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Netflix Will Delay Renting New WB Releases
DesertBlade tips the news that Netflix will delay renting new releases from Warner Brothers for 28 days, and adds "Luckily I am so far behind in my movie watching that I will probably never catch up anyway." "It's part of a strategy by several studios to create staggered releases of DVDs so that the most profitable transactions are available first and cheaper rental options take effect further down the road. The move could be copied by other studios, forcing consumers to wait nearly a month if they want to rent popular movies from Netflix. ... The studio is hoping that the four-week window will push consumers interested in watching movies at home to buy the DVDs or pay a premium to rent them from stores like Blockbuster or from Internet and cable video-on-demand services. Warner Bros. already imposes a 28-day window on $1-a-night kiosk firm Redbox."
Artifically deny your customer the ability to buy your product. They'll love you for it!
Feh.
Living With a Nerd
If I really want the movie on dvd I'm gonna buy it anyway. If I was just gonna rent it when it comes out on dvd what makes you think I'll want to buy it instead of waiting 28 extra days? Or at worse one could always pirate it since I'm sure there will be dvd rips on the net. Anyway, this isn't all bad... more streaming stuff :)
This sounds like a risky strategy. Creating more hassles and delays for your customer does not seem to be a "customer first" attitude. But I guess ultimately the market will decide if it is reasonable.
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell"
Aldous Huxley
to visit more pawn shops to get my brand new dvd for $3.99 Way to take away a choice for consumers so you can alienate even more of them.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
We use the hell out of our Netflix subscription...6 out at a time, and sometimes even that doesn't feel like enough. It works out well though...she tends to rent interesting documentaries and sci-fi, while I tend to rent the classics she hasn't seen and horror movies she hasn't seen. We both work together on choosing anime and TV series.
Having a massive selection of b-horror movies and silent films ready and waiting is awesome.
Living With a Nerd
One could argue that ever deciding that the company should make more money is not a "customer first" attitude.
"Customer first" is at best a goal of a company. Most companies want to stay afloat first ... which may or may not be directly tied to a "customer first" ideal.
But to think that companies are actively trying to seek ways to lower their profit in order to put the customer first seems a little idealistic. Sorta like thinking that most customers *won't* choose the cheaper of two products, all other things with the product identical. Some to have a brand loyalty, but I'm not sure most do.
These movie studios are still stuck in their old ways of doing things. They try to DMR content, for the longest time deny online streaming and basically go out of their way to stymie the consumer from what they want. Why are these studios having such a hard time moving to a new delivery model without imposing limits? Surely it's got to be more than just making an extra buck or two. Do they have a sense of entitlement and control over us?
Really.
People only buy movies they really, really like. The others, they rent them.
Delaying rent will not cause people to buy them bu to download them. Thus "proving" that piracy is really, really bad, evil and unAmerican...
It looks like they are getting smarter :-/
How is it a hassle? It IS a delay, but as Netflix is the only place I use to check new releases, it's one I admittedly won't notice. In return, we'll get way more instant-watch movies available, which I don't have to wait for and can watch on my laptop or two of the three consoles in the house.
It's hardly an anti-customer strategy when they make the same choice I'd have asked them to, given the option. The only thing currently stopping Instant-Watch from being really awesome is its subpar selection. And really, if I cared about seeing the movies from Netflix soon after they came out, I'd have seen them in theaters.
As everyone has already pointed out, making it HARDER for customers to get YOUR product is only going to DRIVE THEM to find it another way. IE BIT TORRENT or any other piracy trend.
This is quite clear, in the recent decision by the BBC to broadcast the recent Dr Who two-parter in the US the DAY AFTER it broadcast in the UK. Gee. What were my choices, bit torrent, or wait a WHOLE DAY to DVR it? I chose to DVR, cause it was EASIER and better to watch on my TV.
GWB to President of Brazil - "You have blacks, too?"
When Netflix was a rogue outfit that bought DVDs "off the shelf" and thumbed their noses at the studios it was an awesome service.
Streaming seems to have turned them into a negotiating machine that gives the studios what they want at the expense of the Netflix customer. The result is that it has become a clearinghouse for unpopular content.
I just tried 'em again for a month, and it has become dismal.
-Peter
It might be risky, but I think his assessment of the average Netflix customer is fairly accurate. At least is describes me, a Netflix customer, accurately. Typically, when you hear of a movie coming out that you want to see, you add it to the queue. It's not out yet, but once it is sitting at the top of the queue ready once it becomes available. Except that movie is in high demand, so it says "Long wait" next to it. The second movie in the queue comes instead. But you don't really care, because you still want to see that movie. It's not like I'm a seven year old that has to see THAT one NOW! It will come when it's ready. In the mean time, I have a long list of movies that I have already said I want to see that will ship in its place until it is my turn. At a certain point, you stop paying attention to what's next, and you just accept what arrives in the mail. Any movie that I really really want to see, I would have already seen in the theaters. Avatar was a good example. Wanted to see badly and also appreciated the big screen experience.
The thing that bothers me a little is how Netflix is being prioritized by the studios due to the fact that they are cheap. The article mentions the same with the RedBoxes. Both are far cheaper for the consumer than in-store rentals or on-demand from Cable/Satelite and they get the worst priority. It's as if the studios resent those customers for finding a great bargain and want to take out their anger on them. But again, if seeing that movie right away is that important, you can pay the premium to do so.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
It's a plan to make crappier movies and still make money from them.
Some people rent movies as they come out, before they buy them, to make sure that what they buy is good movies.
By delaying renting for a month (of February in a non-leap year), the studios are making the more impatient and impulse-buying people buy hyped movies, and you can't back out on that, unless of course you outsmart these guys and wait the month before renting the movie, deciding that it's crap and not buying it.
Companies prey on impulse buyers. Patience is a virtue.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
1090p, cause it's like 10 more.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
I have over 110 movies in my queue and I check the new releases at least once a month and add anything that appears in there that I want to see. With the 3 disk option, I am about 6-8 months behind the "new release" curve anyway. I would find it hard to believe that I am unique in this situation. I mean, I can watch 3 movies a week, maybe 4 or 5 if I really have some extra time over the wekeend. But seriously, if WB wants to make people wait 28 days, good for them. At least DVD release cycles are better than VHS back in the old days (get off my lawn?) of the 80s and 90s you had to wait a year, sometimes two for a movie to get released for rental from the local Erols ...
"Keep at least 3-6 full bottles of hard alcohol on hand, a 2 week resignation notice,..." - Poetmatt
If you are waiting for the movie to show up on Netflix, it won't matter if it comes out 1 day after the theatrical release, 6 months after, or 6 months +28 days.
I'm perfectly fine living 6+ months in the past for movies, so long as those AAA movies are still making it into my queue eventually.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
The summary did not mention what Netflix gets out of the deal: more on-demand content. From the article:
As someone who has Netflix Instant Queue available directly on my television (thanks, TiVo), I'm more than happy to wait another month for a latest release if it means I can decide on a Thursday evening that I'd rather watch "Big Movie A" instead of "Big Movie B" without having to wait 2 days (one day to mail back, one day to receive) to see it.
Evil is as eval("does");
Amazing. Could it possibly be that a whole bunch of former customers will just forget they were ever interested? Are they going to move back the window for showing on on-demand and premium cable, too? When 95 percent of the product you produce is utter crap, each mostly indistinguishable from all the other pieces of crap, it sure makes sense to make yours harder to get. Of course when the obvious an inevitable effects are felt it will all be the pirates' fault, or some woman videoing a theater party.
That's movie-studio thinking. And yeah, on the face of it, it does make sense - break the law, commit a morally wrong act for the sake of 28 days?
But that forgets what movies have become. Torrents being free is only half of it - the other half is service. Piracy is fiercely competitive on service: they are quire remarkable in getting whatever you want, however you want, as quickly as they possibly can. The studios have taken some steps towards competing: cinema releases are increasingly worldwide and DVD releases have a shorter delay. But they're not really close - it's like the big airlines trying to do the low-cost airline thing, they just don't have the mentality for it.
It's why some people pirate despite having their cinema card, a Netflix sub and shelves of store-bought movies. It's not that they aren't prepared to pay, it's just piracy is the better service. Sure, plenty of pirates are doing it just because it's free, but there's a big chunk of people with a range of different reasons. Each step the studios take towards competing with piracy is a chunk of people for whom paying becomes their better choice. Each step away from competing with piracy, like delaying Netflix for 28 days, a bunch of people turn on the torrents. Many will actually be annoyed about not being able to get what they want by paying for it.
I'm not trying to defend pirates, I've never illegally downloaded a movie in my life (though I'll not pretend to having never watched any). But there's what's right and there's what is. Quite basic market forces.
Why wouldn't this line of reasoning stand up in court if you were to be busted for downloading a movie? Really the way I see it is if its rent-able by netflix and I have an account in good standing I should be entitle to watch anything I could rent no matter the means of transfer.
Largely because you are creating a copy of a work protected against such behavior, you'd legally still be on the hook.
The laws aren't designed to limit your access to the material. Instead they intend to control the circumstances under which that work can be duplicated. Just because you have the means to access it does not mean you have permission to create a copy.
NOTE: My wife and I have SEVEN full bookshelves of DVD & Blu-Ray. We're movie nuts. We love to watch them. We love to go back and watch ones we particularly like. If they're good, we'll buy multiple editions we want--I've bought two copies of Iron Man, two full sets of Lord of the Rings, and lord knows how many Star Wars. I'll rebuy the latter two on Blu-Ray when they come out. I like to think we're the model of good customers. I don't bit torrent films because unlike some I like the way it looks on the shelf. The same as I like the way my books look on the shelf. Screw E-readers and stacks of ripped discs.
We also consume Netflix and Comcast OnDemand ravenously, and sometimes the Amazon download rental service or the local actual DVD rental store. Why?
I don't want to buy EVERY film I see. Some I'm fine with only seeing the once. I don't know if I'll like it. We only go to 10-15 films a year maximum in theaters (probably a lot compared to most). It's one of our main hobbies. Do I buy every film I see in theater on disc? Of course not. Half of them I'll never want to see again because they're either not memorable, not important to me, or total shit. Do I buy films that I've rented? ABSOLUTELY! All of them? Absolutely not! I recently watched GI Joe on a flight. Then we downloaded it on Amazon on a lark. My wife loved it, and she hates that sort of film. Now I want to buy it on Blu-Ray--why? It's fun, and it's a fun film you can watch again and toss on with company over to show off the pretty HDTV and laugh about the heinous execution of our childhood memories of GI Joe. Most importantly, again:
It's rewatchable.
Put out consistently quality, engaging films. Aim for every film to be Oscar caliber in some way. That doesn't mean every film has to have an Avatar budget or 99% of the Royal Shakespeare Company in the speaking cast. Pay for a good script. It doesn't have to be a great film--see my GI Joe example above. It's not a great film, but visually? Amazing, and rewatchable for sheer fun with people over. Pay for a good director. Pay for good lighting, decent CGI, good cinematograpy. Make films people will ****WANT**** to see more than once. You many music CDs I've bought in my life for one track that, after I played that track several times, I never listened to that CD ever, ever again? The same thing. Your trailer may be ace--but the film shit. Don't make shit films, and I'll be more likely to buy them. I'm sure the same goes for everyone else too.
Most importantly, don't piss on your devoted customers that pay your salaries. Rentals drive sales. Quality films drive sales. Crap product to simply have a release will never drive sales.
You ever notice how each week we get 3-5 new major film releases? You ever notice how 3-4 of them are substandard to the others? I think they're put out as loss leaders. You put out shit like that, and then complain that people don't all buy your annual release catalog on DVD? What did you expect would happen?
You work at our pleasure. We don't watch your products at yours.
Dude, where's my packet?
Great comment - you forgot one thing - Pirates can often put out a superior product - i.e. a DVD that doesn't force you to sit through FBI warnings or unskippable trailers. You get the movie you want, immediately.
Redbox sure isn't waiting 28 days on Warner Brother release (or Universal). I saw the Hangover(WB release) just a few days after the December 18th release from a redbox. From a previous post someone said that their brother works for Redbox and basically buys every copy from every walmart in the area at midnight and stock machines. If you don't sell to Redbox, they basically with use the First Sale Doctrine without you.
Netflix really only has a few reasons for doing this. They know streaming is the future, and they need to reduce costs to be more profitable. Netflix basically don't have much real competition left and have a lot of momentum. So now they are just focusing on profitability rather then growth and competition.
"The owner of a lawfully made copy" is the rental shop. The copyright owner's exclusive right to distribute ends the moment the rental shop buys the copy, and the rental shop can do what it wants short of making further copies or holding a public screening. If you disagree with my analysis, I'd love to see you cite some U.S. circuit court cases interpreting 17 USC 109 in a way favorable to the studios.
Bingo. I wanted to watch Inglorious Bastards. So, I head off to Netflix and it's not on streaming and the DVD is on wait. Lets ignore for a moment that we live in time where we shouldn't need physical media AT ALL in order to rent something (or even buy for that matter). Next I go to the xbox movie section and I see IB. I think good, I can rent it here. Nope, it's only for purchase and it's only SD. I'm trying my hardest to give someone money to rent their content and they won't let me! At some point more and more people are going to say f' it and just go straight to TPB. The hassle of finding it to rent just isn't worth it when I can find and download it in minutes.
BTW, I think the music companies have started to learn this lesson, even if they were pulled along kicking and screaming. Look at Amazon and ITMS now. No DRM, Amazon has a great changing selection of $5 albums, and both make it easy to find whatever you are looking for and purchase for a fairly reasonable price. Why can't movies follow suit?
But "28 Days Later" wasn't that good.
If there's a 'must-see' then we don't know about it until it's out of the first-run theaters. How else are you going to know that the film is good? People that go to first run movies, spend $10 each for tickets, $25 for babysitter, $5 for popcorn, and $4 for popcorn aren't going to tell you that the movie wasn't anything but good. And the second week people are always going to say the film is good to prove that they can wait for quality.
No, you gotta wait until the movie reaches the second-run $3 theaters. If it isn't any good then it won't get to these theaters. The studio will blitz the opening night with deceptive ads for a turkey and then go straight to DVD.
If it's a real 'must-see' then just watch the previews/trailers until you know the whole movie. Your average Hollywood movie can have its entire look/feel/plot experienced in a three minute preview (Spiderman III, Superman Ten, anyone?).
Nah, If it's worth seeing, then it's worth waiting for the DVD. And if it's really good, then it will make it to the library shelf where it will be free for a week or more.
And if it's great, then it's timeless quality. So why not wait a year or two to see it? What difference does it make? Now's the time to go to the library and check out for free all the excellent movies that you decided not to see because you didn't want to spend $10 on an independent or foreign film when it was in the theaters.
Myself, I always save the best for last. Maybe this week I'll watch this movie called 'Star Wars' that I've been hearing people rave about for so long.
The studios have taken some steps towards competing: cinema releases are increasingly worldwide and DVD releases have a shorter delay. But they're not really close - it's like the big airlines trying to do the low-cost airline thing, they just don't have the mentality for it.
Big Airlines are competing on low-cost because it is incredibly difficult to differentiate a plane ride from another plane ride to consumers. When people shop on the web they go for the lowest cost the majority of the time. Try picturing yourself eating a better meal and watching a movie on a plane, would you even pay 20$ more? Most people say to the hell with it Ill save money and eat whenever I get there.
http://biz.yahoo.com/p/sum_qpmd.html
Airline industry is consistently at the bottom for profit/margin, they fail if they do not have low costs. The studios make take an idea for a film, make a bunch of products based on that film, push all this shit on everyone everywhere, and are still trying to double up by not letting you even make a damn backup in the case a spec of sand finds its way onto your disc. As a secondary side note, most companies worry about customer support when they mass distribute a product. I have never got s4n74cl4wz to respond to my requests when the the frame is clipped. Think about it, how can these be "quite basic market forces" when the "competition" is distributing your product without paying you?
Netflix agreed to this because they are getting a discount on their DVD purchases and letting them cut costs.
I'm sure that's a big part of it...but the press release also mentioned that WB is giving them access to more of its catalog for their streaming service.
With physical DVDs, if WB refuses to sell directly to Netflix, they can always send someone to Costco, buy a bunch of DVDs, and rent them under the first sale doctrine. With streaming, they need an active contract with WB to do it (legally) at all. If WB decides not to renew that contract...well, there goes their streaming service. Or at least anything from Warner Bros.