to see X" on virtually any movie out there, including very good ones. Why would anyone want to see beastiality between some monkey and a blonde chick? That's King Kong. Why would anyone want to see a morose prince whine about his dead and duplicitious family? That would be Hamlet.

The fact is, Brokeback Mountain is a movie of depth and universiality that yes, even straight men can identify with. It explores topics of lonliness and longing, the loss of love, the feeling of being trapped into living the 'expected life', regret, the road not taken, and all sorts of other issues in an amazing way. Yeah, you can toss it off as "just a gay flick" or "just a chick flick", but you'd be doing the movie a disservice to do so. This movie stayed with me in a way few movies do. Hell, half the movies I'm in the act of forgetting even as I'm walking out of the theater. The characters and situations in this film haunted my mind for days afterwards. There's a lot of universal truth in their tragedy.

I wonder if you bothered to read any of the reviews, most all of them by straight men, that sang the praise of this movie. Or whether you just heard "gay" and made up your mind right then to hate it.

And while the movie is a searing indictment of homophobia, both internalized and societal, the movie is never a polemic, is not in any way ham-fisted or preachy, and simply tells a beautiful story. A tragic story, like Romeo and Juliet, it's a classic tale, told well, with some really excellent acting and cinematography.

I went with my mom to see it, and she loved it too. And here you are dismissing it because of one rather dark 30 second scene where you can't even really see anything? Trust me, the heterosexual sex scenes in the movie are far more explicit, and still nothing I couldn't watch comfortably with mom.

But if you want to pre-judge something based on misinterpretations, misinformation, misperceptions, and preconceived notions well, as you say, it's a free country. If you're too afraid to see this movie, then by all means, don't go see it.

And yeah, as already pointed out, they're ranch-hands, sheep herders for one summer, not "cowboys". I don't think there's a cow in the entire movie. What you think you know about the rest of this movie is probably just as wrong as that.

Re:Brokeback

[chrismcdirty]

That was what I'd thought. But I wasn't about to state it as fact when I wasn't sure.

Re:Brokeback

[cayenne8]

"And while the movie is a searing indictment of homophobia, both internalized and societal..."

You know...I really think the homophobia term is for the most part completely misused.

Just because a person thinks homosexuality is wrong, does not want to see or hear much about it...does not mean they are afraid of it.

Personally? I don't really care that much what 2 consenting adults do in their own privacy...it may be something I don't like or think is right (morally or health-wise), and I may not want to have it before me on the 'big screen'...but, that doesn't mean I'm "scared" or have a phobia about it.

Is it so wrong these days to have an opinion of something being right or wrong? Political correctness sure is taking the fun out of "freedome of speech".

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think having blue eyes is "wrong" or "right"? How about being "left-handed"? Do you not want to see "colored people" on the 'big screen'?

Homosexuality isn't "wrong", it just IS. Period. And even if you do think it wrong, have you ever gone to see a movie that had murderers in it? Or liars? Or how about handicapped people? Or anything else you consider 'wrong'? (not that I'm equating homosexuality with those things in any way). Would you not see the movie "Murderball" because it's just a bunch of cripples and how could you possibly find anything of value in it? It was a great documentary, just like Brokeback Mountain is a great movie. For everyone, not just clones of the people pictured.

You know, this movie does address and show the destruction caused to individuals and families and society by exactly the kind of attitude your expressing here. Maybe that's why you're afraid to go see it. You don't want the mirror held up to you like that.

"Homophobia" may be over-used, but in the context of the grandparent message's usage, it's exactly the correct word to use. Many times people use it to mean simply 'anti-gay', which of course is something a bit different (though there's a lot of over-lap).

You may have the opinion that "homosexuality is wrong" or that "evolution is wrong" or that "the earth is flat", but that doesn't make any of those things true. It just sorta makes you wilfully ignorant.

Maybe you might be interested in the words of Dr. David Jenkins, a Christian Theologen at Emory University in Atlanta, in an essay he wrote back in December when BrokeBack Mountain was released: Epiphany on Brokeback Mountain

After all, much of the idea that homosexuality is "wrong" (in spite of how ubiquitous it is in nature) comes from religion... maybe reading what someone with a PhD in Christian Theology has to say might open your mind and heart just a little. But either way, it's an interesting essay even if you aren't particularly religious. It's also written explicitly for those who haven't seen the movie or read the story.

The essay also gives a little synopsis of the movie, which you might use to more intelligently judge whether you'd be interested in seeing the movie, rather than relying entirely on your prejudices. And don't worry, watching the movie won't turn you queer or anything, I promise.

Re:Brokeback

[cloudmaster]

Either way, it's pretty astonishing for a little art film like this to not only do those box office numbers, but to be ranking so high in DVD pre-orders.

Well, astonishing to someone who managed to totally avoid the media for the several months prior to its release, perhaps. Any film that gets *that* much publicity from every damned news source on the planet is bound to make a little money. I personally think it's pathetic that it *only* made that much. Then, I didn't see it - largely because I don't like cowboy movies (or shepard movies) or love stories. A combination of the two, esp. when combined with secret buttsecks, is a recipie for something I won't likely pay theater fees to see. Apparently, I'm not alone in that perception (though, I don't plan to pay to own or rent the DVD either). :)

Re:Brokeback

[cayenne8]

"Homosexuality isn't "wrong", it just IS."

Well, I guess it depends on your viewpoint on being 'gay'...I assume you think it is a natural thing...I tend to lean towards believing it is more a learned behavior and a choice, and I think the choice is a poor one. Most everyone I've ever known that was a gay man, seemed to be a product of some sort of horribly abusive childhood. I don't know that I've ever known or seen a homosexual person that was very well adjusted...and today, especially with young girls, being gay seems in vogue. So, when I talk about homosexuality, I think of it as bad behavior...much like you asked what I thought about murder, etc....that is all very bad behavior. However, doing the gay thing really doesn't hurt me...as I said before, what you want to do behind closed doors, really doesn't bother me. I just have no interest in seeing it.

Again, disliking something, or having a negative opinion doesn't mean you have a phobia about it. It is just an opinion....and everyone is justified to have their own.

I guess I'm responding to the same person here on this thread...if YOU are so proud of your gay opinions (or proud to be gay), then why are you posting anonymously? If it is so open and natural, they why not post as yourself?

Re:Brokeback

[fatcatman]

I have nothing to add to this other than to say, "I agree", and I've added you as a friend for having the guts to speak your mind on this matter in this forum.

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

A review:

Brokeback Mountain: 5 stars

"Dispelling the perception of being simply a "gay western", the film doesn't really wholeheartedly fit into either category. Although it is socially important that a gay love story is enjoying a mainstream airing rather than being an arthouse film, it transcends the issue of sexuality. Rather, it is an excellently-told tale of two lovers whose love cannot be fulfilled, which can be universally related to and enjoyed by anyone regardless of sexual orientation."

And yeah, the review was written by a straight guy.

And from the Crimson Harvard Review, another five star review:

I've always been a fan of the devil's advocate position, but I'm a greater fan of honesty, and in that vein I have to say it: "Brokeback Mountain" is an absolutely phenomenal film, a sublime work of beauty with an ache at its core so enveloping you hardly notice it until you try to stand up at its somber end.

I would have imagined difficulty in praising the film this much, considering the gooey and ridiculous media discourse. But upon finally seeing it, all the talk seems trivial. It's an unexpectedly complex rumination on love and sexuality in a uniquely American context, where the tangible beauty of our mythic West collides with the hidden sores of a repressive social order. Lee's film is incredibly literary, stunningly photographed, and features flawless performances from its typically unimpressive cast.

And from a Texas paper, where they know cowboys, another 5 star review:

"Bet you didn't know that the American-Statesman uses a five-star system to rate movies. That's because our critics rarely -- almost never -- confer the highest rating, which is reserved for movies that will be viewed and discussed for years to come.

"Brokeback Mountain" is one of those movies.

A slow-moving, button-lipped Western romance, Ang Lee's wide-screen version of Annie Proulx's quick-moving, stub-tongued story worms its way into the viewer's consciousness, to remain there, a shifting, analog reality, for days or even weeks.

...

The media has fastened onto "Brokeback" as a "gay cowboy movie," and it will likely attract backlash from social conservatives. Some of this might be attributed to the movie's subtle social commentary. The fact that Jack and Ennis, under an ultra-violent Western code, could not seriously consider settling down bears on the current debate about gay marriage.

However, "Brokeback" goes beyond transitory opinion-making. Its relaxed storytelling, naturalistic language and just-out-of-reach characters draw the viewer into an inescapable romance. Due to the inscrutable logic of popular culture, it will appeal especially to women, surely one of the first Westerns to do so.

Is it a masterpiece, a "Casablanca" for its time? Perhaps not. Yet it's hard to question its status as one of the year's top movies. And it's certainly worth the kind of discussion a five-star review inevitably will provoke."

The entire point of this post being, maybe you're not giving the movie a chance, and maybe straight guys can find something worthwhile in this as well (all the above reviews being written by straight guys, and hell, even Ebert and Harry Knowles of "Aint it Cool" fame loved the movie).

Sometimes our prejudices get in the way of letting us discover things we might actually enjoy. I guess I know too many guys who were dragged kicking and screaming to see this movie by their girlfriends, who ended up really liking the movie. It's so silly and childish when you think about it. Every once in a while,

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

...I assume you think it is a natural thing

No, I know it's a natural thing. It's present everywhere in nature. It isn't a choice. It just is. There is zero evidence that a homosexual sexual orientation is a learned behavior or a choice. Hell, a recent 60 Minutes segment detailed the fact that it is by no means a choice or leaned behavior, and all evidence rules that out. ALL evidence. There is NO evidence that it is a choice. In fact, it's rather insane to look at the hard lives gay people have had throughout history, through all the persecution and oppression and being ostracized by friends and family, and somehow think it's a "choice" in any meaningful sense of the word. That's just ignorant. And wrong.

Most everyone I've ever known that was a gay man, seemed to be a product of some sort of horribly abusive childhood.

You are aware, are you not, of the logical fallacy of generalizing from a personal experience? I know several dozen gay men, and not one of them had an abusive childhood, an over bearing mother, or a weak/absent father. All that nonsense is just that: nonnsense. It's all been categorically disproven in study after study. For every gay man who was molested as a child, there are a dozen straight men who were. The thing is, the gay man (having had to come to grips with a lot of things just to "come out") is probably more likely to acknowledge and talk about such a difficult thing than a straight man is. Being molested doesn't make you gay. Period.

I don't know that I've ever known or seen a homosexual person that was very well adjusted

Given societal attitudes towards them (including those like yours), is it any wonder? Yes, suicide rates among gay teenagers are three times higher than the national average, but that isn't because something is inherently wrong with being gay, it's because of how they were taught since birth to think of gay people (i.e. themselves) as disorded, evil, bad, horrible, or worse. They are taught such intense self-loathing, that it takes a long, long time with great effort to over-come that. Many never do. Especially those who are disowned by their own families. Do you think YOU could go through adolescence thinking you were the "only one" and having to keep who you are and what you felt a secret from everyone out of fear of being beaten or killed, and come through "well adjusted"?

So, when I talk about homosexuality, I think of it as bad behavior...

Well, you think wrong. Homosexuality is morally neutral. Just like Heterosexuality. There are homosexuals that exhibit good behavior and bad. And Heterosexuals that exhibit good behavior and bad. Period. Some people are born gay (or at least their orientation is 'fixed' by 2 years of age, though most researchers are now leaning towards 'born'), some are bi, some are straight, some are asexual, etc. Human sexuality is a very complex phenominon. It isn't some simplistic binary switch. Some very fine upstanding and wonderful people are homosexual. Some very disgusting, low-down, horrid people are heterosexual. And vice-versa. To lay some sort of dictate on the inherent morality of a sexual orientation seems absurd to me. It simply doesn't mesh with any available fact or objective reality.

I guess I'm responding to the same person here on this thread...if YOU are so proud of your gay opinions (or proud to be gay), then why are you posting anonymously? If it is so open and natural, they why not post as yourself?

Because of people like yourself and others who are far, far worse... and for the same reason that a hell of a lot of gay people remain closeted even though they have no problem with their own sexuality. I do not wish to be tarred and feathered, attacked, or have all future posts dismissed or attacked by my statements here. I've learned that in the past from personal experience. Voicing the truth about homosexuality opens you up to a lot of grief from those who has some strange vested interes

Re:Brokeback

[SpryGuy]

Well, I'm not into cowboy movies or westerns at all either. The movie isn't one of those. But it's a decent love story in the vein of Romeo and Juliet (forbidden love with a tragic end). Now that it's out on DVD (well, effective tomorrow), maybe you can grab your girlfriend (real, potential, or imaginary) and watch it and score some points. Of all the chick-flicks in the world, this one is among the least painful as long as you accept one thing: it's not an action film. There are no car chases or explosions. It's a story told quietly and at a laconic pace befitting the time and setting of the film. It doesn't spoon-feed you or hit you over the head with anything, requiring you to perceive the meaning in the quite spaces and looks. It's very much an Ang Lee movie, if you've ever appreciated any of his others (such as "Ice Storm").

Does it help to mention you get to see both Michelle Williams' and Anne Hathaway's boobies? (they're the two female leads, if you didn't know) :-)

Re:Brokeback

[triso]

It is illegal to advertise tobbacco prodcuts on television in the U.S. It has been since 1965.

I have a great copy of a 1961 Flintstones's ad with Fred and Barney puffing on Winston cigs. "Yes, Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should." It's available on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

It's very much an Ang Lee movie, if you've ever appreciated any of his others

Sweet, I loved Hulk.

Hulk smash!

How good is the CGI in this one?

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it doesn't surprise me that one ignorant bigot would rush to agree with another ignorant bigot, and bond in friendship over their hatered of "the other". Very typical.

Re:Brokeback

[fatcatman]

Yeah, it doesn't surprise me that one ignorant bigot would rush to agree with another ignorant bigot, and bond in friendship over their hatered of "the other". Very typical.

And you're a typical liberal jackass. It's much easier for you to label me a hateful bigot than it is to try to understand my point of view.

You know what? Coming out and saying, "Hey, I disagree with homosexuality and I think it is a choice" has nothing to do with hatred. I don't hate homosexuals. I have homosexual friends. My boss is homosexual. I love them just as I'd love anyone else in the world, why, because we're all people. Black, white, gay, straight, male, female, or anywhere in between, it doesn't matter. We're all people, and there's no place for hatred in this world.

That doesn't mean I approve of homosexuality. But I'm perfectly capable of loving and accepting a person regardless of other factors, unlike most of you liberals who hate Christians with all your heart and soul.

Re:Brokeback

[cloudmaster]

I think my wife would be annoyed if I brought a girlfriend... :)

I dunno, from the previews it just doesn't look like something I'd enjoy. Maybe after it shifts to the "less expensive" rack, or shows up on a movie channel or something, I'll remember that "SpryGuy said this doens't totally suck"...

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

Some resources for you to read (and if you're open-minded, you'll read them):

Epiphany on Brokeback Mountain by Christian Theologan Dr David Jenkins

Jamin Raskin, Professor of Constitutional Law at American University's Washington College of Law, gives his Testimony Before the Maryland State Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee

And now to reply...

You know what? Coming out and saying, "Hey, I disagree with homosexuality and I think it is a choice" has nothing to do with hatred.

No, it has to do with ignorant bigotry. Homosexuality isn't something you can "agree" with or not. It's real. It exists. It IS. It's like saying "I don't agree with blue eyes". It's an assinine statement. And thinking it's a "choice" is equally ignorant. It proves you haven't thought about it one whit, nor have you looked at any studies, or anything else.

If you have homosexual friends and a homosexual boss, you obviously don't KNOW them, or you'd know damn well it wasn't a choice. How can you even say that? Have you listened to their struggles, their stories of coming to terms with themselves, coming out to families and friends, fear of rejection, etc? Who would ever CHOOSE to be so universally hated and oppressed? Many of whom lose their familes and suffer greatly (though thankfully this is becoming less and less true). I

n fact, it is this topic that this movie (the one we're allegedly discussing) makes perfectly clear: it's not a choice. Most gay people, if they COULD choose, WOULD choose to fit in, be "normal", and not disappoint or upset their parents and friends. It takes a long time for gay people to throw off all the ignorant prejudice that you and they and everyone else is programmed with by society, in order to finally end up even remotly happy and well-adjusted.

To say you "don't approve" of homosexuality is just no different from saying you "don't approve" of blue eyes, or dark skin.

And not a single liberal I know of "hates Christians" (more of that faux persecution complex... oh you poor Chrisitians who are 80% of the population and control everything! how horribly oppressed and marginalized you are! Not!). Hell, Jesus was a Liberal! Liberals LOVE Jesus, even those that aren't Christian! It's the hatred and oppression from many of Jesus's followers that Liberals and Gays can do without.

Most liberals believe strongly in freedom of religion (unlike conservatives, who seem to want to force one religion -- always THEIRS -- on everyone else). What liberals hate is the ignorant bigotry and the fascism of fundamentalism (of all kinds). Most gay people I know are Christians and love Christians who don't persecute them first. What you perceive as "hatered with all their heart and soul" is nothing more than a REACTION to the ignorant bigotry they face from people like you and Conservative Christians from the start. Take away the ignorant bigotry and oppression, and the liberals and gays wouldn't have anything to react to, and there would be nothing for you to perceive (erroniously) as hate.

It also irks when the persecutors act like they're being persecuted for not being "allowed" to persecute. That's what gets me. Somehow, allowing gay people to have equal rights under the law is perceived as "anti-Christian" when it's nothing of the sort. I hate that *ignorant* and *bigoted* attitude. I don't hate Christians. Assuming I do is another strange and unfounded assumption, right up there with homosexuality being a 'choice'.

If you would educate yourself, and realize that there is no such thing as a "choice" when it comes to sexual orientation, that there is no such thing as an "ex-gay" (only "gee, I've allowed myself to be psychologically beaten back into the closet" gays), no such thing as "recruitment" by gays, and that gay people are whole, loving, caring, and worthwhile people who deserve

Re:Brokeback

[fatcatman]

It's like saying "I don't agree with blue eyes". It's an assinine statement. And thinking it's a "choice" is equally ignorant. It proves you haven't thought about it one whit, nor have you looked at any studies, or anything else.

Horse shit. Blue eyes are something you can't control. Homosexual behavior is. Sorry, but the "facts" of homosexuals being "born that way" are very much in dispute.

See, I find it ridiculous you can stand up and compare a behavior with something a person "is". A black person is black because he was born with black skin. A disabled person is disabled because he has a physical problem. A homosexual is only a homosexual because he engages in homosexual behavior. Surely you can understand the difference between behavior - something you can control - and something you simply are whether you like it or not.

I realize you will come back with a statement such as, "Homosexuals just ARE, too." I disagree. Homosexuality is a learned behavior.

gay people are whole, loving, caring, and worthwhile people who deserve equal treatment and protection under the law

If you have homosexual friends and a homosexual boss, you obviously don't KNOW them, or you'd know damn well it wasn't a choice. How can you even say that? Have you listened to their struggles, their stories of coming to terms with themselves, coming out to families and friends, fear of rejection, etc?

Yes, I have. I watched as my friend, a heterosexual who'd had sex with women, "discovered" he liked men, too. "Now I know why I've always been so sensitive", he said - as if straight men can't be sensitive? At first, he'd get angry if you said he was gay: "No, I'm BI. I like women, too." However, having found acceptance by other men - something he was never very good at getting from women - he eventually dropped the "bi". Now, women are "gross" and people who are attracted to them are "breeders".

I love the guy. He's my buddy. He always will be. But his homosexual behavior was learned, a result of finding it easier to bond with gay men. I believe, had he not found friendship - and, eventually, comfort - in the company of several gay men he met as a teenager, he would have eventually found what he was looking for in a woman.

Who would ever CHOOSE to be so universally hated and oppressed?

Homosexuality is in vogue right now. It's been quite popular for a long time. In fact, the general idea of being an outcast became extremely popular in the early nineties. Before about 15 years ago, people tried to fit in. Now, they try to "fit out", finding comfort in dressing like vampires, using legal or illegal drugs, wearing extra-baggy clothes, or - yes - going gay.

So, why would someone choose to be "universally hated and oppressed?" Simple - it's popular. Oh, and the hatred and oppression is not universal. People who engage in behaviors that make them social outcasts find comfort and friends in other social outcasts. Why do you think raves are so popular?

It's the hatred and oppression from many of Jesus's followers that Liberals and Gays can do without.

See, you people blow everything out of proportion. You know what - other than a few fucked up individuals, such as those sickos who killed Matthew Sheppard (may they forever rot in hell for their actions) - virtually nobody hates gay people. Especially Jesus's followers. Anybody who is following Jesus by definition should not hate anyone. Now, are there people who claim to follow Jesus, but hate anyway? Sure there are. But they aren't really following Jesus. Anyone who tells you he is a Christian and that he hates you is lying about one or the other.

Virtually everyone I know will accept you as you are, regardless of sexual orientation. And I hang out with a lot of Christians.

Re:Brokeback

[SpryGuy]

Blue eyes are something you can't control.

Just like sexual orientation. Or left vs. right handedness.

Homosexual behavior is.

But Homosexual orientation isn't. Sure, you can force a left-handed person to write right-handed, but why? And it really ends up causing damage. Imagine if someone told you you couldn't act on your sexual orientation ever, and you had to "pretend" to be gay. You'd go nuts. You'd hate it. Why do you think it's any different for someone who is homosexual?

Sorry, but the "facts" of homosexuals being "born that way" are very much in dispute.

It's only disputed by ignorant bigots. Scientists and people who actually KNOW what they're talking about are not in dispute. They don't necessarily know the root cause, but they know a few things about it, and the fact is they know it's NOT due to nurture or to choice. Period. Current theories tend towards invitro hormonal environment combined with genetic predisposition.

See, I find it ridiculous you can stand up and compare a behavior with something a person "is".

Oh really? So a left-handed person is "just a behavior"? I mean, they naturally want to write with the wrong hand. There was a time, hundreds of years ago, when left-handed people were treated as "evil" and forced to "convert" to right-handed (it rarely worked). Your opinion of homosexuality is just like the old, ignorant attitudes that used to be expressed towards left-handed people. It's just as ridiculous and just as ignorant.

A homosexual is only a homosexual because he engages in homosexual behavior.

WRONG WRONG WRONG. You think homosexuals can't be virgins? Of course they can be. Being celebate doesn't make one any less homosexual, any more than being celebate makes one any less heterosexual. It's NOT just a behavior. It's emotion, and love, and feeling, and desire. It is FUNDAMENTAL to the person's being, just like your sexuality is.

Surely you can understand the difference between behavior - something you can control - and something you simply are whether you like it or not.

And surely you can understand that what you ARE affects your behavior. Homosexual people (what they are) enjoy homosexual sex (a behavior) and do not enjoy heterosexual sex (also a behavior). You ARE striaght. Homosexuals ARE homosexual. It's not just "what they do", it's who they are. You cannot "chose" who makes your dick hard. Being turned on JUST HAPPENS.

"Homosexuality is a learned behavior."

Bullshit. That is such a false behavior. Where do they learn it? From the moment of birth they are taught and innundated with heterosexuality. From every single billboard, magazine, TV show, movie, family member, and friend, heterosexuality is taught and asusmed. Most gay people of the past thought they were the only ones. You are just so flat out wrong with that assertion I can't even begin to comprehend how you can defend such a statement! You didn't choose to be straight, you just are. A homosexual person fantasizes about members of the same sex during adolescence, just as a heterosexual has wet-dreams about the opposite sex. If you had watched "60 Minutes" you would have seen a complete debunking of the myth that homosexuality is 'learned' behavior or a 'choice'. You can educate yourself. Repeating ignorant stuff like this will get you labeled, rightly so, as ignorant.

As for your "friend", your generalizing from a non-comprehension of what he was going through. And not every gay person is the same. Like I said before (and you ignored), human sexuality is complicated. Some people are totally homosexual, some are totally heterosexual, and some are anyhere in between. Human sexuality is a spectrum of desires, and is complicated by all sorts of things. Some people are hypersexual, some are asexual, some are fixated on fetishes. Maybe your friend is "mostly gay" or really is bisexual. Or maybe he was just gay, and in denial for a long time. That

Re:Brokeback

[fatcatman]

I'm not going to address most of your points because it's obvious we will never come to an agreement on this subject. Regardless of what I say, you will continue to claim I am an "ignorant bigot", so it' s pointless. However, I do want to address a few issues:

WRONG WRONG WRONG. You think homosexuals can't be virgins?

I wasn't talking about sex. I was talking about two people of the same sex loving one another in an intimate manner. Of course homosexual people can be virgins.

it's perfectly legal to fire someone just for being gay, evict someone just because they're gay (and that does happen a lot), and beat the shit out of people because they're gay.

With regards to hiring, homosexuals are discriminated against for perfectly valid reasons. Many people find their behavior disgusting. Quite frankly, grown men behaving like little girls, displaying the stereotypical homosexual traits, really puts people off. I won't hire someone who can't act normal. What a person does in his bedroom is none of my business, but how he interfaces with my customers and how he behaves while on the job is.

Therefore, if homosexual people find they are being discriminated against in employment, the solution is to simply stop behaving so flagrantly. Take my boss, for example: If you didn't know him, you wouldn't know he was gay. He's not hiding in the closet; he's just not going out of his way to attract attention to his sexual orientation. I respect him for that. More importantly, I can stand to be around him, and so can everyone else who works with him.

As for "beating the shit out of people", this is still perfectly illegal everywhere, as it should be. No sane person believes this is acceptable and I've never heard of anyone calling for it's legalization.

TONS of people hate gay people "just for being gay", and virtually all of them quite and cite the Bible in the justification of their treatment of gay people.

These people are hypocrites. It is true, the Bible does not have good things to say about gay people. However, the Bible also does not have good things to say about any of us - it is quite clear that we are all sinners, all equally bad (and good) in God's eyes. Yes, Christians believe homosexuality is a sin. But we also believe lust is a sin, one I am guilty of every time I see an attractive woman in a nice pair of jeans. Not to mention the countless other sins we are all guilty of.

My point is: Treating people badly and justifying it by quoting the Bible is clearly wrong. The so-called "Christians" who do this are conveniently ignoring the parts of the Bible they don't like, and as such, are not behaving as Christians at all.

Matthew 7:3: "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

I will not condemn homosexuals because (a) I am every bit the sinner as they are, and (b) they are my brothers in Christ. Therefore I shall treat them like a brother. Jesus told us to love one another and since I (attempt to) follow his teachings, I will oblige. Not because I am "forced" to, but because it's the right thing to do.

So you can call me an ignorant bigot, closed minded, or whatever you wish. You can add me to your list of foes and write me off as an awful person. Still, at the end of the day, I will treat you better than the majority of people on this planet would and I will fight from within to teach others who call themselves Christians to start behaving as such.

Re:Brokeback

[SpryGuy]

I was talking about two people of the same sex loving one another in an intimate manner.

So... to extrapolate, you don't think homosexuals deserve love or to have satisfying relationships with people they love? Wow.

With regards to hiring, homosexuals are discriminated against for perfectly valid reasons. Many people find their behavior disgusting.

Yeah, and people used to say that blacks (or jews, or insert minority group here) were discriminated against for perfectly valid reasons. And I'm sorry, but someone being disgusted by who I or you or anyone else sleeps with or is in love with is NOT a valid reason for firing someone. I think my coworkers' wife is a fat cow who's ugly and smells funny, and the thought of them having sex digusts me. Why should that make any difference to housing or employment or anything? It's an OPINION. It shouldn't be law.

Quite frankly, grown men behaving like little girls, displaying the stereotypical homosexual traits, really puts people off.

More ignroant bigoted ramblings. Imagine saying the equivalent statement about black people and then trying to clame you weren't a bigot. But 9 of 10 gay people do not behave "like little girls" in any way (in fact, you probably are around a lot of gay people you have no clue are gay). Not every gay person displays "stereotypical homosexual traits", and I know more than a few straight guys who are quite effeminate or flamboyant. And who the hell cares if it puts people off? Someone who doesn't hew to rigid gender stereotypes deserves to be fired or evicted?

To punish ALL gay people because you're uncomfortable about people who don't behave the way you want them to is ... ridiculous.

And just be aware, that throughout history, bigots never think of themselves that way. They always have rationalizations and justifications, they always feel righteous and just in their behavior and their opinions. But that doesn't make them any less well informed or any less prejudiced. Yes, you're a bigot. Yes, because you still believe homosexuality is any kind of "choice" even after it has been proven in study after study to be no such thing, you are ignorant. "Ignorant" is not an insult... we're all ignorant on SOME topic. You're ignorant on this one, and I'm just inviting you to learn more so that you stop spreading misinformation and start being a little more rational on this issue.

As I said before, it wasn't long ago that people held the same opinions as you towards left-handed people... that they were making a bad moral choice, and it was perfectly okay to shun them for their "behavior". Now, nobody thinks twice about the minor efforts needed to accomodate left-handed people in society. And all the SAME lame arguments against gay marrage were used only 50 years ago to justify the ban on interracial marriage. When interracial marraige was legalized, 90% of the population was against it. But it was the right thing to do, and allowing same-sex couples to have the same legal protections as other couples. Because if my two friends Mark and Jennifer, who are both athiests, and who have both been sterilized and unable to have children, can go down to the justice of the peace with a couple of witnesses and get a marriage license, then I can't understand why my friends Victor and Steve can't. It's not just, and it doesn't serve the greater good to treat them as second-class citizens.

Once again, you've given no indication if you've read the links I posted or not, or the reviews of Brokeback mountain (written by straight guys) or not. There is much, I think, for you to learn there, and I'm fully willing to give you other links to research and studies that support everything I've said, and which refute most of your beliefs on this subject (re: it being a 'choice'). I encourage you to read them. And maybe after some reading, you'll understand, and you won't be ignorant any more. And maybe with a little more life experience, you won't be a bigot any more either.

Re:Brokeback

[fatcatman]

So... to extrapolate, you don't think homosexuals deserve love or to have satisfying relationships with people they love?

What? I have no idea where you came up with that. I don't believe that at all.

At this point all I'm getting out of this conversation is that you are predisposed to being against me. You're going to twist my words to suit your opinion of me regardless of what I say. So, this will be my last response to you.

And I'm sorry, but someone being disgusted by who I or you or anyone else sleeps with or is in love with is NOT a valid reason for firing someone.

Agreed. Again, I don't care what people do in the privacy of their own homes. I care how they behave while on the job. See below for more on this:

And who the hell cares if it puts people off? Someone who doesn't hew to rigid gender stereotypes deserves to be fired or evicted?

Fired? Yes, absolutely, if circumstances warrant. If I run a business and an employee is flaming gay, trying desperately to tell everyone just how gay he is with over-the-top behavior, I have every right to get rid of him. Why, because it is disruptive to the other employees, it's disruptive to customers, and a lot of people are simply bothered by it - including me.

Yes, that's reason enough - many people being bothered by something a person can control - to fire. If an employee uses foul language, he gets fired. If he makes unwanted sexual advances to people, he gets fired. Likewise, if an employee cannot control his flaming behavior while on the job and it is disruptive - guess what, he gets fired.

Evicted? Well, that depends. I wouldn't evict someone just for being gay. I don't think that's right. This is a very different situation from employment; I can't think of a reasonable justification where even flaming gay behavior could be grounds for an eviction. Behavior in even a rented home is a lot different from behavior at work.

But 9 of 10 gay people do not behave "like little girls" in any way (in fact, you probably are around a lot of gay people you have no clue are gay).

I know that. And you know what? Those people don't need laws to protect them - if they behave normally, nobody knows they're gay, so there's no problem here. Bill Clinton got a lot of shit for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", but quite frankly I think that's an appropriate response. Why? (1) It's none of my damn business who you sleep with; (2) I don't want to know, so please don't make it so obvious; (3) If I don't know, you don't have to worry about my opinion of it.

By the way - I am significantly more supportive of gay people who behave normally. I'm sorry, but it's the flamers who have ruined it for your community. The people who shove their gayness in everyone's face with their flaming behavior are the reason for these backlashes. I don't have any problem with the 9 out of 10 gay people who behave normally in public.

Yes, you're a bigot.

According to the dictionary, a bigot is a prejudiced person who is intolerant of any opinions differing from their own. For you to call me a bigot is horse shit. I am perfectly tolerant of your opinion, and I am perfectly tolerant of normal gay people. But I don't have to be tolerant of flaming behavior, and refusing to tolerate that does not make me a bigot any more than refusing to tolerate a loud-mouthed asshole does.

Further, there is a huge difference between tolerance and acceptance, which is something the gay community needs to learn. Tolerance is, "I understand you are this way. I don't like it and I don't agree with it, but it is your decision and I will leave well enough alone." I have infinite tolerance for homosexuals.

Acceptance, on the other hand, is something I do not have. Acceptance says, "I agree with your behavior, I think it's acceptable." Sorry, but I don't agree with it. I don't think it's acceptable. And I'm not a bigot for not accepting it.

I can refuse to fully embrace your lifestyle while simultaneously tolerating it. Keep pushing for acceptance and you'll get more and more backlash. Learn to live with tolerance and you'll be just fine.

Re:Brokeback

[SpryGuy]

And you know what? Those people don't need laws to protect them - if they behave normally, nobody knows they're gay, so there's no problem here.

Yes. Yes they do. Because you can't hide being gay even if you act "normally". Because your partner, the person you love, lives with you. Because you go out in public and do things with them. Because you want to have a picture of them on your desk the way your officemates have pictures of their loved ones on their desks. Because you are a couple.

You don't seem to have any concept of just how damaging the closet it, how denial of self, denial of love and expression of that love, and internalized hatred of self can damage someone.

Bill Clinton got a lot of shit for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", but quite frankly I think that's an appropriate response. Why? (1) It's none of my damn business who you sleep with; (2) I don't want to know, so please don't make it so obvious; (3) If I don't know, you don't have to worry about my opinion of it.

No, actually it isn't appropriate. It's stupid and fundamentally flawed. You're asking people to LIE (by omission) and HIDE WHO THEY ARE. That's not rational or justified. Straight guys in the army can talk about their girlfriends and wives. But gay people have to hide any indiciation that they're in a long-term relationship from everyone, and risk getting kicked out if any such indication ever gets even accidentally exposed?

Yes, it's none of your business who anyone sleeps with, but that's not the same thing as saying you have some sort of RIGHT to never know who anyone sleeps with -- much less restricting that right to just one segment of the population. God knows you know who straight people sleep with ... that information is on every wedding invitation, in the wearing of every wedding band, and all around you in society. Why is it okay for you to get all this passive information about who heterosexuals sleep with, but you feel you have some right to ban homosexuals from giving off any such passive information?

I am significantly more supportive of gay people who behave normally. I'm sorry, but it's the flamers who have ruined it for your community.

I think you really have some rigid issues with gender conformity. You have to understand that most of the people who you consider to be flaming fall into one of two camps: 1) Those who are just behaving naturally for themselves, which if you look at it, is not much different from the way a lot of women act in public, and 2) those who are over-compensating for years of repression of their natural selves. I know many people in the first group. They are the way they are, and if you take a step back, their behavior is absolutely no different than you'd find in women in many other cultures. The behavior is only "wrong" because it's a man doing it? Sounds misogynistic to me. Or at least sexist. I do admit that those in the 2nd camp can be downright obnoxious (the way recent ex-smokers can be really obnoxious), but they tend to settle down after a while, and of course if the oppression didn't exist in the first place, this camp wouldn't even exist.

I don't have any problem with the 9 out of 10 gay people who behave normally in public.

So you'd be willing to acknowledge it's not "just a choice", and support equal treatment under the law for these people, in terms of housing, employment, and civil marriage rights and responsibilities?

Further, there is a huge difference between tolerance and acceptance, which is something the gay community needs to learn. Tolerance is, "I understand you are this way. I don't like it and I don't agree with it, but it is your decision and I will leave well enough alone." I have infinite tolerance for homosexuals.

But you have to consider how ridiculous that sounds. It's like saying "I understand you are left handed. I dont like it and I don't agree with it, but it is your decision and I will leave well enough alone." The WHOLE P

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this says it all: Anti-Christian Bigotry?

Re:Brokeback

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this says it all: Anti-Christian Bigotry?

Eh?

[voice_of_all_reason]

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Amazing! Not only can they transfer movies automagically over copper wires directly into my home, but the cables apparently create an inverse tachyon beam that brings movies in from the future!

Re:Eh?

[necro81]

There's some joke reference to Spaceballs to be made here. How can there be a video of Spaceballs - we're still in the middle of making it? Alas, my brain isn't working fast enough this morning.

Re:Eh?

[EABird]

When will then be now?

Soon.

Re:Eh?

[grasshoppa]

er...

Actually, I think that was more a reference to the last episode of Star Trek, TNG. When Que starts flipping Picard between the three different time periods, and he..uh..

Sorry, yeah, I'm a geek. Sorry.

Re:Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

SANDURZ: Pardon me, sir. I have an idea. Corporal, get me the video cassette of Spaceballs - the Movie.

CORPORAL: Yes, sir.

HELMET: Colonel Sandurz, may I speak with you, please?

SANDURZ: Yes, sir.

HELMET: How could there be a cassette of Spaceballs - the Movie. We're still in the middle of making it.

SANDURZ: That's true, sir, but there's been a new breakthrough in home-video marketing.

HELMET: There has?

SANDURZ: Yes. Instant cassettes. They're out in stores before the movie is finished.

Re:Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't be much of a geek if you didn't know that you spell it 'Q'.

Re:Eh?

[grasshoppa]

Guilty as charged.

I've been working with my mail server all morning.

Re:Eh?

[krakelohm]

Just a second ago.

Re:Eh?

[kwark]

You can't be much of a sendmail hacker if you can spell queue.

Re:Eh?

[kwark]

Obviously the "can" should be "can't"

Re:Eh?

[triso]

It's a boo-boo by the original poster. The article says, "the latest Harry Potter installment," which is "The Goblet of Fire" movie.

It's the Steve Jobs effect.

[neoshroom]

Fearful of the same digital piracy that humbled the music industry, two online vendors are poised to start offering recently released flicks via the Web. It's the Steve Jobs effect.

I thought the Steve Jobs effect was to make you believe that G5 smokes Intel processors only to a year or two later make you believe the opposite with equal fervor.

__
Elephant Essays - Custom-created essays and research papers.

Re:It's the Steve Jobs effect.

[kannibal_klown]

In his defense, the G5 was heller-nice when it came out.

Unfortunately, from what I've heard it was power hungry and wasn't being advanced (ie, sped up) as quickly as they'd like. But the power thing was quite a factor, as Apple is really into laptops and they were stuc kon old G4's for a wihle now.

Re:It's the Steve Jobs effect.

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

nothing ever changes does it? certainly not when it comes to something as stagnant as the tech industry, and certainly not over a period of time so inconceivably small as a couple of years.

I for one am still satisfied by my 640kb.

Re:It's the Steve Jobs effect.

[wvitXpert]

Steve Jobs never said that Intel processors were always better than G5s, just that they are now. And even more to the point, this is just after Intel released a whole new chip design that is even tempting AMD users over to the darkside. While your comment might seem to make sense on the surface, any amount of thought at all would show it to be unintelligent.

Can't Burn?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't burn a copy to play on your DVD player, then forget about it... Unless it's cheaper than buying the DVD (by at LEAST $10)... I'm fine with them putting the CSS encryption on my burnt DVD, but they have to let me burn it for me to even consider it...

*Note* I only dl movies if I want to watch it first before buying, but I normally do actually buy the DVD (if the movie doesn't suck).

Re:Can't Burn?

[should_be_linear]

Yes but this subscription will include 4 office chairs so that all family can sit in front of Windows computer and enjoy DRM'd movie together.

Re:Can't Burn?

[neersign]

I think cost is what drives piracy, and I think it's time the movie industry and recording industry realized this. Instead of spending more money on DRM that will be cracked anyway, they should just give in and realize that no one wants to pay $20-30 for one DVD. The people I know who purchase DVD's on a regular basis only buy them when they are on sale for $10 or below.

and, as you were hinting, people who pay for and download a movie should be entitled to burn it to dvd if they choose. I don't see how this new DRM is going to stop a person who pirates movies now. The DRM is only going to piss off legitimate purchasers whose only means of watching a DVD on their tv is thru a DVD. And you may say, "well then they need to buy a DVD and not download it." But how many people do you think are going to pay to download the movie and then realize they can't burn it? I think that number is going to be huge at first, then enough people will get sick of dealing with whatever tech support they try to call to fix the problem, then they are going to tell all of their friends, who tell all of their friends, which in turn decreases the number of people who download any movie legitimately, which makes it not even worth the effort to begin with. And in the end, the DRM might have effectively stopped 2 people from pirating the movie.

Re:Can't Burn?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those four office chairs better have mega-cup holders built in for my homemade (homenuked) popcorn. THat's the dealbreaker right there.

Re:Can't Burn?

[newevilmind]

yeah I don't understand that. If you're purchasing a download, why shouldn't you be able to do what you want with it?? I get the feeling they really don't want to replace the old disc format with downloads and digital streams. They do everything they can to make legally purchasing digital files unattractive.

Re:Can't Burn?

[Mister Whirly]

Well, you won't be able to LEGALLY copy it to DVD...Just give the 14 year olds a day after the format comes out and you will be able to transfer them to DVD... > Even though you are taking the semi-moral high road on this issue, the MPAA still considers you a criminal.

Re:Can't Burn?

[Doctor Memory]

What about a policy whereby you could burn a copy annually? When you first download the movie, you can burn a copy, but only one. Then, after a year has passed, you can burn another one. The DVD you burn would have the "don't-reburn" bit set, so you couldn't copy it, but once a year you would have the ability to burn a new copy. This would permit people to replace copies that had been destroyed, but not crank them out wholesale. Re-copy permissions wouldn't accumulate; once you have the ability to re-burn, you have it until you make that copy, then you have to wait for another year. If it's true that the lifetime of home-burned DVDs is really only about five years, then people are going to want to have the ability to re-burn their favorite movies, just to replace the ones that "wear out".

Re:Can't Burn?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't burn CSS... the key is in a non-writable area!

Re:Can't Burn?

[6e7a]

I think you can burn the file with its DRM to a DVD, you just can't watch it on a normal DVD player. Yet.

Re:Can't Burn?

[Anonymous Coward]

I want you to think about this for a minute:

If you can burn a DVD on your computer, you can watch a DVD on your computer. Which means if you don't have a DVD burner, you can't make a DVD anyway.

That is all.

Re:Can't Burn?

[cayenne8]

"they should just give in and realize that no one wants to pay $20-30 for one DVD."

Geez...if you think $20 is too much to spend on a DVD...chances are you need to be doing something with your time to learn to earn a better living that sitting around watching DVD's all the time...

:-)

DRM?

[orzetto]

both sites for now are only allowing the movies people buy through downloads to be stored on PCs or on devices like the game player Xbox outfitted with certain Microsoft software

Cue to DVD-Jon crack in 3.. 2.. 1..

Seriously, does anyone know how much effort it would take to crack these DRM'd formats and export to AVI? What sort of security is in place? And wouldn't anyone be able to make a "bootleg" analog copy anyway?

Re:DRM?

[DannyO152]

Why do their work for them? I say, if they don't want to release in a format I can use, then they proceed without my dollars and with my negative word-of-mouth.

Re:DRM?

[firl]

They currently allow RealPlayer, and windows media DRM. It is quite nice actually, I do not remember if the Downloaded movies (that you buy) have the same DRM. They currently have d/l speeds at 1.7megs a second on my cable connection. I can think of various ways of "riping" but even if it does get cracked soon, I can microsoft and real updating the drm quite quickly.

Re:DRM?

[trandles]

I can't see these download services surviving for long unless the movie studios subsidize their existence. For one thing they only support windoze. Secondly, why would anyone pay to download movies that can be had for free (albeit illegally) elsewhere and on multiple platforms. This is yet another example of business not understanding their audience. If I'm going to spend money on a movie I want to be able to watch it how I want, where I want, not just on a windoze computer.

Re:DRM?

[stunt_penguin]

OK we can't really rely on DVD-Jon (since he's gone over to The Dark Side) but hopefully there's a DRM-Kristian or DRM-Sven out there to crack the encryption.

Having said that, the encryption can probably be updated each time a movie is released (to play this movie, click [here] to install latest player update"), making things much harder to crack. That said, there is no such thing as an unbreakable DRM system and i'm sure someone'll do it.

There's no way of making an optical (and therefore relatively permanent copy of these movies, therefore anyone who buys one online but whose HD Crashes/Mobo fries/computer is destroyed will have lost all the movies they bought more surely than if they'd been burgled and their DVD collection stolen.

Re:DRM?

[PFI_Optix]

For one thing they only support windoze.

Yeah, I mean they're going to lose so much business only supporting 95% of the market...

Re:DRM?

[squiggleslash]

Oh hush now. If there were any problems with DRM, we'd have seen them with DVDs which are controlled using CSS, a version of DRM, and Hollywood would be releasing "online" versions of movies to counter massive file trading, for example. Fortunately, that reality doesn't exist. CSS was never cracked, and you can't download movies via P2P networks.

Re:DRM?

[thedletterman]

Who in their right mind would even bother cracking the DRM since there are dvds readily available of a much higher quality. i mena seriously, every amateur dvd bootleg is better quality then this overpriced, drm-crippled piece of shit. The industry keeps wondering why their profits are going to shit, because they are wasting billions of dollars on bullshit ideas like this one. I don't know who the fuck would buy this except some geezer who wanted to impress his son, only to find himself asking his son why it doesn't play on his dvd player, only to be scorned by his son who laughs at his incompetance, who will later give him a bootleg copy of same movie that plays on his DVD player.

Re:DRM?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's great...until your heard drive crashes. What? No archival copy? It's okay...just buy another download of it.

Re:DRM?

[stunt_penguin]

I assumed that the downloaded movie would be encoded in H.264 with all the languages and stuff you'd get from a DVD. A 4.7GB dvd is lower quality than a 4.7GB (which is what these movie downloads better be) H.264 movie. Try watching a DVD on a projector- artefacts EVERYWHERE. Balls.

Re:DRM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I'm sure they're very worried about you standing up at the furry convention and ranting about their DRM. You're going to put a *huge* dent in their sales. Stick it to the man (in your crusty bunny suit)!

Re:DRM?

[Ucklak]

But that's only 95% (really 85%) of the Microsoft market, not the legitimate movie downloading buying market.

If their target audience is Windows users then fine.

Mac users are a loyal 15% of the computer industry. They keep buying the brand.
If the movie download companies want to alienate all movie buffs and focus on Windows only movie buffs then they're probably missing out on a 10% guaranteed income instead of a 90% "I'll try it once or twice"

Apple has been living off of a 15% chunk of the computer consumer market.

If they want 100% of their target audience, they should develop or re-brand (I.E. Rel Player or Java based) a client instead of just being a front for Microsoft because that's exactly what these companies are. They're not real independant companies, just a division of a larger.

Re:DRM?

[G)-(ostly]

It's not about doing work for them. It's about a bunch of nerds who:

A) Want to see the movie.
B) Don't want to pay for the movie.
C) Don't want to admit that they're just petty theives.

999/1000 people on this site seem to think that it's okay to just take something if you don't think it's value is proportional to its price. Of course, by that logic, I should be able to walk into a Macy's and take whatever I want, but hey (cue irrational excuse for thievery about not depriving someone of a material object in 5, 4, 3...)

Re:DRM?

[thedletterman]

Yeah, you know what just hit me? Devices like intel's viiv are the perfect device to take advantage of this technology.

Re:DRM?

[onebecoming]

Well, we're actually more like a loyal 2.2 percent worldwide. But I agree with your point--without Mac support, this is doomed to failure. We are a trendsetting 2.2 percent. ;-)

Re:DRM?

[Anonymous Coward]

A 4.7GB dvd is lower quality than a 4.7GB (which is what these movie downloads better be) H.264 movie.

Not necessarily. It depends what source they are encoding from. You don't get better quality by taking a dvd and encoding to H.264 of the same size. So are they doing fresh encodes from film for these? I've wondered the same thing about movies shown in HD on some cable channels.

Thanks...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but I think I've already dowloaded most of those.

Re:Thanks...

[Provocateur]

but I think I've already dowloaded most of those

C'mon, you can admit you've downloaded all of them, even Brokeback Mountain.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Re:Thanks...

[Gunny101]

By most I'm assuming you mean all but the movie that is not released yet.

Which means you're admitting to downloading Brokeback mountain.... BUSTED!

Re:Thanks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats wrong with downloading that?

I did, and it came in at around 1,2MB/s so theres alot of others curious about this movie...

BOO!

[Machina Fortuno]

I can now get that copy of Brokeback Mountain on my computer, cause really... who NEEDS a hard copy anyways?

I guess I have to recognize their effort at trying to get, yet again... another piece of the market. I think we might see this service being more popular further down he road... right now though, I would rather just go to Wal-mart and buy it. That takes like 5 minutes - the average movie-goer doesn' have lightning speed internet anyways, right?

I think it should be interesting to see the developments with the DRM on these monsters... just to see what they come up with. (the 6th computer that it is tranfered to gets a blue screen of death everytime that Derek over at the Movielink office presses the big red button)

Re:BOO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like YOU need a "hard" copy of Brokeback...

Encrypted, cannot play on DVD players

[digitaldc]

Who wants to download something you can't burn and then watch on your home theater?

I will just buy the DVD thanks.

Re:Encrypted, cannot play on DVD players

[Anonymous Coward]

"Who wants to download something you can't burn and then watch on your home theater?

I will just buy the DVD thanks."

and they are asking a price of DVD - Stealth $14.95 - the same price as it is at walmart

Re:Encrypted, cannot play on DVD players

[mblase]

Who wants to download something you can't burn and then watch on your home theater?

I dunno, who wants to buy a movie you can't rip to your PC without violating the DMCA?

Oh, that's right, everybody.

Re:Encrypted, cannot play on DVD players

[digitaldc]

I dunno, who wants to buy a movie you can't rip to your PC without violating the DMCA?

Oh, that's right, everybody.

Everybody has given up ship, have gone underground, and are now setting sail from the Pirate Bay.

Re:Encrypted, cannot play on DVD players

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

>I dunno, who wants to buy a movie you can't rip to your PC without violating the DMCA?

people who live in countries where U.S. law doesn't apply?

Re:Encrypted, cannot play on DVD players

[uniqueUser]

Who wants to download something you can't burn and then watch on your home theater? I will just buy the DVD thanks.

...Or just continue to download from TPB and the like.

Until consumers can purchase their "license" in the media format AND and encoding format of their choosing, piracy will be rampant.

Re:Encrypted, cannot play on DVD players

[theJML]

I agree, I mean, [Best Buy | Circuit City | Wal Mart | ] isn't that far away. AND I actually get a case with liner notes and a place to put the DVD, and maybe some special features.. and that "New CD Smell".

Re:Encrypted, cannot play on DVD players

[Tweekster]

People that dont have a problem ignoring the law?

Re:Encrypted, cannot play on DVD players

[Steve Hamlin]

My guess is that there are a LOT more people who would want to download a movie and watch it in their living room, than would want to buy a DVD and rip it to their computer harddrive.

Those 2 populations are definitely not the same, so that fact that people will buy DVD's with DRM (which most people never even know about) doesn't mean they'll necessarily accept downloaded movies with DRM (which would quickly be known, and a problem, to many people).

Nice idea, but...

[coffeechica]

Unlike their current services, in which online shoppers pay around $4 to rent new movies for up to a month, the films will be sold for prices "similar to home video," says Ramo.

Are they trying to deliberately kill the idea of movie downloads? Simultaneous release, same price... why should anyone wait for a few hours for a download when it's just as quick to get the actual DVD? And costs as much? The DVD can be passed on to others and there's no need to install special software on the PC to actually get it running.

Looks very much like an alibi action - "we tried to offer it, but nobody wanted it! So why should we bother?"

Re:Nice idea, but...

[voice_of_all_reason]

.why should anyone wait for a few hours for a download when it's just as quick to get the actual DVD?

Exactly. Even with cable internet on a popular torrent, you're still looking to at least an hour for a 1.4GB compressed copy, even longer if this service uses full 4.6GB uncompressed. I can go outside, wait for and take the bus, buy a hard copy, and get home all before this is done. Or just pick it up on the way home from work.

Re:Nice idea, but...

[sanoja]

Not only that, but their claim that you get to keep the movie "up to a month" is not totally true...

Sure, you can store the movie on your PC up to a month, but the moment you start watching it, you have 24 hours to view it or it goes bye bye.

Re:Nice idea, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they trying to deliberately kill the idea of movie downloads? Simultaneous release, same price... why should anyone wait for a few hours for a download when it's just as quick to get the actual DVD?

It's all about convenience, dude!

Re:Nice idea, but...

[Laur]

you're still looking to at least an hour for a 1.4GB compressed copy, even longer if this service uses full 4.6GB uncompressed.

FYI, commercial DVDs are definetely not uncompressed, they use MPEG2 compression. Also, full dual layer DVDs are closer to 7-8GB, not 4.6GB (of course, this includes things like extras and special features, which I'm not sure if these downloads will have).

Re:Nice idea, but...

[supabeast!]

They don't want to kill movie downloads - they want to kill physical media and not give consumers a price break. Americans pay far less for movies and music than the rest of the world, and the movie companies would make a hell of a lot more money by narrowing distribution down to a single middleman with no costs for physical media. It would also mean no more movies passed around between friends, shown at parties, schools, etc.. Sure people probably won't pay full price for downloads now, but the service can take a loss for a few years while they work out the bugs, and then Harry Potter six or seven can be released as an internet exclusive, at which point the movie companies start abandoning physical media and start reaping huge profits.

Re:Nice idea, but...

[Danathar]

Yes...but many people are lazy and would rather start a download before going to bed than get in their car. The argument that people will not download films due to the size ignores the fact that it's already happening. Just because YOU are not doing it does not mean other people are also not doing it.

Re:Nice idea, but...

[coffeechica]

The thing is that once you pay for it, I doubt there's going to be quite as much willingness to wait several hours, at the very least, for a download to finish. Many people will put up with the wait because it means getting something for free, but if it costs the same as picking up the DVD along with your groceries, I just can't see downloads taking a huge market size. Assuming you leave your home once or twice a day, it's probably just as convenient to rent or buy the DVD along the way.

Re:Nice idea, but...

[coffeechica]

I hadn't thought of that. It makes a scary amount of sense. Wean everybody off DVDs gradually, switch cooperation from the current DVD-carrying stores to electronics producers with their integration systems of PCs, TV etc so they can insist nothing is lost in the conversion away from DVD. Retain much more control over the movie/music/whatever. And the majority of customers will think of it as a convenient innovation.

Re:Nice idea, but...

[cmsix]

at which point the movie companies start abandoning physical media and start reaping huge profits

What do you mean by "start reaping huge profits?"

cmsix

Re:Nice idea, but...

[mzieg]

you're still looking to at least an hour for a 1.4GB compressed copy, even longer if this service uses full 4.6GB uncompressed. I can go outside, wait for and take the bus, buy a hard copy, and get home all before this is done.

Hey, wow, you've just completely destroyed Amazon's business model! Why would anyone wait 2-14 days for shipping when then can drive down to the bookstore and get a copy in person? And catalog sales...Sears & Roebuck will never make any money off that!

Thanks for sharing the benefits of your M.B.A. with us.

Re:Nice idea, but...

[chad.koehler]

However, most of the time with Amazon.com (and others) there is a significant cost savings involved with the wait. Word is these downloads will actually be MORE expensive than buying the physical copy. Want to wager a guess as to what would happen to Amazon.com if they had been MORE expensive than your local Barnes & Nobles?

Re:Nice idea, but...

[supabeast!]

"What do you mean by "start reaping huge profits?"

Start reaping huge profits from internet-only movie sales as opposed to losing money when the system is competing with movies delivered on physical media.

Re:Nice idea, but...

[jZnat]

That's of course because raw digital video and audio of that resolution and length would use a metric shitload of space. Of course, that wouldn't be very easy to transfer over the internet, so I don't see why movies won't be like that in the future anyways.

Re:Nice idea, but...

[Rib Feast]

That is completely true. As owners of the material they seek to do one thing - maximise profits.

Given they make a fortune off DVDs, and the demand is inelastic, why would they use a distribution method that would mean they take a pay cut?

For the studios DVDs just work, as humans we long for convenience and title. By asking them for downloads, and a permanent copy of the download, we are expecting a discount given that there were no production costs.

They don't see it that way - downloading is a pain in the ass for them in terms of control over their product, and it blurs the line between providing a service or a solid product that has a recognised value.

I'd like to think that the major studios will one day offer the latest films with high quality and little DRM, but then I remind myself they are out to maximise their profit, and offering this is counter-productive when they have DVDs.

The move to Blu-ray and HD-DVD further their cause and create both a bridge in terms of what downloads must compete with in terms of content size and quality, and it has even more DRM. Win Win!

Re:Nice idea, but...

[NMerriam]

Amazon has a greater selection and lower prices.

If this online movie store had every movie ever made and sold them for $5 each, of course it would be hugely successful (despite any DRM or download times).

Re:Nice idea, but...

[cloudmaster]

Americans pay far less for movies and music than the rest of the world

What the shit? Why am I not living in wretched excess inside some friggin' awesome mansion that someone else cleans? How is it that damn near everything is supposely more expensive everywhere outside of America? In America, gas is cheap, music's cheap, movies are cheap, etc. It's always "what are you whining about, is way less expensive in America than ." Well, damn it, are wages way higher everywhere else, too? I really want to know. I make somewhere around twice the wages of the typical American household, but I sure don't feel like a bazillionaire driving my 10-year-old car and parking it outside at my 800 square foot house with the lawn that takes roughly 15 minutes to mow with a push mower. Somehow, though, every argument that involves prices going up for something implies that America is the land of the perpetual bargain.

I wonder if, maybe, people are just full of shit? Like, perhaps fuel is "more expensive" due to the insane taxes that Europeans pay at the pump while Americans pay elsewhere, and maybe the extra $3 that I'd pay for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire at amazon.co.uk is due to the cost of shipping, since I'd have to pay about $3 to get the DVD shipped to my house v/s free shipping there? I know, there's lots of "world" outside of Europe, but I don't know Amazon's African or South American sites off the top of my head (which is kinda strange now that I think about it, given the location of the Amazon).

Re:Nice idea, but...

[kesuki]

a couple things, first off, a MPEG-4 is not necisarly 'lower' quality than a mpeg-2 even though MPEG-4 can support up to 100:1 compression, while mpeg-2 tends to run around 20:1-25:1. Just like a 96 KBPS ogg vorbis can easily sound 'better' than a 192kbps Mp3, because the 'lossiness' creates different effects.

So if you're starting with fully cleaned up, and optomized uncompressed(or mathamatically lossless compressed) images it's quite easy to create a very small very clean, very high quality looking mpeg-4. all with a very reasonable file size. if you're starting from an already lossily compressed image, image loss will be inevitable. and the file sizes will go up for the same quality.

that's why if you take a commercially pressed DVD and try to make an mpeg-4 it winds up take a lot more space/looking bad...

Re:Nice idea, but...

[scragz]

It doesn't really matter as they're reaping huge profits regardless. I think the correct way to put it would be, "Eliminate the physical media costs and start reaping HUGER profits."

I'm not entirely sure on even that statement since their packaging costs can't be *that* much and bandwidth isn't free. Anyone know what the cost to print a DVD and box is, and how much 4-8GB of bandwidth is (assuming they give anywhere close to DVD-quality, which I doubt now that I think about it)?

Re:Nice idea, but...

[supabeast!]

I don't know the exact numbers but it's less than a dollar in Hollywood-sized volumes. Of course, that adds fast for companies that sell millions of DVDs every year.

Full purchase?

[snullbug]

What kind of newspeak is that? Full purchase at Wal-Mart - I get a DVD. Full purchase this way I get to store one copy on a HD? Bogus.

DRM galore

[giorgiofr]

FTA: Movies can't be "burned" or copied onto disks that can be played on other devices, such DVD players. The movies, however, can be copied to play on as many as two other PCs

Of course, it would be too easy if they were let out of the DRM jail...

Customers can hook up their computers to their TV sets using specially equipped video cables

Uh? Specially equipped cables? WTF are they talking about? Something that's got to do with HD and/or closing the analog hole?

Re:DRM galore

[voice_of_all_reason]

if they were let out of the DRM jail...

That'd be awesome. If it was like manhunt and you could just run into Wal-Mart and tag all the DVDs to set them free...

Re:DRM galore

[Anonymous Coward]

They probably are reffering to this cable; an Intel specification:

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/H/HDCP.html

Re:DRM galore

[Anonymous Coward]

Customers can hook up their computers to their TV sets using specially equipped video cables

Uh? Specially equipped cables? WTF are they talking about?
 
Video Output... S-VIDEO/RCA/Digital/component?

Your PC could act like a player for watching these movies on your home theater. I've done it before. And personally, I'd rather just pay for the DVD than to screw around with moving my computer everytime I want to watch a movie.

Re:DRM galore

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe they mean "an S-Video cable". That's how I watch movies from my PC on my TV.

Re:DRM galore

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

FTA: Movies can't be "burned" or copied onto disks that can be played on other devices, such DVD players. The movies, however, can be copied to play on as many as two other PCs

USA Today had an article today about this. The movies use WMV, which as we all know if very DRM-friendly, which the industry wants. I don't think it would be unreasonable to expect these expensive downloads to be at less than DVD resolutions AND have inferior sound to go along with the DRM. The article I read said something cryptic about how it would "look OK on your PC" which I am sure is code for a VCD type resolution such as 356x240.

Re:DRM galore

[ajs318]

I guess some expensive, non-CRT TV sets can probably tolerate the scan rates used by PC monitors. All TV sets bigger than 35cm. have RGB SCART inputs; but these are expecting TV-style, negative-going composite sync, so you might have to do some rudimentary signal conditioning {use a 2903 dual comparator, which has open-collector outputs that can safely be wired together, and a pull-up resistor -- you can pick up 12 volts somewhere like a disc drive power cable. While you are at it, pull pins 8 and 16 of the SCART socket high, to select RGB mode}.

If your graphics card will sync down to 50Hz interlaced, it should theoretically be able to display on any set with an RGB input -- if you can create the appropriate modeline. TV sets are generally more resistant to out-of-spec sync rates than monitors, since they have to tolerate all manner of weirdy shit inbetween stations.

Re:DRM galore

[velocipenguin]

The site described in the article is US-only; SCART is typically not found on American television sets (which, incidentally, refresh at 60 Hz, not 50.)

Re:DRM galore

[ajs318]

So how do you get an RGB signal into your TV sets, then? RGB is what goes straight to the tube / panel -- anything else needs processing and gives a noticeably inferior picture. Does every manufacturer have their own proprietary connector or something?

Let me guess

[Adult film producer]

320x240 video, 96kbps mp3 audio + some drm monkey dung.

Or I could run over to a torrent site and get BareBack Mountain,

Brokeback.Mountain.DVDR-Replica.torrent
RiPPER......: Replica GENRE......: Drama/Romance
ViDEO TYPE..: NTSC RUNTiME....: 134 min
AUDiO TYPE..: DD5.1 STORE DATE.: 04/04/06
iMDB RATiNG.: 8.0 RLS DATE...: 03/17/06

I wouldn't mind paying for it but make it worth my while.

Re:Let me guess

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing that we learned from Brokeback Mountain losing the Oscar was that it's ok to come in number two.

The rest of this crap (96kbps MP3 audio and 320x240 resolution) is meaningless!

Re:Let me guess

[Joh_Fredersen]

RE Bareback.

You foreget that the movie itself is rather tame.
The Constant Gardner should have totally swept the board at the Academy Awards.
The Constant Gardner unfortunately as a British movie couldn't break the Hollywood clique.

Free my British brothers from the grasp of the colonial oppresso... umm...
never mind.

Re:Let me guess

[TummyX]

Bill Maher called. He wants his joke back.

Hollywood still doesn't get it

[Professor_UNIX]

Offering movies and then restricting them to a PC, most likely some form of Windows Media DRM crap, for the same price as you could buy the unencumbered DVD in the store is not a way to market a new service! This is even worse than iTunes Music Store and their lossily encoded AAC DRM-restricted music files. At least with that you can burn a sub-CD quality version to a CD and rerip it to MP3 format to archive it.

Re:Hollywood still doesn't get it

[Scrameustache]

most likely some form of Windows Media DRM crap, for the same price as you could buy the unencumbered DVD in the store

They have unencumbered DVDs now? When did Macrovision go out of business?

Re:Hollywood still doesn't get it

[andrew_j_w]

you could buy the unencumbered DVD

Less encumbered probably. Unencumbered definitely not.

Re:Hollywood still doesn't get it

[DRM_is_Stupid]

iTunes Music Store already has video downloads, and they don't permit burning video to a format playable on generic DVD players. So, iTMS is not better but the same.

Re:Hollywood still doesn't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

iTunes purchases can be shared wirelessly from one computer to another using FrontRow. I've no need to "burn" anything. Besides, "burning" is going out of style.

Re:Hollywood still doesn't get it

[The Cisco Kid]

Try 'encumbered, but so ineffectually so that the movie industry is desperate for a new paradigm shift to something more restrictive'

Re:Hollywood still doesn't get it

[DRM_is_Stupid]

That's great. I was just making a correction/clarification to someone who was talking about videos and burning.

WIndows only?

[Selivanow]

Both companies seem to only support Windows and IE. What about the other half of the planet. Opensource aside, there is still a pretty big Mac base out there. It makes great market sense to alienate a group of users like that.

Re:WIndows only?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the other half of the planet

I think you meant to say, "what about the other 8% of the planet?". And guess what, you've answered your own question!

Re:WIndows only?

[way2trivial]

a big mac base?
http://news.com.com/Apple+to+ditch+IBM,+switch+to+ Intel+chips/2100-1006_3-5731398.html

1.8 percent of the market..

realistically, 1.8% is a fine percentage of folks to skip, when development and support would cost just as much as for the 98%

kinda like movies that no longer get released in vhs...

Re:WIndows only?

[Anonymous Coward]

That nice lady on the front of http://www.cinemanow.com/ must have a MacBook Pro with the latest XP-Hack installed!

Re:WIndows only?

[hrbrmstr]

Such strange logic, given that this is a group of people who are willing and very able to use digital media on computers (as opposed to the average PC user who can't even manage to keep malware off their systems) *and* have demonstrated over and over again how very willing they are to actually *pay* for stuff they use.

Couple that with a cheap system that can eaily be hooked up to a TV and *comes with a remote* and it would seem that the studios are overlooking a serious bit of cash flow.

And your argument about cross-platform development and support is dubious at best. Since we're just talking about displaying movies, Java could easily be employed as well as most of the cross-platform toolkits with hooks into Quicktime.

Re:WIndows only?

[DRM_is_Stupid]

It's Microsoft's strategy. Develop a video DRM solution, then make it playable only on their OS. I've visited a company that streams DRMed video, and streaming DRMed Windows Media pretty much requires all the servers to be Windows.

Re:WIndows only?

[samael]

Both companies seem to only support Windows and IE. What about the other half of the planet.

The other 7% surely?

I think the whole idea is stupid, but going for a Windows-only base probably makes their lives easier in various ways, so you can understand it. If it takes off they might find it financially worthwhile to take in the Mac crowd too.

Re:WIndows only?

[McZiggz]

But what about those of us PC users who don't open IE for anyone?

Oh well i guess... it seems like a good idea done poorly anyway.

Re:WIndows only?

[The Cisco Kid]

And just think, if they hadn't wasted their time with the (easily crackable, as demonstrated by a previous poster who was able to copy and transcode it on his Windows system) complicated DRM nonsense, they could easily have 'supported' 100% of the market.

Re:WIndows only?

[Anonymous Coward]

given that this is a group of people who are willing and very able to use digital media on computers

Ah, I think you're close to the point.

First, conventional wisdom says alot of artists use Macs. Then there's your mention of people using digital media. Last, you have the software/hardware that supports both. Now, think about this for a moment. There is a platform which is geared towards the creation of new media...by individuals (in other words, NOT the infinitely repackaged junk of the megacorporate cartel).

THAT, my friend, is why it's being attacked. And you thought it was just ignored! No, this is another front on which the MPAA/RIAA wages war on not only its own customers but the possible competition that might shake their death grip on western culture. They're terrified, and they'll use every dirty trick in the book (and some that aren't) to hold us back.

Re:WIndows only?

[Hitchcock_Blonde]

Due to the popularity of the iPod, there are a helluva lot of Windows PCs out there with QuickTime and iTunes installed In fact, QuickTime is doing some serious damage to the share of WMP around the world. Seems to me that its just plain stupid not to include a solution that works for both technologies.

I suspect Apple will have to rescue the movie industry just as it did the music industry.

Re:WIndows only?

[samael]

Oh, I totally agree. I don't think DRM does them any favours at all. But it'll take them a good few years before they come round to that way of thinking...

Re:WIndows only?

[mmeister]

The other 7% surely?

If I were to buy a downloaded movie, I definitely would want it to play on my iPod, so that other market share is more like 70%+. I definitely would not want to be stuck in front of my computer screen to watch a moview.

Funny how Microsoft has been pushing to try and get Apple to support their DRM on iPods, claiming the need for consumer choice, but when Microsoft gives you zero choice on which OS to use their DRM with (you can choose any OS as long as it is Windows). Once a monopoly, always a monopoly.

Re:WIndows only?

[samael]

Ack. You'd never get me watching anything other than short clips on a portable device. Personally, I want to watch my downloads on a TV, and I can't do that with this system either, so I'm certainly not going to go for it.

Re:WIndows only?

[mmeister]

You'd never get me watching anything other than short clips on a portable device.

Portable devices are great for when you are traveling. They also work fairly well connected to a TV, but they are definitely not HD quality. I would not want to build up a video collection with that quality.

Re:WIndows only?

[Weedlekin]

Strange then that this article on the same site (http://news.com.com/PC+market+surged+in+2005,+wil l+settle+in+2006/2100-1003_3-6028454.html) put Apple's market share for 2005 at 3.3%, representing a growth of 35% for a year in which the overall market grew 9%. Note also that this figure included servers, not just notebooks and desktops, meaning that according to these figures, Apple had 3.3% of _world computer sales_, not just world desktop / laptop sales. So which is it: 1.8% or 3.3%?

No burning to DVD?

[acidblood]

From the article:

To keep from competing directly with large retailers like Wal-Mart, both sites for now are only allowing the movies people buy through downloads to be stored on PCs or on devices like the game player Xbox outfitted with certain Microsoft (MSFT) software. Movies can't be "burned" or copied onto disks that can be played on other devices, such DVD players. The movies, however, can be copied to play on as many as two other PCs, says Ramo.

So they mean unless I have an Xbox, I'll have to watch it in the tiny 19" monitor in my bedroom instead of the 42" plasma TV and the badass sound system in my living room? Yeah, I predict they'll succeed big time.</sarcasm>

Re:No burning to DVD?

[elrous0]

Actually it could work if you had an Xbox 360. The problem is that, thanks to poor design on MS's part, you also need a media center PC to watch video on an Xbox. Hopefully, they'll fix that with Windows Vista, but it was a pretty dumb move.

As it stands, who in their right minds is going to pay $20-$30 for a movie that they could buy cheaper and at higher quality on a DVD, with the inconvenience of it being DRMed to the PC to boot?

If they really want to suceed, they need to cut the price to half that of the full-featured DVD and allow users to make one DVD copy. Ot better yet, offer a DVD/Download package where you can get the DVD *and* the download for a little more than the price of the DVD.

-Eric

Re:No burning to DVD?

[DRM_is_Stupid]

A Microsoft solution that requires you to buy more Microsoft to get it working. Who would have expected that.

So basically...

[Bogtha]

The move is aimed at stemming the rising tide of pirate downloads, and DRM will be in force to prevent copying the movies to DVD.

So basically, they aim to compete with piracy by selling me something less convenient at a higher price? Genius!

Seriously, when are they going to get it that the only thing they have going for them is convenience? The black market of free downloads is always going to be cheaper. The only way you can fight it is to offer a better, more convenient product. And tying it up with DRM that prevents what is probably the second most desired feature after watching it is only going to screw that up.

Why would I buy from them when I can get a copy that I can burn to DVD at a cheaper price? It's sad when anonymous pirates can provide better customer service than multinational corporations that created the damn thing in the first place.

Re:So basically...

[ce]

agree. It's like allofmp3 offereing far superior music download service than any other site I've seen

Re:So basically...

[elrous0]

something less convenient at a higher price? Genius!

It's so crazy it just might work!

Oh no, wait, that line only works if you're MacGyver or the A-Team.

-Eric

Re:So basically...

[pitc]

Another thing they've got going for them... It's not illegal.

I've long since stopped downloading that which I do not own legally, and suggest you stop trying to justify your crime and do the same.

Re:So basically...

[OldeTimeGeek]

And when they provide a better, DRM-less product, it will go up on the pirate boards just like it does now.

Re:So basically...

[elrous0]

it will go up on the pirate boards just like it does now

What does that matter? It's *ALREADY* there anyway.

-Eric

Re:So basically...

[OldeTimeGeek]

My point precisely. Why should any of the distributors go to all the time and trouble when they're, in effect, duplicating a service that's already available at a price that they can't possibly meet?

Re:So basically...

[Mister Whirly]

Is it lonely up there by yourself on your pedestal??

Re:So basically...

[flood6]

Because there is money to be made here. There are plenty of people who would be willing to pay money to download a legal copy of a movie if they could burn it to DVD or stream it to their TVs. It would be worth it to them to avoid breaking the law.

I don't know how many of these people there are out there or what exactly they'd be willing to spend, but as far as I know, no one in the movie industry has bothered to look into it.

This is simialr to iTMS where a large portion of the customers are aware that they can download the latest $boy_band magahit from $p2p_network, but choose to go the legal route.

Re:So basically...

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a pole, not a pedestal, and he's sitting on it.

Re:So basically...

[rob_squared]

Two words: reliability, speed. I'd pay half DVD price if I could get a DVD at 500KB/sec that was reliably up...and properly labeled.

Re:So basically...

[Reziac]

I had similar thoughts. I looked at the linked download-sales sites, and concluded:

Why would I buy a download that is timebombed and can't be archived to DVD, when for the same or less money I could pick up the real-DVD at WalMart, and be able to watch it whenever and wherever I want?

Offer a significantly cheaper download with no strings attached (I don't care if it's watermarked, I just don't want it timebombed or tied to a single medium or player), and then I'm interested. And when you price it, remember that *the customer* is absorbing the time, cost, and bother of making a DVD for storage and later viewing.

Considering that most DVDs wind up priced in the $8 to $18 range once they hit the discount rack, $3 to $5 is probably a fair price for an unencumbered download of a reasonably current film.

Re:So basically...

[elrous0]

Agreed. And people also want the quality control of a legal vendor too, and are willing to pay for it. Downloading a pirate torrent means getting a file that might be horribly encoded, truncated, or even pron in disquise.

A site that can deliver a consistant, quality download at reliable speeds is one worth paying for.

-Eric

DRMWhy?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never quite understand these people. It really does seem like they just tout DRM for show. Everyone knows that the DRM will be cracked and/or circumvented within a month, maybe two. Sometimes, it doesn't even take that long. And it's not always because I want to give my movie to a friend. But, if I *buy* a movie, and own it, I will find a way to put it on a disk, so I can carry it to a friends place and watch it if I want. It seems like wasting time on things like that will stifle the kind of innovation that will actually open the online market for these big companies to make money.

One day a studio will break from tradition and embrace the net fully and reap the rewards. I'm still waiting....

Re:DRMWhy?

[bitrot42]

>Everyone knows that the DRM will be cracked and/or circumvented within a month, maybe two.

Everyone always says this, but it isn't really true. Show me a working crack for Windows Media 10. (There was one, but -- surprise! it doesn't work anymore; new content will only play with a 'fixed' version of the codec.)

Sure, DVD's CSS was cracked, but that was largely due to one software vendor who forgot to encrypt their code (Xing, notice they aren't around anymore.) Also, it's a physical medium and device, so it can't be updated with a simple codec download. That's why they want such heinous crap in HD-DVD / Blu-Ray...

Regards,
-Bitrot.

No DVD burning

[pjrc]

Great, you let people download the movie, but then they can't burn it to a DVD?

Even with downloaded music, you just gotta allow burning it to a CD so it can be enjoyed on all devices. Hard to imagine how movie downloads are going to sell if they can't be burned onto a DVD.

I hates me the DRM, but this could be good

[LandruBek]

Although I don't like DRM I think this is something of a hopeful sign -- to see more legal movie distribution via download. If it gets to be common knowledge that download != illegal (much less "piracy" or "theft"), then the MPAA and RIAA won't (I predict) be able to pass a lot of goofy, anti-P2P legislation.

The stifling effect of widespread DRM is another serious problem, but I would rather for the moment rather see legitimate, mass-consumption downloads, and then we'll see less "troll" legislation.

Forget the downloads...

[__aaclcg7560]

Hollywood should reduce the prices on new DVDs. Seems like too many new DVDs are coming out at $30 USD or higher. This means I'm picking up the DVDs when Amazon or Borders are offering them at 30% off or waiting a while for the prices drop down to $20 USD range. Granted, I'm a cheap bastard. But I had to wait two years to pick up The Lord of The Rigns trilogy extended collection for $60 USD!

Re:Forget the downloads...

[Just Some Guy]

Seems like too many new DVDs are coming out at $30 USD or higher.

What hellishly expensive boutique world do you live in? I haven't paid more than $15 for a newly released DVD in years. Hint: Wal-Mart, Target, and the other big chains compete well on these things. Even if you hate Wal-Mart, you can enjoy the fact that they're paying the *AA bottom dollar.

Re:Forget the downloads...

[mmeister]

I agree completely. I won't pay $25+ for a DVD.

I will look at a DVD either when it first comes out (at some retailer that has it priced at $15-$16) or a couple months later (when everyone drops the price to $14.99.

I guess I'm a cheap bastard too!

I don't see myself paying $20 for a downloaded movie that I can only watch on a Windows computer. Why would I pay that much for such a limited use? I might be willing to pay $10 for a movie, but only if I could choose to watch it on my iPod -- otherwise, I'll still to the sale DVDs. IMHO, There are very few movies that would be worth $30.

Re:Forget the downloads...

[__aaclcg7560]

Anime DVDs... which you normally don't see a large selection of in the chain stores. For example, "Howl's Moving Castle" DVD is selling for $29.99 even on Amazon. Most sell for $26.99. I was very surprised that Best Buy had "Maburaho" DVDs priced at $19.99.

Prevent copying it to DVD?

[GauteL]

So basically they expect people to watch the films exclusively on their PC, rather than their living room TV. You end up with a product much worse than a DVD for a strikingly similar price. To make it even worse, you have to spend hours of your own broadband bandwidth to download it.

Not only that, DVDs can regularly be had for reduced prices at high street DVD stores, I'm willing to bet these downloads will not have equally aggressively prices sales periods.

This just lends credibility to people saying they are basically just setting legal downloads up to fail, so they can push for harder legal restrictions afterwards.

A download is a lower quality product than a hard copy DVD, as you don't get the physical copy and packacking. Since there is no physical reproduction, no physical transport and no extra goodies, people have certain expectations to price. Since you don't get physical media, your investment is a lot less secure.

Any download replacement should be:
a) much cheaper
b) convenient
c) easy to backup

This product fails on all of these points.

Re:Prevent copying it to DVD?

[Tim C]

So basically they expect people to watch the films exclusively on their PC, rather than their living room TV.

Not that I'm defending the idea (I think it's a step in the right direction, but that it doesn't go far enough), but as media PCs become more and more common, more people watching the films "exclusively on their PC" will be watching it on "their living room TV".

Perhaps this sort of thing will be a more attractive proposition as media centre-style PCs become more common, but it's a bit of a chicken and egg situation - without a compelling reason to buy one, few people will...

Re:Prevent copying it to DVD?

[debest]

Yeah, but the DVD plays just as well (actually better) on that "media PC" than the download, and has the extra flexibility of playing anywhere to boot.

The only thing that can make this sensical is to give the downloaded version some substantial advantage over the DVD. Higher res? The download would be way too large. Even more "special features" and "games"? This isn't a selling point, at least not for me. No, the only substantial advantage that a download should have over a physical DVD are the two things that they will not offer: lower price and no DRM.

Online sales are designed to fail in the marketplace, this scheme only proves the point.

Re:Prevent copying it to DVD?

[Agent0013]

Riiiiight!!! Except that it is Windows only. Any media center PC that works well and reliably will not be Windows. I'm thinking either Linux, or Mac if they ever make one.

Not relevant for me

[Ilgaz]

Unless these morons (both MPAA and the legal DL sites) figure there is a LEGIT, ORIGINAL buying community got sick of waiting for DVD "plastic" to watch them on their computer OUTSIDE of "America", I wouldn't care less.

Also as WMV and RealVideo, Quicktime supports 5.1 sound for ages, if you pay the same money as Dolby Digital or DTS DVD to a stereo download, you have been err.. what was the term? :)

If it is kind of hard to understand why a random guy on Slashdot got real mad about the situation

1) Consider you want to watch a Region 2 DVD , you don't care about the region fight.
2) Go to Amazon.co.uk, turn OFF "one click" feature and..
3) Put couple of DVDs in your shopping list
4) Fill in the delivery form as you live in Istanbul,Turkey or some other European country outside UK
5) Look to "shipping and handling" cost and be amazed. If you have only 1 DVD on that list, it will be generally HIGHER than the Movies original cost.

Step 6 is generally launching a pirate client and download the freaking movie. As a guy in industry, I don't. Can't blame others if they would in current amazingly stupid scheme of things.

Good news, everyone!

[Dachannien]

Now that you can download movies anywhere in the world as soon as the DVD is released, there's no reason for discs to have region codes anymore.

Re:Good news, everyone!

[patio11]

*grumble grumble* Don't count on it. You'll have to jump through all the hoops that you do for getting foreign store access in iTunes currently. No technical reason for them, but the contractual nastiness of giving certain distributors exclusive rights in territory X/Y/Z means that they'll have a fragmented sales model and some sort of CC-linked proof-of-legal-residence requirement, just like iTunes.

I'm confused

[bigmouth_strikes]

Exactly... If the download is at the same price as a DVD, all I get is a ripped DVD but without the backup. Where's the value in that ?

The download should either be

* Full retail DVD price, allowing backups, format shifting etc. Collection format.
or
* Rental DVD price, with DRM restrictions. Throwaway format.

Re:I'm confused

[Anonymous Coward]

A previous poster got it right. This is Hollywood's plan to "try" movie downloading, do everything in their power to sabotage it, and then cry about it's irrepairable unworkability. Then, the mdeia parrots in conjuction with their purchased subhuman politicos will use this as "evidence" to pass something even worse than the DMCA.

Whatever happened to selling the customer what they wanted? Why can't they compete on a quality product instead of what sucks less? Seriously, where the hell is the America I grew up in?

And yet again the paying customer gets shafted.

[Ilex]

DRM will be in force to prevent copying the movies to DVD.

Joe six pack will soon discover the evils of DRM when they can't burn the film they legally paid for onto DVD to watch on their new HD TV or their HDD / Computer fails and they have to buy all their movies again. Unlike the pirates who can happily burn / backup their W4r3z.

A lot of people, especially the tech savvy ones will still choose to get the pirate downloads. Remove the DRM and let people burn their own DVD's.

Let me spell it out for the MPAA! Will you pay for a product which is inferior to one you can get for free?

Re:And yet again the paying customer gets shafted.

[g4e]

Totally agree. This DRM is an absolut show-stopper.
A new, pretty good flic about DRM and Trusted Computing:
http://www.mustseeblog.com/?p=45

Re:And yet again the paying customer gets shafted.

[wolfbane01]

But seriously, if you can realize that the majority of computer users out there haven't ever even burned a DVD (And if they did it was backing up the digital photos from last year's vacation) the question really becomes how many of the "Joe sixpacks" out there are really sitting in their home offices browsing torrent sites for a download of the latest blockbuster, compared to the much smaller number of people who actively download off of bittorrent and burn content to DVD-r media. I'm pretty willing to bet that while the RIAA and the MPAA make out this number to be fairly substantial--the actual percent of the population isn't that large.

Most average people, especially those with the wife and 2.5 children have way more important things to do and are perfectly happy with either buying the DVD or renting it from netflix or the like.

I agree with previous posters who have said that while the idea of movies on-demand are a nice feature we don't yet have the technology to be doing these on a computer, especially when most people who have digital cable already have content on-demand.

insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

okay. just for the record, because of IP rights, they use DRM in their releases.. (to keep their property safe) and to facilitate this they require their customers use WINDOWS. making their customers use an inferior product that has plenty of issues reguarding saftey.... plus the entire issue of not being able to use my 48" hi-def tv because i can't get the damn thing off my pc without jumping through drm-stripping hoops. oh yeah, and i'm paying 4/5ths of what i would if i just bought the DVD..... uh... come again?

It's worse than that

[tessaiga]

Unlike their current services, in which online shoppers pay around $4 to rent new movies for up to a month, the films will be sold for prices "similar to home video," says Ramo.

Ramo (Chief Executive of Movielink) is more explicit in a separate LA Times article where he admits that Movielink will actually be selling the online downloads for about double the street price of the physical DVD. The article quotes movie studios as saying that they don't want to alienate their existing DVD sales channel operators, since DVDs currently account for 46% of studio sales -- about double the take from the box office.

Piracy fears also prevent online services from giving technological early adopters what they really want -- the ability to watch downloaded movies on their televisions. That's because the studios insist that downloadable movies include rigorous safeguards on copying. Users, for instance, can burn a DVD of a downloaded movie, but it will play only on a PC.

[...]

Ramo said download-to-own movies would sell for $20 to $30 -- up to double the $15 that discount retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. charge for DVDs, with downloads of classic titles for $10 to $17. He said the premium reflected the convenience of the service and the flexibility to transfer the digital download to two computers, as well as the ability to create a backup DVD that also would play on computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.

Reading quotes like this really make me wonder if some of these executives are living in a bizarro parallel reality, or if they've just gotten accustomed to spewing this sort of doublespeak nonsense with a straight face. Supposedly consumers will be happy to pay double for the "flexibility" of being able to back up their new movie to computer and play them on their computers. Well, when I buy the physical DVD from the store, surprise surprise, I can play my DVD on my computer OR the TV -- and guess which display I'm going to be watching most of my shows on, my 20" monitor screen or the 35" TV downstairs? Backing up the DVD is a snap too, and I don't have to deal with the annoying hassle of Movielink/CinemaNow's homebrew DRM.

Last I checked, paying more for something that I can do strictly less with wasn't the dictionary definition of "flexibility", but hey, I'm not a high-paid exec, what do I know.

Re:It's worse than that

[novus ordo]

It's just a new way to rip people off. Companies reduce costs by moving to places where the labor is dime a dozen and then pocket the money instead of passing the savings on to the customer. That's why they earn the big bucks.

Re:It's worse than that

[jbolden]

They pass it to the customer. There are good arguments against free trade without having to diminish the short term financial benefits.

Re:It's worse than that

[Anonymous Coward]

Ramo said download-to-own movies would sell for $20 to $30 -- up to double the $15 that discount retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. charge for DVDs, with downloads of classic titles for $10 to $17. He said the premium reflected the convenience of the service and the flexibility to transfer the digital download to two computers, as well as the ability to create a backup DVD that also would play on computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.

Right. So assuming they've got the bandwidth, they think that downloading 2GB of data (assuming DVD-resolution MPEG4 or WMV) is convenient (i.e., suitably quick) for the end user, who had better hope he doesn't have bandwidth limits on his broadband service, that his 10mbit service actually has a consistent 10mbit service and not 1mbit bursting to 10mbit, and that the user has a setup whereby the computer is connected to the TV, or they want to watch the film on the computer.

It's cheaper to order the DVD online - you can preorder it so that it will arrive on the day of release, or even before if you're lucky. You get a DVD, a box, the extras, the commentaries. The file isn't at the whim of your computer's hard drive or operating system. You can lend it to friends.

The idea is pure retardation, but I'm sure there's plenty of sheep out there that will pay excessive amounts for stuff because it's a new intarweb thing.

Re:It's worse than that

[darkmeridian]

Backing up the DVD is a snap too, and I don't have to deal with the annoying hassle of Movielink/CinemaNow's homebrew DRM.

Except **AA has managed to project their oddity into our world and have rendered this a crime.

Re:It's worse than that

[runderwo]

Supposedly consumers will be happy to pay double for the "flexibility" of being able to back up their new movie to computer and play them on their computers.

I think the idea is that this scheme will fail in the market, generating little to no sales. However, the MPAA can use this to buttress their argument in court (and before Congress) that consumers have legitimate options for watching commercial movies on their home computers, so flexibility of that sort is no longer an excuse for illegal copying (currently, it's the only option).

Downloading

[Secret Agent X23]

Seems to me the industry wants to offer downloads just because they've heard people like to download movies, as if they (the movie execs) think the act of downloading were, in itself, the objective. And if it flops because people don't like the prices and/or the restrictions, the executives won't understand -- because, after all, they were letting us "download."

Well, I dunno. That's the way it sounds to me.

So you're saying

[Anonymous Coward]

*Note* I only dl movies if I want to watch it first before buying, but I normally do actually buy the DVD (if the movie doesn't suck).

You're one of those who think 99% of all movies suck, right?
I failed to find a proper analogy so this is the best I could come up with; you don't rape a whore to see wherever it's a good fuck or not and decide on future sessions.

just face it

[PrescriptionWarning]

DRM is sooo "Brokeback"

Re:just face it

[remembertomorrow]

You must be one of the people tagging every store as "gay". :P

Flamebait?

[neoshroom]

Is it still flamebait if I'm using a Mac? :-P

Theatrical release

[Loconut1389]

Now if the download coincided with the theatrical release and they mailed you a real dvd when it came out, I'd be sold- DRM or no.

Obligatory 1984 comment

[MonoSynth]

'When I was arrested, Apple said that PPC processors were evil.'

'PPC processors are evil. Good. And Apple always said that PPC processors are evil, has it not?'
Winston drew in his breath. He opened his mouth to speak and then did not speak. He could not take his eyes away from the dial.

'The truth, please, Winston. Your truth. Tell me what you think you remember.'
'I remember that until only a week before I was arrested, Apple used PPC processors. They even proved that they were the better ones. Intel's processors were the evil ones. That had lasted for nine years. Before that '

Jobs stopped him with a movement of the hand.

[..]

'Do you remember,' he went on, ' writing in your diary, "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two
make four"?'
'Yes,' said Winston.
Jobs held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.
'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?
'Four.'
'And if the party says that it is not four but 4.0000000097768 then how many?'
'Four.'

Fogetaboutit

[HangingChad]

And just what is my incentive to download a movie I can't burn to DVD and play on my home theater system? It costs them next to zero to distribute movies this way and the consumers nothing in return.

Just why do they think this is going to work? Only in Korporate Amerika do people imagine that you can get something for nothing.

Re:Fogetaboutit

[mzieg]

what is my incentive to download a movie I can't burn to DVD and play on my home theater system?

Um, you get to watch the movie? That's plenty of incentive for me. I watch movies on computer all the time -- even when I own the DVD, I often play it on the computer. There are enough people like me to make this a decent business model -- even if it doesn't satisfy every potential customer in the world.

It costs them next to zero to distribute movies this way and the consumers nothing in return...Only in Korporate Amerika do people imagine that you can get something for nothing.

No, but it costs them considerably more than zero to make the movies in the first place. What's their incentive to keep making movies if people refuse to pay to watch them, because...oh right, "information is free."

Sell individual scenes

[dpbsmith]

One of the reasons why iTunes Music Store works is that although music is priced at about the same price per minute as the same content on CD, you have the option of buying individual songs. And in fact this works very well for me. I have probably purchased between fifty and a hundred individual songs where I want the individual songs but do not like the artists well enough to want eleven more.

So... maybe they should try offering individual scenes from movies.

This wouldn't work for every movie, but "Basic Instinct" would probably lend well itself to this treatment.

Re:Sell individual scenes

[Anonymous Coward]

Basic Instinct2 is being released in HD so you can see the cobwebs and hear the creaking in 5.1 surround.

Re:Sell individual scenes

[jbolden]

o... maybe they should try offering individual scenes from movies.

Other than Porn (where there are experimenting with this) when else would this ever work. I think for movies the right analogy is huge selection very cheap. No one wants to stock lots and lots of DVDs. Netflix and Amazon have shown that there is a very long tail. What's missing is a preview site with multiple trailers organized like IMDB and instant downloads.

That's where the money is IMHO.

Re:Sell individual scenes

[courtarro]

I've noticed more and more lately that popular singles (take Feel Good Inc. for example) are no longer offered as single-track downloads on iTunes. Instead, you must purchase the entire album, and for more than the original $10 price-per-album cap. As soon as this trend hits a critical point, iTMS will start losing users again since, as you mention, that is the primary benefit of the service. Why buy a downloaded album for $13 when I could buy a used CD with no DRM for $6?

Every time the RIAA or MPAA accidentally give the customer more choice, either by experiment or by slipup, they'll fix it in the future by eroding fair use even further. To them, iTMS was a nice experiment, but they have now realized that they accidentally gave users the ability to choose not to buy crappy tracks; now they're fixing that little loophole. Be sure that a format as open as redbook CD will never happen again.

DRM will be in force to prevent copying the movies

[sacherjj]

That works GREEEAAAT. [rolls eyes] I got the free trial to Movielink. Downloaded a movie. Used FRAPS to record it off the Windows Media Player video overlay, to see if it would work. Recompressed the uncompressed recorded video. Then uninstalled their crappy hardware and deleted the videos.

trying to fail?

[Penguinoflight]

The question here is what disadvantages would the MPAA have in intentionally failing a DRM download distribution scheme. I think the most obvious one is that they would prove people dont want to download movies, and that the problem truely lies with traditional distribution methods being troublesome. If you can get a dvd screener and watch it with 4 or 5 of your friends, it's certainly a better option than spending a combined $50 at the theater when the movie comes out. By making the download release concurrent with dvd release, this group is doing nothing to combat that problem.

It's a convenience to you...

[novus ordo]

That's around $20 to $30 for newer films, and $10 to $20 for older flicks. CinemaNow intends to be more aggressive, offering some of its new flicks for under $20 and to build traffic, it will offer a two-for-one sale at the outset.

Movies can't be "burned" or copied onto disks that can be played on other devices, such DVD players. The movies, however, can be copied to play on as many as two other PCs, says Ramo.

Why the hell would anyone want to pay that kind of money for crippleware? These guys just don't get it. Internet distribution should be a godsend because it costs them close to nothing to distribute. They think it's some special service that is oh so convenient. It's like the house I was looking at the other day, there's a train station 30ft away and they actually charge $10k more because "it's a convenience." Yeah I want my house to shake every 20min and wake me with the horn, how convenient.

Re:It's a convenience to you...

[fury88]

Why the hell would anyone want to pay that kind of money for crippleware?

You forget about the teens who spend mommy's and daddy's money and don't give a flying rats ass. I am sure that's what they are banking on.

There is an upside

[Anonymous Coward]

Piracy is very big on college campuses because what does almost every college kid have: lots of bandwidth and a laptop. Very few college kids have money and even fewer have a car. I've seen people search for cans and bottles on campus just to buy a six pack. These sites do do rentals for 2.99 to 3.99. Thats not a bad deal where you don't have to take gambles on the quality of the rip and getting sued. still expensive for a poor student but considering at least at my school, most kids don't have a tv anyways, the rentals aren't as bad a deal.

Not to mention their limited plans for the future

[Se7enLC]

With no way for the customer to burn the movies to disc, how is that a permanent ownership? I imagine they are expecting people to start using this as the way to buy movies, but what happens when somebody buys 10 movies? 20? 50? Are they supposed to just keep buying more HD space to store them indefinitely?

Plenty of people have already mentioned the "but I can't watch it on my TV, what's the point?" reasoning.

I think an ideal system would be a service where you can download a reduced-quality version (like iTunes) a few days before the DVD release for a higher price. Included in that cost, however, is a copy of the DVD that they will mail you once it releases. If I get a physical copy of the dvd, I don't care what DRM is on the digital file copy, since I'll just delete it once the DVD arrives.

Flamebait?

[nofsinga]

If this joke had been about Micro$oft or Dell or the like, It would probably be a (5:funny) right now.
It IS a good joke. Don't take offense so easily my Apple loving friends.

Did Sony come up with this idea?

[techstar25]

From the article
Movies would cost $20-$30.
They would be resticted to specific hardware (your Windows equipped computer).
You can't watch them on your HD home theatre system.
Sounds like the PSP UMD format.

Why can't we just buy the DVD from Wal-Mart for $15, and then walk to our PC and put it in, and then watch it? Then when we're done, we take the DVD, walk to the home theatre DVD player and drop it in and watch it again. Boy, all that walking has got me tired.

Re:Did Sony come up with this idea?

[mblase]

Sounds like the PSP UMD format.


You just shot yourself in the foot. Proportionate sales notwithstanding, the PSP UMD format has been an outlandish success, sales-wise. People are buying them and studios are releasing more movies to the format than I'd ever imagined considering the constraints it offers.

Re:Did Sony come up with this idea?

[bennomatic]

Actually, I recently read that some studios who shot out of the gate with great support for UMD are scaling back, and even places like Walmart are no longer buying them because they gather too much dust on the shelves.

I think this was a great example of the "early adopter" market making a great showing, but the product didn't have what it took to cross the chasm.

I can't find the original news article, but Engadget is usually a pretty trustworthy source.

Re:Did Sony come up with this idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well Americans are all a bunch of fatties . . .

Re:Did Sony come up with this idea?

[Mister Whirly]

It's too early to tell if this trend is just the "novelty factor" or whether or not the sales will sustain in the future...

Writable to DVD

[syntap]

About ten minutes after these are released, the DVD Jon's of the world will have these up on all the P2P networks.

Filenames to look for:

Broken/Cracked Mountain
Harry Potter and the Pwners of the Phoenix
King Kpng

Special System?

[AnyThingButWindows]

It seems that movielink requires you have a special system just to get to their site. They have been added to my broken website list. You need a machine running a specific OS, a specific browser, and specific media player, nor can it be burned to DVD. Now explain to me again Hollywood why I would buy something that doesn't work, and is crippled?

I think that ill just go to the Piratebay, and grab my copy of Kong. If Hollywood wants to pick and choose their customers, then I will pick and choose what, how, and where I get my movies.

The more you tighten your grip vadar, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

Re:Special System?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm Vader was not listed in that quote. The quote was directed at Grand Moff Tarkin. If you are going to quote SW, please do it correctly. If you need to, I am sure you can find a torrent of the movie to verify this. That is if you don't already have the Original release on VHS, referred to as Han Shot First version. If you don't also have the Special Editions, the Greedo shot first via video manipulation of the feed by the Imperial government, or the DVD versions, nothing to add to that.

What kind of /. reader are you? Getting a SW quote wrong like that, geesh.

Re:Special System?

[jswalter9]

How could I have guessed that someone would take the time to point out the misquote? Heh.

Pay to download it but can't back it up?

[immorak]

I would never download a movie that i couldn't back up on a DVD.

haven't RTFA but...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to go out on a limb and bet you they mean an HDCP compliant HDMI (re: DRM'd DVI over a $40 giant USB cable).

I haven't seen an HD-DVD or blueray unit on an HD set but I do have HD HBO and Starz as well an an upconverting DVD player (Panasonic S97) w/HDMI and there ain't much difference.

Re:haven't RTFA but...

[Anonymous Coward]

You either have a shitty TV or vision problems if you don't notice a difference between standard and HD. Even with the hack of an upscaling dvd player I was blown away by the difference in picture quality between my old set/dvd player and my new upscaling dvd/hdtv set.

Do I have to ask where I sit as well?

[Ghost-in-the-shell]

Sure why don't they come in to my home and dictate to me which popcorn to eat, how much, where I sit and oh of course who can watch it with me in my own home.

If I can't burn the movie to a DVD how am I suppose to get it to living room tv from my computer? The average person does NOT know how to do this besides burning a DVD and using a standard DVD player..... BTW people reading this are not average users.

DRM does not work!

Brokeback + King Kong = DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

Appropriate choices for the first release (Brokeback Mountain & King Kong), since I'm sure the user experience will resemble being "brokebacked" by a 400 pound gorilla.

Bullshit

[XMilkProject]

I tried to check out the movielink site, but instead got a page telling me that the site can only be viewed on Internet Explorer using Windows XP.

You won't even let me see your page with Firefox?
What the fuck. I hope they are a massive fucking failure of a company.

"Flexibility" is unter redefinition

[Opportunist]

It now means that you, as a customer and employee, have to adjust to the requirements of the market and your employer. Reference: "Unpaid overtime" is now "flexible work hours". "Hire and fire" is now a "flexible manpower distribution". And thus "crippled movies" is now "flexible downloads".

DVD prices

[justthinkit]

Am I the only one who finds that DVD prices are very much better these days? I just bought a special edition (Red Heat) for $7 from Amazon, for example. At these prices what is going to compete with DVDs? Certainly not HD DVDs. Certainly not DRM limited downloads, at any price.

It seems to me the whole movie downloading thing started because DVDs were over priced. Now it seems that they aren't.

Score one for the good guys.

Re:DVD prices

[Mister Whirly]

"I just bought a special edition (Red Heat) for $7 from Amazon"

I'm sorry...There's 90 minutes of your life you'll never get back..

Re:DVD prices

[justthinkit]

I have always enjoyed Jim Belushi (for example, "The Principal" or "Mr. Destiny") and Arnold is well suited to stiff talking muscle man roles.

To each their own. I can't stand things like the LotR series, HP, or Bond movies. That still leaves me with about 350 movies I consider rewatching: http://www.just-think-it.com/movies.htm

How about a peace offer?

[Opportunist]

The customers send you 12 bucks or whatever and instead of downloading your DRMed and crippled version, they download the torrent, thus they won't put stress on your servers while still getting a movie they can actually watch on the DVD-equipment in the living room instead of trying to decypher what's going on on the tiny screen that's still connected to the only Windows-Box running. Think of it as some kind of license, kinda like it is in the software industry where you buy the license, not necessarily the DVD/CD that accompanies it.

The alternative would probably be getting the torrent version and not paying. Your choice, industry.

$20 - $30!!! Are you kidding?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Do people actually pay that much for DVD's?! WHY would you encourage extorsion like that? They make their profits in the theater, you know. DVD release is complete gravy, unless it's is a "Border-line" film. Admittedly, some exceptions exist (Serinity comes to mind) but typically those exceptions should have gone the way of a DVD release to begin with (Or stayed on the damn TV station they started on, Fox!!!).

Let's look at this straight. These guys have the opportunity to forego: 1) physical creation (DVD, Case, cover, etc.) 2) Middleman (Bestbuy)
And they gain the following: 1) Updatable DRM (plug the holes every time it's cracked, ala iTunes) 2) Easy distribution of Multiple formats ("Buy the HD version, Get the portable version for free!")

And they get to do all of that on the BANDWIDTH YOU ARE PAYING FOR!!! And now they want you to pay a premium for less (no burning, no extra features, no HD).

The first 100 people who pay for this should be taken out back and shot. Your mere existance makes the Human Race dumber by proxy!!!

Please, Slashdotters, don't support these extortionist practices. Don't let your friends or relatives support it. Ban all download services, DVD sales, HD disk formats!!! Torrent if you must, rent if you please, but send a message that you won't be exploited like this any longer!!!!!

DoubleSpeak yet again

[kimvette]

Unlike previous deals, these will be full purchase downloads, and not merely for a rental period.

Which is DoubleSpeak, because it's untrue. If you can't transcode it to run on other devices, extract clips for purposes allowed under Fair Use, and the DRM prevents you from playing a restored backup on an upgraded or reinstalled purchase, it's not a full purchase now, is it. . .

Re:DoubleSpeak yet again

[grimJester]

Even more so: The first sale doctrine

"The doctrine of first sale allows the purchaser to transfer (i.e. sell or give away) a particular, legally acquired copy of protected work without permission once it has been obtained. That means the distribution rights of a copyright holder end on that particular copy once the copy is sold."

Will these actually be "sold" or "purchased" instead of "licensed"?

Obviously, you didn't read the small print.

[bennomatic]

From the page:

We do not sell to potty-mouths.

Sorry, buddy!

there are advantages

[bigtrike]

Are they trying to deliberately kill the idea of movie downloads? Simultaneous release, same price... why should anyone wait for a few hours for a download when it's just as quick to get the actual DVD? And costs as much? The DVD can be passed on to others and there's no need to install special software on the PC to actually get it running. There are advantages for the rental portion. You can queue up downloads in advance, watch it within a given window, don't have to worry about every copy being rented out, and don't have to return it. It's also a couple dollars cheaper than pay per view on cable, and you can pause it. Buying a DVD is only economical if you're going to watch movies several times. The vast majority of movies are worth watching exactly 1 time.

Re:there are advantages

[coffeechica]

Agreement on the rental issue. It's convenient, it might be mmore economical, and I doubt anyone worries about data loss in that situation. But for actual movie purchases this is idiotic.

Re:there are advantages

[Kamots]

Buying a DVD is only economical if you're going to watch movies several times. The vast majority of movies are worth watching exactly 1 time.

Alternatively you could see if your friends enjoy the same types of movies as you do. I do a decent amount of borrowing/loaning DVDs with my friends, which means that sure I may only watch the movie once, but 4-5 friends also get to see it, (and I'll get to see thier movies as well). And I own the movie just in case I should decide to rewatch it, or perhaps sell it if it's something I know I won't rewatch.

They remove rights from us, we take them back.

[FatSean]

I no longer have the right to skip the minute's worth of anti-piracy warnings on DVDs I buy. I can't even fast forward it. Sorry assholes, I'll keep buying but it's under MY terms and if you want me, come get me because I'm ready to defend myself in court.

Re:They remove rights from us, we take them back.

[fatcatman]

I no longer have the right to skip the minute's worth of anti-piracy warnings on DVDs I buy. I can't even fast forward it.

I can. I rip a copy of every DVD I want to watch with software that, during the ripping process, discards these "features". I then skip them to my heart's content.

Oh, and since I already have to rip a copy to enjoy my movies the way I want to, I don't bother to buy them anymore. Rent/Rip/Burn. Sorry Hollywood. There was a time when I owned several hundred movies, all purchased legitimately. During that time I had quit buying music due to the industry's antics. Now you're going down the same road so I quit buying DVDs.

value

[ltwally]

From CinemaNow.com:

Rent a movie for 24 hours viewing,

• New movies only $3.99, all other movies $2.99. Plus, check out Showcase Section for discounts as low as 49 Cents.

• Your 24 hour viewing period doesn't start until you play the file

Buy a movie for unlimited viewing on your PC

• Movies range in price from $9.95 to $19.95. Be sure and check the site for more offers and discounts.

Maybe I'm just a cheap bastard... but there is no way in hell I'm going to pay what is basically full price for an electronic/digital purchase. For less money than their quoted prices, I can go to Wal-Mart and buy the physical DVD -- which will play anywhere without me worrying about some retarded DRM blocking me.

And, while we're at it... these places aren't allowing you to burn a movie to DVD -- so it's basically stuck on your Windows-based DVR or PC for all of eternity. For the price they're quoting me, I would expect the download to be in full HD and be able to be converted to DVD and burned at my leisure.

The fact that they actually believe that a pricing model like this will have any impact on piracy is just ludicrous. Can the MPAA's greed get any more obvious?

Can I play it on my iPod?

[bennomatic]

That's my only question...

Package it better

[justthinkit]

What about a package price (paid when you buy your ticket at the movie theater) that includes the cost of the big screen movie viewing, a DRM'd download AND the DVD when it comes out? Sales of the DVD will increase, especially if you buy the package before you see the movie. In return they could offer a good price on the bundle, say $25 for all three.

Re:Package it better

[Pyrowolf]

You sir, are a GENIUS!

I would gladly pay a one-time fee to get various forms of the same movie, even if it's just the Theater & DVD release. Movie tickets are already outrageous, and this would definately have me going to the theater more often. Even if a theater would do this on their own, I think they'd make a mint!

Re:Package it better

[justthinkit]

I think this would also provoke people who return to watch the movie a second time in the theater to buy the package on that second trip. They have found out the movie is a good one and are ready for buying that DVD at that time.

it's not dubious

[way2trivial]

the entire point for the studios and companies supplying the movie is to maintain the DRM.

pray good sir, how to they retain their DRM intentions, and support the alternate platform, using quicktime?
The answer is, they can't.. the download companies will only get the green light/licensing if they can secure the media~
they can only secure the media through drm development~
to serve this up on a macintosh, a small portion of the market, will cost as much as the lion's share.

I may not like it, but I acknowledge the realistic facts of the situation.

Re:it's not dubious

[hrbrmstr]

Ah, Quicktime supports video DRM...

Re:it's not dubious

[way2trivial]

I can't find anything authoritative on the subject, that isn't old, or does not refer to quicktime DRM having been succesfully defeated.

can you give me a citation that's recent on the subject?

Lies, Damn Lies, and Your Quote

[ThatsNotFunny]

Forget that your source article is nine months old, TFA says Apple has 1.8% of the WORLD MARKET, not the US Market. These movies are to be sold in the US only, where the percentage is much higher.

Apples and Oranges, my friend.

Re:Lies, Damn Lies, and Your Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

IDC puts Apple's US market share around 4%, still too insignificant for these movie companies to consider to be of any significance.

So when...

[thundergeek]

So when will GOOD movies be available?

Problem's not the DRM, it's the restrictions

[brouski]

The problem here isn't how the files are restricted, it's what the restrictions are. Charging 2x the price of a DVD for a movie you can't play on your TV without a HTPC is a business plan doomed to failure. If I were a conspiracy theorist type I'd say this venture is intended to fail.

Re:Problem's not the DRM, it's the restrictions

[debest]

If I were a conspiracy theorist type I'd say this venture is intended to fail.

I believe you are entirely correct. This is indeed designed from the outset to be a tremendous failure in the marketplace.

No one in their right mind is going to purchase these downloads. It makes no sense from any angle except for someone who inexplicably has access to broadband and is also not anywhere close to a store which sells the video (a virtually zero chance of occuring). There is no way that the studios don't know this. We accuse them of being idiots, but they know precisely what they are doing.

Their intent is to demonstrate that online sales of their product is not viable, and that they can be justified in pulling out of the segment while crying "We tried! Those darned internet leeches just won't pay a fair price!" Then they can go back to distributing physical media (a business they can better control), while sponsering laws to ban any interesting uses for the Internet.

Let's face it: the RI/MP/xxAA's will never truly embrace any online sales, because to do so is to move their business in a direction of less control and lower profitibility. They will fight it tooth and nail to their graves, in the marketplace and in the halls of power. My believe that they will eventually die, but my fear is that they will be responsible for the trampling of a lot of consumer rights while thrashing in their death throes.

What the hell is the point?

[Conor Turton]

I mean, come on. Shite quality, shite audio quality and non of the extras. To cap it all, several hours to download for most people and to top it all, DRM'd to the eyeballs so you can only play it on the PC it is downloaded on, maybe another and a portable media player.

What makes it even worse is that even after all the above, it'll still be more expensive than buying a proper DVD from one of the many discounted e-tailers. CinemaNow has been quoted as offering prices between $9.95 and $19.95. Working on the $1=£1 internet exchange rate that seems to be the pricing norm in "Rip off Britain", a film such as Ice Age 2 or Doom, currently priced at £10.99 and £14.99 inc del, is going to be at least 1/3 cheaper than downloading a substandard and very restricted version online.

Sure it'll make the studios feel like they're getting the hang of this "t'internet" but unless they significantly slash the prices, only the stupid will bother with it.

Burning to DVD is overrated...

[maillemaker]

When I started recording TV shows with my computer, my first thought was to burn them to DVD.

I found this to be tedious and unreliable.

First, burning takes forever. On my AMD 64 3200+ Athalon it takes hours to burn, say, an episode of Battlestar Galactica.

Secondly, the DVDs don't play very well. In my older RCA DVD player the DVD plays for about 2 minutes, then the picture pixelates and freezes, and the sound continues to play for a while longer before it dies completely. On my el-cheapo $48 Walmart DVD player they seem to play a bit better, sometimes.

After poking around a bit on online forums I found it's really an art to figure out all the optimal settings to burn a DVD that has some chance of playing in any given player.

Personally, I've given up on burning my own DVDs. I'm saving up for one of those Hauppage multimedia center thingies that you hook up to your network and it goes and gets the file off of your PC and plays it on your TV.

I just need a bigger hard drive! :)

Steve

P.S. - I do think this new distribution method for movies still sucks. It's too expensive for an inferior product.

Re:Burning to DVD is overrated...

[immorak]

I agree that it does take a long time to burn a movie to a DVD. Most of the movies i download (without menus or extras) i watch on the TV from my computer using an S-Video cord which works quite well. After paying $20-$30 online for a movie download i think you should be able to burn it if you choose to do so. Why would i download it for $20 when i can rent it for $6 (or less) and just burn a copy of the DVD with menus, previews, extras and all?

Re:Burning to DVD is overrated...

[fatcatman]

First, burning takes forever. Secondly, the DVDs don't play very well.

Then you're doing it wrong.

I can perform a full rip & burn of a DVD in 30 minutes. Place disc in, open software, hit copy, read /. and it's done. Burning a downloaded movie is slightly different in that you'll need to recompress into mpeg2 format first, but there should be tools to do this for you. My guess is the recompression is what's taking the time - there's no way you're spending hours on the actual burn.

As for playback, you're probably burning too fast. Don't burn faster than 4x. If you still have problems, drop to 2x.

It's not funny!!

[rueger]

The old joke goes "How many lesbians does it take to change a light bulb?" The response of course is "ONE! And it's not funny!"

Go ahead and laugh, the Church if Mac types won't get it anyhow.

(this post written on a G4 Powerbook which unbelievably has not changed my life in any signifcant way and which does almost nothing better than my PC!)

Different Titles, Please

[Anonymous Coward]

I've already downloaded all three of those. Can we request some alternate titles, instead?

Making Apple look look a genius once more

[SuperKendall]

Apple's price for a movie ($9.99) originally seemed pretty expensive, but with the choice to sell movies online that you can't even burn to DVD (or presumably put on an iPod) they are literally forcing Apple to become the leader in online movie distribution. "Here Apple!" They are saying. "Have this giant pile of money, we don't need it! Thanks!"

The article said "Disney was in talks" but what do they have to talk about, when they can sell the same thing for half or a third the price and 10000x the volume in sales on iTunes? Meanwhile Movielink wonders why only three purchases are made per month.

A more perfect form of control

[dodongo]

The move is aimed at stemming the rising tide of pirate downloads, and DRM will be in force to prevent copying the movies to DVD.

Oh man. I'm turning off my karma bonus so I can say this: Seriously, people, fuck the hell off. I can buy it and download it to my computer, but I can't even do the most basic of things like burn it to DVD and actually watch it on my own TV.

Yeah, you're saying, but who would legitimately do that??

Everyone whose TV is larger and has better sound than their computer monitor + speakers. Or who has more comfortable seating in front of their TV. Or whose office / bedroom isn't appropriate for hosting friends and company.

Goddamn.

B 12.... BINGO!!!!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

I think cost is what drives piracy, and I think it's time the movie industry and recording industry realized this. Instead of spending more money on DRM that will be cracked anyway, they should just give in and realize that no one wants to pay $20-30 for one DVD. The people I know who purchase DVD's on a regular basis only buy them when they are on sale for $10 or below.

That is exactly the problem in my opinion. Where we sit right now, is at the most media hungry point in our civilization, and it's only going to get worse. People devour this media as if it was the water of life. Because of this producers create more media. Supply & Demand. However for some reason, people keep buying low quality media. I am not talking about Generic DVD-r's here... and producers are seeing the demand for crap actually increase!

What we have now is a seemingly botomless pit of media consisting of bubblegum pop, Tom Cruise movies, Games from Monolith, and tons of consumption in every form. No one can deny this.

Now, I am a gamer, and so I consume most of my media in that format. But anyone who's Int > 20 knows that in general, out of 25 movies to choose from at your local gigaplex, 1-2 of them will be worth watching and maybe one worth buying on DVD. At your next visit to the theater, the same 1-2 movies will still be on the screen, and the crap will get rotated through.

With music on the radio, same thing right? Top 100 songs on the chart and maybe 4 of those artists have CD's with more than one good track. The top ten stay at the top for a while, and all the crap gets cycled through underneath...

Now, I know that there are exceptions.
I loved LOTR, Potter, Some top 40, WOW, Half-Life 2... etc.
but the point is.... (yes there is a point here.. (yes I'm A.D.D.))

I think that piracy is huge is because of the sheer amount of crap you have to wade through to find something you like. It's not worth spending all your money on crap to find that one song / movie you like, so people steal it all, sort it, then purchase the cd/ dvd/ game that they want. Make the crap cost what it's worth, and people might actually pay for it. Interestingly enough, it's easier to let the crap sit on your HD let someone else decide if they like it via P2P, than it is to take the time to delete it.

Now I know that alot of people don't actually purchase their games , movies and music. I don't condone that perspective. I agree with the shareware point of view. If you like it buy it.

What do you think?

Re:B 12.... BINGO!!!!

[Splab]

It used to be that way for me, download first, check it out - buy if I like, or throw away...

But I've stopped downloading music, once in a while a new good track comes out, but they play it 500 bazillion times in the radio, and soon you are bored with it, so I never get around to download/buy it. In stead I'm moving more and more towards places like http://www.di.fm/.

With movies, well I still download movies, and I probably will keep on doing so. In my eyes the companies have fixed the prices which is illegal, so Ill top it off with something just as illegal (yeah, two wrongs won't make a right, but I can live with it) - and if you don't believe in price fixation, then please, do tell me why some random crap movie (stealth to pick one) costs the exact same amount as, lets say Harry Potter and the Goblet of flame when they hit the stores.

Ohh they do drop in price eventually, but again, it seems to be on a fixed price level all the way.

Re:B 12.... BINGO!!!!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

I agree that there is some price fixing there.
It seems that people are willing to pay for the DVD media, and not the movie that is on it.

It's a shame, really.

In my case if I think a movie is good enough that I will watch it again (a damn rare case) then I will buy it when hollywood video / blockbuster sells it as a previously viewed title.

16% small?

[SuperKendall]

16% doesn't seem that small to me.

Even if you think that number is too large, the argument they make is compelling for a market share of at least 10%.

The mistake you have made is a common one of confusing market share (percentage of computers sold per year) with the installed base. There are a variety of reasons why that is much higher for Macs, especially among home users as corperate sales mask the percentage of macs in people homes - you know, where they might actually buy and watch movies.

No worry for Mac users though as studios will be caving in to the iTunes juggernaut eventually after Disney makes a killing selling movies online at $9.99 that people actually buy.

Visit the websites, and be AMAZED

[karolgajewski]

Seriously. Take a look at the websites and check it out. Movielink kicks me off to Zip.ca (which is a great service, love it) which means that I can't even try and give them my money. Oh well. Looking over at Cinemanow, I have to sign up before I even get a glimpse of the size of their catalog. The free video section amounts to the $0.99 rental bin at my favorite video store that distinctly smells of wee.

Why won't these new companies at least try and imitate the "let's at least take a look at what I'm getting into" look and feel of iTunes? However, iTunes does have a really irritating "feature".

If it wasn't for the fact that you need a US credit card for buying videos at iTunes, I'd be downloading them like crazy. I'm willing to bet that there's a large UK (or any non-American english-speakers, for that matter) who would love to give iTunes money, but can't because they don't have a US credit card.

Share of targetted market is more important

[snowwrestler]

This, like most market share numbers, does not make a distinction between consumer and business purchases. As we all know, businesses buy a lot of computers, almost all non-Mac (either Windows desktops or *nix servers). This is significant in the context of TFA because it's extremely unlikely that all these business-owned computers are going to be downloading or playing movies. If you were to look at the targetted market of consumer households who are likely to pay to download movies, my guess is that the Mac share would be significantly larger than 1.8%.

Vendor Lock-in

[ezavada]

I wouldn't want to buy these even if they were half the price of a DVD -- they appear to be based on Window Media Player 10, which locks me in to a single platform for viewing content.

For all the griping people do about the iTunes DRM (and I agree iTunes would be a better service without DRM), at least I still have a choice of platforms I can list to music I buy from them -- including the most important: my CD player.

I can't find a recent cite for any two digit numbe

[way2trivial]

However
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/bus iness/columnists/mike_langberg/14191452.htm?source =rss&channel=siliconvalley_mike_langberg

Gartner puts Apple's 1996 share at 4.6 percent, IDC at 5.1 percent. Market share in 2005 was 2.2 percent from Gartner and 2.3 percent from IDC. According to Gartner, Apple's market share peaked at 15.8 percent in 1980 -- four years before the Mac was introduced.

``It's a puzzle for sure, to the average Mac user,'' says Leander Kahney, author of the 2004 book ``The Cult of Mac'' and an editor at Wired News in San Francisco. ``They are baffled that more people don't use the Mac.''

Apple is somewhat stronger in U.S. consumer market share, with Gartner giving Apple 5.8 percent in 2005 and IDC at 2.9 percent.

so, US consumer marketshare is pegged between 2.9 and 5.8
got anything more recent and authoritative?

Deal Breaker

[schlick]

Sorry, but in order to enjoy the Movielink service you must use Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher, which supports certain technologies we utilize for downloading movies. Click here to get the latest version of Internet Explorer.

We do not support Mozilla or Netscape. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

I know I won't be using Movielink any time soon. I don't want an apology, I want them to get their head out of their ass.

Vivid is releasing porn that can be burned to DVD

[SpryGuy]

This is interesting news, in light of this story:

A new service being launched by Vivid Entertainment on April 3rd, 2006 will allow consumers to purchase, download and burn a complete DVD for instant gratification. Always on the leading edge of technology innovation, the adult entertainment industry is again among the first to offer the ability to download and burn a fully functioning DVD complete with menus, chapter navigation and subtitles (do adult entertainment videos even have subtitles?). The initial launch of the service will include 30 movies from the Vivid Video collection and will cost about $25, which is the same price as purchasing the physical DVD.

This may not be exactly what Bill Gates was referring to when he said that the format war between Blu-Ray and HD DVD would likely be the last, but this is clearly a step forward for the digital distribution of content. The Vivid download DVDs are using a DRM technology that will only allow the video file to be burned to a DVD once. This technology is an important step in providing Vivid with the confidence to go forward with its plan. It's not known whether the burned DVDs will be encrypted with CSS and can be unencrypted and replicated using software such as DVD Decrypter or DVDShrink.

Mainstream studios will probably pay close attention to this service to see if the initial 30 DVDs start to show up on P2P networks with any greater frequency as an indication of piracy rates of movies distributed in this manner. The benefits of digital distribution are significant since it reduces manufacturing and distribution costs as well as any issues with inventory surplus or shortfall (not to mention personal discretion). Despite these advantages, I don't think we'll be seeing any of the major studios following suit anytime soon.

I think they're shooting themselves in the foot by not allowing you to burn a DVD of major Hollywood titles, personally, but maybe they'll fix that after they see how Vivid's experiment goes.

Re:Vivid is releasing porn that can be burned to D

[microbrewer]

All Adult Channel who is going to distribute Vivids' online video is owned by CinemaNow .............how ironic .It just goes to show that its indusrty politics and Walmart that is getting in the way of this more efficient distribution Channel .

US consumer market share

[way2trivial]

still under 6% see my reply to your neighbor's post
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=182036&cid=150 50715

Bullpuckey.

[C0deM0nkey]

I can't believe I'm allowing myself to be dragged into this but...

I'm ready to defend myself in court.

Good luck with that...your tail will be handed to you. No matter how you try to portray it, the point will remain that you downloaded and viewed content distributed through (presently) illegal channels.

Look. I agree with you in principle; my family thinks its funny how upset I get over those anti-piracy commercials. My five-year-old can recognize those as "the commercials Daddy don't like". But your "jab" at "The Man" or whatever it is you *think* you are doing to the *AAs out there only fuels their propaganda. Try before you buy does not apply.

You've got plenty of options to exercise your rights that are perfectly legal:

• Don't watch the movie. Period.
• Read reviews: check independent review sites and check with friends *before* you see the movie. This may require you to skip the first few weeks that the movie is open. Having principles is tough, man. :)
• See the movie at the "cheap seats" i.e. go to a second run theater (usually costs less than a rental). Now you've probably had to wait a month or two.
• Rent the movie

When you circumvent the legal distribution channel (whether you agree with it or not), what you tell the *AA is: "I *really* value your product, enough so that I will do whatever it takes to get it and I'm also willing to contribute to your propaganda regarding piracy and illegal downloads by actually being a participant in your (already) inflated statistics!". What you are not telling them is: "Your product sucks, your business model sucks, your distribution channels suck and your attitude to wards your own customers sucks. Until you change your act, I'm not willing to give you any more of my money."

Which do you think will be more effective:

• Committing what is presently defined as a criminal offense (and not likely to change if you live in the US).
• Hitting them in the pocket book by denying them first-run revenues

Here's a hint: This isn't "civil disobedience" - its theft of service (or something of the sort - spare me the "theft only applies to physical property, yadda, yadda, yadda arguments - the point is that you've not paid for something for which you are obligated (presently) to play; there is no one feeling sorry for you who is willing to do anything about it.

You want to be effective: convince your friends and family to stop going to the first-run theaters; convince your friends and family to not download DRM'ed DVD images (should be an easy sell); if you can, convince your friends and family to not purchase DVDs.

If you value the content enough to view it (and you are giving up 120 minutes, on average, of your time to view it) you should pay the $3-4. Its not your content and the owner of that content has a right to earn money from it. Your *only* rights are to choose not to view the content or purchase the product upon which the content is found.

Re:Bullpuckey.

[ZachPruckowski]

See but if he does it the legal way (which I do, since I work at a second run theatre), then the MPAA will still scream piracy, because they're making less money. They don't care that you're breaking the law, they care that they're not making $$$, and to them, that's the crime they're suing people over.

Re:Bullpuckey.

[From A Far Away Land]

I disagree. Watching downloaded movies is civil disobedience. It's Napster's masses that forced the music industry to come to a pay per song distribution method, otherwise today we'd still be without iTunes service and other big sources for "legal" music online.

Look at the article summary for this Slashdot posting. They are doing this to combat the civil disobedience of movie downloading. If it was simply to serve the customer base better, then they'd have not mentioned the piracy fighting angle of offering convenient online movie downloads available at the same time as the [currently more conveniently backed-up] DVD.

Re:Bullpuckey.

[kwark]

"Good luck with that...your tail will be handed to you. No matter how you try to portray it, the point will remain that you downloaded and viewed content distributed through (presently) illegal channels."

But luckily there are still places in the world where above is completely legal.

A pirate's perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a university student from the United States. I "pirate" movies, music, and TV shows on a semi-regular basis.

First off, I cannot afford these things at their normal price. The other day I saw "March of the Penguins" on DVD for $30. That's kind of absurd. If I could pay a very low price, I would probably do it. But NOT if there is copy protection, as I use non-Windows and non-Mac OSs on a regular basis, and also do not trust software which is intentionally built to remove functionality. I have a hard enough time trusting most proprietary software in general.

Back to the topic at hand, I do try to get things which are current. This includes current movie releases. For one thing, I do not think it is worth $9 and the cost of precious gasoline (the latter of which with time becomes ever more scarce) to go see the crap that Hollywood puts out.

If it's DRM, it's a rental . . .

[Ph33r th3 g(O)at]

. . . because there's no guarantee the purveyors of this junk will provide a means of playing it on whatever hardware I'm running tomorrow.

Ridiculous.

[Furik]

They can continue to try all they want but they won't beat piracy with their stupid ideas for "alternatives".

I agree...

[Novalight_2550]

with the above posts,

who the hell would want to pay more for something that does less...

The P2P networks will be were alot of those who might download these movies, if they weren't so damn restrictive, will be going...

Ah you gotta love it when sites swimming with viruses and adware (both on the site and in the files you download) are getting more vists then these 'legit' sites.

This has already failed

[rfolstad]

I can see it now.. download the divx with drm (750MB) version of our film for $19.99. You will get it at the blistering speed of 10k/s with viewing options of.. your monitor or tv-out. Oh and did i mention the movie is already out on DVD? and for stupid movies like King Kong which a dvd-rip was available around theatre release.

If they are going to get me to pay they need to come up with something more convient than:

1. Goto blockbuster.com hit coming soon to DVD.
2. Enter name of coming soon movie that interests me in fav torrent search site.
3. Download divx dvd rip from the swarm in about 2-4hours depending on popularity
4. Watch movie on my home theatre using my soft mod xbox with XBMC to display. Other people have those Dlink media players and divx dvd players.

Besides VOD they can try as much bs as they want but the only way online downloads of movies are going to work is if i cand download a movie while its in the theatre or weeks after release and only if i can watch it on my tv.

You guys are:Off topic (again)- Good Idea!!

[diorcc]

Why are all these comments off topic again?

They're barreling of to the wrong direction!

I for one welcome the online download service... finally one smart move against "internet piracy", providing the content quickly and on demand!

However, I visited both sites... only Cinema Now offers the service right now, at least for Canada. And the speeds on the website are just terrible... To make sure this thing works they have to invest some in BANDWIDTH.

Its a great idea nevertheless... I was thinking of doing this if I had the funds :/

ALSO: You must use Internet Explorer Version 6 or higher on a PC running Windows 2000 or later in order to use the CinemaNow service. Click here to download Internet Explorer

They are doomed unless they fix their service up a little... perhaps there's still space for competition.

Another way to get us to buy the movies over again

[moto-rider]

It seems to me this is the way the movie theaters can get people to pay for the same movie over again. It has all these software restrictions on what it will run on, but what happens when windows 21xx won't support the software. Ooops now you have to buy it again. And you will get no more convenience factor then is available now. This is by far the worst idea I have seen from MPAA.

do you even understand digital/HD?

[Anonymous Coward]

do you or don't you have an upconverting player?

for the record I have a samsung hlp6163w dlp with a motorola 6412 HD cable/DVR (connected via DVI) and a panasonic s/97s upconverting dvd player (connected via HDMI). if any of that falls into the POS category I'd like to know what doesn't.

I have done synchronized comparisons of identical content (flipping between DVI & HDMI inputs) with at least two episodes of BSG (DVD vs Universal HD) and both Kill Bills (DVD vs HBO-HD). can I tell a difference? sure, but it ain't night and day.

can I tell a native 720p/1080i vs a 480i upconverted in the TV? hell yes but that's a totally different ?. a dvd starts at 480p (vs 480i) plus the player can pick up cadence vs. TV guessing at it. if I hooked an RCA or even svid from my player to the display would it look like total crap? sure but I have more sense than that (which is why I bought the model I have).

Hollywood... Welcome to the Year 2000, er...2006!

[pr0digy25]

I wondered how long it would take for the dinosaurs in Hollywood to finally catch up with the rest of the industrialized world. Give it another few years and Hollywood will know to cut out the "middle man" (aka movie theaters) and give people direct access to films. With people investing so much money in HDTV and nice audio setups to complement these, a cinema will be a thing for nostalgia. Even the declining theatre ticket sales are evidence of people's distaste for going to the theater. And if H5N1 ever breaks out... you know people won't be going to any theaters!

You mean Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

[Drog]

Since Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix hasn't been made yet.

What's the point?

[amuro98]

Seriously now, what's the point of this?

Those who are already illegaly downloading aren't going to suddenly start paying for the privelege. Heck, people who download movies don't think the movie is worth paying for (in any form) to begin with, otherwise, they'd be out *buying* the legitimate version, no?

It might be nice to offer the legitimate consumer another method for purchasing films, but the industry is heavily deluding themselves if they think this is going to somehow stop (or even decrease!) casual piracy.

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

I considered dropping my usenet ways when I heard about this. then I saw the prices 35.00 for a download that only works on a PC, OUCH!!!!. If it were 7.95 or 10.00 for new releases Id consider swapping out, but at that rate, No. for me Its 20.00 for the DVD if I like the Cam copy from usenet.

Not market share, installed base

[SuperKendall]

As I said in the post you just responded to, market share is not at all the same as installed base of computers in use. Market share equals SALES PER YEAR. Even though the percentage of macs sold may be smaller over time the actual number of macs in use may be larger is people keep macs longer, or if more people have more than one PC, or if macs are just simply used longer. I have found this to generally be the case as a number of macs bought around the same time I bought my 486 DELL are still in use; my Dell is not.

Again, not market share! Market share is a misleading figure, as you have demonstrated. And again I have to note that includes corperate sales, where the mac is almost non-existant - making even marketshare figures far higher for home computers than the numbers would seem.

why pay more for a download ?

[deiong]

well reading it at other news places. they say it'll cost more then a dvd. so why would anyone want to pay more then a dvd. soem of teh niceties would be.. 1. smaller resolution 2. pixelated as heck ( have yet to see a pay for movie downlaodable that wasnt 3. no extrea featrues like in the dvd 4. drm so i cant tranfer to all teh devices in my house. streaming media player dvd player, psp, ipod, play for sure portables. etc etc... 5. no box work 6. no neat insert 7. no disc 8. no artwork on the non exsistant disc. 9. can anyone actually figure out a pro for this ?? hadnt they learned anything from umd. people dont want to pay more for less, if they can simpley buy the dvd and rip it and do with what they want. .. sometimes i really got to wonder were they get there 'ill'ogical logic.

Both sites require IE

[Logan_Fu]

I'd like to rent/buy movies to watch on my PC. I really would. But until they figure out a way to allow me to do so via Firefox, I'm gonna have to take a pass.

Vongo

[bozojoe]

Aint that interesting, I got my 14 days free of Vongo CD today in the mail

It won't work

[Movie Downloads]

Choice: Pay $20 to $30 for a movie that you can download and only watch with a PC (and perhaps move to another PC, if it works and the rules are not changed), or download the same movie for free and do whatever the heck you want with it (e.g. burn to DVD, move to any computer or device any number of times). For most sane people, that's not a choice. If you are honest, you won't do anything. The result is the same: what Movielink and CinemaNow are trying to do won't work because consumers won't do it. You can have the greatest DRM in the world, but it means nothing if one copy gets out in the clear. And one copy will always get out in the clear. DRM should be called PIT (piracy inducement technology).

The only sane way to download movies is a service called EZTakes (www.eztakes.com). They provide the only legal movie download service that gives you the ability to burn the downloads you buy to DVDs that will play on standard DVD players.

Legal Download to DVD is already at EZTakes.com

[Movie Downloads]

EZTakes already offers a legal movie downloads that give people the ability to burn standard recordable DVDs that will play on standard DVD players that people already own.

All the bases covered...

[Anonymous Coward]

movies will include Brokeback Mountain, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and King Kong."
 
They have all the bases covered: Gays, Geeks, and Gorillas.