Online Streaming As Profitable As TV, Disc Sales By Charging Just a $15 Flat Fee

Lucas123 writes "A new report shows that if movie production houses charged a $15 monthly fee to just 45% of the world's online subscribers, they could rake in just as much cash as they currently do through TV downloads and disc sales. That equates to $29.4 billion. 'Movie producers have little to fear from online distribution in the long term,' the report states. 'It is the distribution part of the movie business that should be worried because online distribution will replace a sizable portion of their current industry.' According to the report's hypothetical model, the $15 fee would offer open access to all movie content — meaning instant online access to all movies that have been ever produced, 'along with new releases as they come out.'"

Comments

But greed.

[i kan reed]

With this, then they can't double dip. They wouldn't be sell the popular ones, while dumping the unpopular ones on netflix for the fees. And there might be incentives other than spectacle and marketing in the development of movies, and we can't have that either.

Retire from sailing the Bay in search of booty.

[Anonymous Coward]

They do this and I'll stop pirating!

Re:Retire from sailing the Bay in search of booty.

[Anonymous Coward]

They do this and I'll stop pirating!
 
That's what you said when you complained about the price. The price dropped. You still pirated because you said it had DRM.
The DRM was removed. You still pirated because you said that the quality wasn't good enough.
The quality was raised. You still pirated because you didn't like the delivery method/you thought it was a moral battle against the RIAA/Copyright is teh EviLZZzz!!!/The software wasn't available for your Commodore 64.
 
Face facts, you're never going to stop pirating and the **IA is never going to stop pushing back. The crybabies on Slashdot move the goalposts every time the model improves itself. To top it off the asshats here act like they're entitled to what others produce with talk about how the producers are crybabies for not giving everything away for free.
 
Make your own content or go to jail, that's how I feel about it anymore. I hope they do lock you jerks up.

Re:Retire from sailing the Bay in search of booty.

[bjwest]

I run Linux. Tell me again about that iTunes model giving me what I want.

Re:Retire from sailing the Bay in search of booty.

[Charliemopps]

Pirating is a pain in the ass.

I download the movie and its a DVD screener or cam...
I download the movie and its got hardcoded subtitles...
I download the movie and it has NO subtitles but have the people in the movie are speaking Russian...
I download the movie and get an annoying email that I now have to delete...
My ISP feels justified in throttling me because what I'm using my bandwidth for could potentially be piracy...

I'd pay $15/month to rid myself of those annoyences. But the industry has to give me what I get with piracy for free.
1. I can get any movie I want, from any point in time.
2. The video doesn't have 30min of previews before it starts.
3. The video will play anywhere. No silverlight BS
4. The movie is available soon after it leaves theaters... not years later... and no location locks.
5. I can save the movie to disc and do not have to stream it during peak times just because they're terrified that I might make a copy of it.

Of course, everything above they see as revenue generating so it'll never happen. They don't want to use the internet to make as much money as they are making now... they want to use the internet to make ALL the money. As illogical as it seems, declining profits are just as bad as bankruptcy to them. They just keep throwing the ball long hoping someone catches it. All this nonsense about working your way down the field and first downs isn't something they want to think about.

Re:Retire from sailing the Bay in search of booty.

[jedidiah]

> If this wasn't true the Beatles wouldn't be the most pirated band in the world.

The Beatles? Really? You must be joking.

Any of their stuff is likely OLDER THAN YOU ARE.

That's not even real piracy. That's just the public domain being taken back by the masses.

You picked a piss poor example of the "injustice of piracy".

That's not going to happen

[phantomfive]

the $15 fee would offer open access to all movie content — meaning instant online access to all movies that have been ever produced, 'along with new releases as they come out

That's not going to happen

Re:That's not going to happen

[CanHasDIY]

the $15 fee would offer open access to all movie content — meaning instant online access to all movies that have been ever produced, 'along with new releases as they come out

That's not going to happen

Which is too bad, because a guy like me, who doesn't care enough about movies to pay $30/visit to see them in the theater nor pay $30 to buy the BluRay, would happily pay $15/mo for instant access to, essentially, every movie ever made.

Oh, well, I guess the studios don't want my money.

Quality?

[sunderland56]

If movie producers got a flat, monthly paycheque, there would be zero incentive to make *good* movies.

Re:Quality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your statement implies the current system produces anything of quality.

Re:Quality?

[CanHasDIY]

If movie producers got a flat, monthly paycheque, there would be zero incentive to make *good* movies.

Right? I mean, what crazy person would think that the exact same model that pretty much every productive human in the nation lives by would work for the denizens of Hollyweird?

Re:Quality?

[CanHasDIY]

Strange. I have lived in America my entire life, and have not heard of anyone with this arrangement.

So.. you've never known anyone who worked a normal, 8-5 job, for a normal, essentially set amount of pay?

Idle rich? Otherwise, I find your tale dubious at best.

Oh, you think you are being clever,

You probably don't realize this, but that comes off as exceedingly troll-ish (i.e., intentionally inflammatory and offering no advancement of the topic). Proceed with caution.

and you mean employees, right?

Who else would I mean?

Are you implying that movie producers are not employees of someone? Do you know what the word 'employee' means? The actual definition, not one you've made up in your own head?

So tell me, how much cost and financial risk (to you) is associated with your job. Don't tell me, I already know ($0).

OK, dingus, now I know you're trollin'.

Since you seem to think you know me better than I do, you already saw this coming: Piss off and go bother someone else.

Ridiculous

[kamapuaa]

Are people in China going to agree to this? 45% of the entire world's internet subscriber base strikes me as absurd.

Sure if Photoshop sold for $3 to every single person who owns a PC they would make way more money than if they sold their software for several hundred dollars. But it's not going to happen.

Can't Truss It

[thewolfkin]

for $15/mo I would pay but I want EVERYTHING. ANYTIME. ANYWHERE. For Decades. they won't give me that. They'll drop some shows, they'll only last for a while. they'll block it in Canada offer different choices in Europe. It won't work in Trinidad. And without all that I'm not paying.

$15 per month... per service

[MDMurphy]

If this was deemed viable and studios signed up there'd be no consensus on how to run it. So, there'd be 2 or 3 (or more) different services, all offering you "all" of their movies for $15 a month. But you'd find Disney films only one one service, Marvel superhero movies only on another and so on...

It might be that it were possible to get all the back catalogs of movies all available to stream, but I'd strongly suspect it would take several flat fees to do it.

Re:The Revenue Substitution Principle.

[CastrTroy]

Yeah, but I doubt most people would pay $1 an episode. You have to get them on a subscription package, because at the end of the day, once you start asking them for money every time they want to watch a show, they'll opt to not watch it at all. They're only watching it because their cable bill is a sunk cost, and your show happens to be the best thing on. If they now have to choose paying you $1 to watch the show, and spending $0, and watching some other show, or just watching stuff on Youtube, the vast majority of people will just choose to not spend the $1.

Music on iTunes

[nobuddy]

this MPAA shill likes to harp on iTunes DRM free options, no matter how broken the argument is, or even irrelevant to the discussion.

HBO

[XMark3]

Seriously, I am just waiting to give HBO all my money as soon as they offer HBO Go without having to sign up for the TV channel. Why doesn't HBO want my money?

"Chinese Marketing"

[Shoten]

This concept...the viability of a business model defined by "if X% of Y population buys this for $Z" is so classically suicidal that it is literally taught in management 101 in college as one of the most sure-fire signs that a business will fail. It is called "Chinese Marketing," as a lot of early examples involved pipe dreams of how much profit could be had with even modest market penetration within the Chinese population. Such a simplistic approach fails to take into account many things:

-how long it may take to reach that level of penetration
-currency valuation challenges
-IP law differences between countries
-how many of the world's online population has access to sufficiently high bandwidth
-how many of the world's online population has their own computer (as opposed to just using an Internet cafe...substantially increasing the cost of subscribing to those potential customers who are on the margins of affordability)
-who would be the clearing house/sole distribution provider that would distribute all of the movies on behalf of every movie company

The model falls apart quickly when you take these factors into account, and I am sure there are at least a few more that I don't even know about.