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Sony Warns It Will Take $1 Billion Writedown, Blames Slowing DVD Sales (reuters.com)
Sony has warned investors that it will take roughly $978m writedown on its film business, blaming a goodwill impairment charge that dates back to an acquisition of a Hollywood studio almost three decades ago. From a report on Reuters: The impairment charge came as Sony cut its outlook for profits from DVD, blu-ray discs and other home entertainment operations in line with a broader market decline, the company said in statement on Monday. Sony has been working to revive its movie business. In November, the Japanese conglomerate's chief financial officer, Kenichiro Yoshida, said a turnaround was "progressing, but it takes time for the benefit to be realized."
Let's ban the internet and lobby congress for more DRM. Thats IT MORE DRM! It has to be piracy. Let's work to make hardware not work with Linux and I am sure everyone will be happy to cancel their netflix accountants and open their wallets.
That's the ticket
http://saveie6.com/
Let's ban the internet and lobby congress for more DRM.
And that would have worked under Hillary with her cozy Hollywood relationships.
Under Trump, Hollywood can go pound sand.
One fun thing Trump could do to get back at the screeching entertainment industry going after him; halve the current copyright expiration period.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
One fun thing Trump could do to get back at the screeching entertainment industry going after him; halve the current copyright expiration period.
Switching from life of grandchildren back to the 56-year term of the 1909 Act would require leaving not only the WTO but also several bilateral treaties already in force. Good luck getting that passed without angering constituents in districts with a strong export manufacturing sector. And watch entertainment industry lawyers argue in court that shortening the term of subsisting copyrights qualifies as a "taking" that requires "just compensation" pursuant to the Fifth Amendment.
Most households have realized their unwatched DVD collections are worthless and have written their value down to $0.
DVD sales are "ok", because the media and platform doesn't suck like Blu-ray
What're you talking about? My six-year-old puts in the Cars 2 Blu-Ray, presses play and starts eating Cheerios and watching his movie.
Nothing 'sucks.'
DVD? What the fuck is that?
It is a physical audio-visual media storage format that you can purchase in a store or online. Once you purchase a movie or other content on a DVD, you can watch it as many times as you want without any expiration or revealing to anyone how many times you have watched the content. This is in contrast to an online streaming model where the provider of the content can at any time decide that you can no longer watch the content and with which the content provider knows what you watch, when you watch it, and can sell or use that information without restriction.
While it can be argued that it is possible to copy the contents of a DVD or an online stream for unrestricted and offline use, doing so is likely against the law. Physical media purchases are a way to legally watch the content you want in an unrestricted way.
DVD sales are "ok", because the media and platform doesn't suck like Blu-ray. Sony needs to pay big time for the death sentence they gave Blu-ray. Very very bad business decision. The paid their way in, and then locked it down to make it unusable.
Don't know what you're talking about. I can rip DVDs and Blu-Rays both on my computer with the same level of ease.
Bluerays are still quality superior to streaming, the 'not much data' is an order of magnitude more than what you'd use streaming. Also, ironically you do have marginally more freedom with disks than streaming, plus you could always break the copy protection and have complete freedom.
Who wants DVDs? [...] Or Blu-Ray disks?
I do. Discs are the only means I'm aware of by which I can legally obtain content to watch on any device, at the highest quality, online or offline, at home or away, without previews, without affecting my data cap, and without having to worry about it going away after a licensing deal expires. Nothing else available today can provide all of that with certainty.
Going into specifics:
1) There's media worth owning. I sometimes want to support companies with my wallet. Other times, I want to ensure that I'll have perpetual access to a show or film. Netflix et al. can't guarantee that, so for media I want to be able to re-watch in perpetuity, it's oftentimes worth it to me to purchase a copy.
2) Media that's worth owning is typically worth owning in high quality. While Netflix is great, I can still get a higher quality image and sound from a blu-ray (e.g. lossless surround audio) than I can via streaming. For media worth owning, it's nice to know that it's in the highest quality, that way it'll still look and sound good in the future.
3) I can bring discs with me anywhere. Unlike streaming services, which are a mixed bag when it comes to the content that's available for offline viewing, physical copies can be watched offline in cars, on airplanes, or away from civilization.
4) It isn't an either/or between discs and streaming. I rip all of my discs, encode them using Don Melton's transcoding scripts, and load them onto my Plex server. Plex lets me do everything I could with a disc, plus provide the benefits of streaming.
5) I don't run afoul of the legal and moral concerns. While companies need to be doing a much better job of making their content more accessible (e.g. less locked down, no forced ads, etc.), it's nonsensical, immature (il)logic to suggest that we're magically entitled to free copies of their content if they don't give it to us on our terms. Especially so since it's possible to watch it on our terms legally already.
Piracy's only additional benefits are that it's free and that it's oftentimes available before an official release is available, but neither of those are benefits I'm entitled to, so, as per #5, they don't factor into my thinking. Moreover, DVDs are apparently still relevant today, despite hitting peak sales about a decade back. Given that blu-ray sales only hit their peak about 2-3 years back, I expect they'll remain relevant for at least a decade or more.
Which is to say, the reports of disc-based media's death have been greatly exaggerated.