Hard Drives Shipping with Star Trek

crimeandpunishment writes "Paramount Pictures is trying to live long and prosper by selling Seagate Technology hard drives with the latest Star Trek movie on board ... along with 20 other films. The 500GB hard drive will sell for a special promotional price of $100. It's the latest way for Hollywood to combat falling DVD sales due to piracy."

Comments

$100 ... PLUS $10-$15 Charger PER Title

[eldavojohn]

The 500GB hard drive will sell for a special promotional price of $100.

Oh yeah that is, of course, if you don't want to watch the titles. If you want to watch the movies:

The other movies distributed by Paramount, including "GI Joe," ''Nacho Libre" and "Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius" come pre-loaded with a digital lock that requires a code that can be purchased online for $10 to $15 each. Even watching "Star Trek" requires registration.

So yeah it's $100 or over triple that if you actually want to watch the "promotional" material. Otherwise you're buying a hard drive with a (presumably Windows) partition that has Windows DRM and twenty movies taking up 50 gigabytes of space. Sounds to me like a lame AOL CD that gets you working with the shit and then hopes that you just keep using their platform for buying and downloading movies.

I guess a brave soul could buy the drive and leave the 50 gigs intact and then download the 20 movies and feign ignorance if the MPAA comes knocking at the door. I wonder if there's some consumer protection laws that states if you buy something legally you have a right to enjoy it. Because right now you're buying a digital copy of something that is encrypted but you're not receiving the license that is required to watch it. They better carefully label that the PROMOTION part of the sale lest a consumer figures that they're paying 10% for the movies and 90% for the drive and then becomes upset when they get home and can't watch the movies without ponying up an additional 200%-300%.

Both companies declined to say if they were taking a loss on the promotional price.

Really? Oh yeah, sounds like Sony is bending over backwards to trap you into paying the retail price of owning the digital movie that sells for $15 right now on Amazon. They're using Seagate and Seagate customers are rubes to get around paying for streaming bandwidth of these 50 gigs to potential customers.

I choose to rate this tactic as USDA certified lame. Shame on Seagate. Shame on Sony. I feel sorry for those that might buy this without realizing what they're getting themselves into.

Re:$100 ... PLUS $10-$15 Charger PER Title

[PitaBred]

Is the movie industry just incapable of coming up with a business plan that doesn't involve ripping people off?

Is water wet?

Re:$100 ... PLUS $10-$15 Charger PER Title

[icebraining]

I'd bet "good" stars are happy to take less to play in good movies.

See Jim Carrey in The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), another $20 million movie. He made that movie just a year after charging a salary of $25 million for Bruce Almighty.

Make good movies that real actors can be proud of being in, and they'll settle for way less.

Fixed that for ya.

[TooMuchToDo]

" It's the latest way for Hollywood to combat falling DVD sales due to netflix and other cheaper content avenues."

Re:Fixed that for ya.

[FriendlyLurker]

" It's the latest way for Hollywood to combat falling DVD sales due to piracy" citation needed

Re:Fixed that for ya.

[TheRaven64]

Sounds closer to the truth. I have a hundred or so DVDs, but I've hardly bought any since I subscribed to a DVD rental service. I get 2-4 DVDs in the post every week to watch for about the same price as buying one DVD a month. There are very few DVDs that I've watched more than a couple of times, and I'd almost always watch something new than re-watch an old DVD, so buying doesn't make economic sense. Per viewing, it costs more than renting for all except the most exceptional films.

Meh

[ak_hepcat]

I can get a 1TB hard-drive for under a $100 at many locations (costco, google-shopping) so this seems like a big waste of money to me.

Re:Buying a license for the movies?

[Rich0]

:) Good luck with that plan.

And, if nothing else you're massively overspending for a 500gb drive...

DRM makes this useless crap.

[RyanFenton]

...Even watching "Star Trek" requires registration...

The pre-loaded movies come with a Windows-based digital rights management system that prevents file sharing. They take up about 50 GB of the drive itself.

This means the drive is filled with extra useless crap wasting space before a format. It'd be a sad thing to discover you paid extra for this, only to not be able to actually use the movies as you would any other file, or even DVD. Hardly a "promotion", more like a way to gamble and write off a loss on old stock.

Ryan Fenton

Ehm, you are forgetting Hollywood economics

[SmallFurryCreature]

Remember in Hollywood a movie that earns millions in ticket sales, nonetheless fails to make a profit when the author has to be payed.

In Hollywood a shared movie does damages to the tune of roughly the world economy * infinity.

And in Hollywood a 500gb HD costs the price of a 2tb drive to anyone else.

This ain't even the typical scam of naming the recommended retail price as a the value of a gift, since Seagate doesn't even recommend this price itself.

Ah, hollywood and scamming. Remember, if you buy a movie, you are supporting these guys. Safe the free world, be a pirate!