Slashdot Mirror
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."
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?"
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.
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.
--
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.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
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)
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oh, I can't help quoting you because everything that you said rings true
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.
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.
The bold print giveth, and the fine print taketh away
Well, I dunno. That's the way it sounds to me.
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.
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. . .
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
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:
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:
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.