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Studios Push for $50 Early Home Movie Rentals (variety.com)
As many as five major Hollywood studios have been working with cinema owners to shrink the traditional release window and allow consumers to rent movies on-demand in as little as 17 days after they hit theaters, reports Variety. From the article: Warner Bros. and Universal have been the most aggressive in pursuing an arrangement that would see certain movies receive a premium video-on-demand release within weeks of their theatrical premieres, but now other studios are joining the discussions. Twentieth Century Fox has also begun to talk early releases with theater owners, while Sony is having its own separate talks with exhibitors and is trying to devise its own plan. Paramount, which previously did a pilot program with AMC and a few other exhibitors to release "Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse" and "Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension" on digital platforms early, has continued to seek a similar strategy. Though different studios are exploring different scenarios, the plan that has gathered the most steam would involve offering up movies for $50 a rental some 17 days after their theatrical opening. Those rentals would be available for 48 hours. The latest round of discussions began roughly 18 months ago.
Why not make it $500, at least if you're intention is to charge a wishful price that nobody is going to pay anyway.
Yeah but it would be way cheeper to pirate a copy uploaded by someone who rented it and cracked the DRM.
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Fifth, again... how does this hurt you? If you don't want to pay to see new movies, don't watch them; nobody -- including ranton -- is forcing you to do that or even see any studio movies in general.
If this is successful:
They'll delay the release of the bluray/whatever a bit more to capitalize on the home rentals.
They'll delay releasing it onto Amazon/Google/etc. for pay and to Amazon/Netflix/etc. for free for the same reason.
They'll use their rental streaming infrastructure to set up shop on their own and avoid popular services users already have (Amazon/Google/Netflix/etc.)
They'll eventually jack up the price or try to introduce shitty DRM to detect the number of people watching.
They'll inject ads, ads, ads before and probably during your rental.
If this is unsuccessful:
They'll throw a hissy fit and blame piracy.
They'll jack up the costs of blurays and streaming/download licensing, ostensibly to pay for the failed experiment, but really the higher prices will just be the new normal.
It may come as a surprise, but some of us actually don't want to pirate anything. For me it's more an ethical decision. The creators do deserve to be paid for their work. Lets also remember, the more we pirate, the more convoluted their DRM becomes. That may not affect you much but as a paying customer it's a pain in my posterior.