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Movie Studios Offer Convenient Downloading Minus The Convenience

from the intentional-failure? dept

Mon, Apr 3rd 2006 8:58am — Joseph Weisenthal

The movie studios are slowly dipping their toes into online distribution. As of today, multiple sites will start selling a limited number of movie titles for download at a price between $20-$30. Of course, like a previously announced plan for the UK, the files will be locked down and not transferable to any devices beyond the user's computer. At this point, the only selling point seems to be the convenience of being able to download a movie the day it comes out. But it will take approximately 2 hours for the average user to download the file, far longer than it would take to go to the local video store. Furthermore, they're hoping users don't notice the tradeoff between instantaneous convenience and the hassle of having a file that they can't take off their computer, and, say, burn to a DVD. Considering all these drawbacks, and the high price, why would anyone go for this deal? What's strange is that one of the companies selling the films, Cinemanow, recently announced a plan to let users download and burn new porn titles to DVD. So if it's good for adult fare, why not extend it to everything?

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19 Comments

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Jason, 3 Apr 2006 @ 9:03am

Movie Studios Offer Convenient Downloading Minus T
Sounds like they're planning this to fail.

$20-$30 for fair use...

I call shenanigans.
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- Ben, 3 Apr 2006 @ 9:49am
  
  Re: Movie Studios Offer Convenient Downloading Min
  Agreed! Shenanigans!!
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- SimonTek (profile), 3 Apr 2006 @ 11:18am
  
  Hmm
  Realistically, its outrageous the fee. There is barely any overhead. When you compare to a movie store. For a store, you need DVD's, the boxes, Inventory, etc. You don't need that for online downloads, so they should charge less cause the lack of overhead, you have bandwidth, but on this scale its not that much. I like how the RIAA acts like they make nothing on downloads (itunes, and others), the same applies. and yet $0.99 is making a fortune. considering the same math, very little overhead, and the bandwidth is on the online retailer, not them.
  
  With the movie downloads, do you get the deleted scenes and all the extra's or is it just the movie? If its just the movie they are nuts, I use movielink, yes, but its great for old movies, and the fact that I am bad at returning movies (generally why I buy movies, not rent)
  
  Oh well.
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  - WuVedder, 3 Apr 2006 @ 11:55am
    
    Re: Hmm
    What about the cost of the servers that will hold all of these films for downloading? Cost of bandwidth... the company will most certainly have to pay for the bandwidth that they will be using uploading all of those movies to users. What about the cost of the PROFESSIONALS that will run the servers? What about the costs of the Web Developers who design the website? These people are professionals rather then the video store having to man the store with a couple of high school kids who work for minimum wage.
    
    Im all for downloading movies and I would probably pay the $30 for the movie, since I have my computer plugged into my TV anyway... but running to the video store is still faster and it doesn't take up space on my harddrive.
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    - txjump, 3 Apr 2006 @ 2:02pm
      
      Re: Re: Hmm
      I'd like to see a cost comparison. When you consider that a rental place has brick and morter costs, eg rent, electricity, utilities, security, scan equipment, registers, storage, etc in addition to their already online presence. not to mention multiple brick and morter locations.... and someone has to manage the high school kids.
      
      just saying im not sure i buy that a team PROFESSIONALS is more expensive than multiple brick and morter locations.
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    - Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2006 @ 6:36pm
      
      Re: Re: Hmm
      Man, walk in to any brick and mortar computer store, especially a mom and pop type one. Write down some prices. Then go home, check NewEgg, ZZF, and wade through pricegrabber, etc. The price difference and availability is pretty stark.
      
      Two or three people might serve a few hundred people a week in a movie rental joint, but the same number of 'professionals', admittedly making five to ten times as much, could serve a couple hundred thousand a week.
      
      Hell -- use bittorrent with some sort of tracker that rejects those that havent paid to get the data to a given torrent or something, and cut the costs down to almost ONLY a handful of bare-essential workers! A slackard to keep a website from falling apart and adding new titles, an accountant to keep track of the torrent (haha) of money coming in, maybe a programmer.. and pay the kids down the street to use mommys cable or DSL to seed the initial torrents for $10 on the down-low, and not even need a powerful work internet connection.
      
      I don't even need to see the numbers to know the cost to distribute a movie online need not be more then probably 5% what it is to distribute a hardcopy of equal quality.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2006 @ 1:19pm
    
    Re: Hmm
    Actually, RIAA makes $0.70 from iTunes. That's 70 cents for doing nothing. The rest of it goes to Apple.
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henning, 3 Apr 2006 @ 9:18am

made of money
Hey, I'm not made of money! It's weird that they think this might actually work. I already rent most DVDs I watch because I don't want to spend so much on movie watching, but at $20 - $30 a pop, that's just ridiculous. It's not even HD!
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Anonymous Coward, 3 Apr 2006 @ 9:20am

Yep, this is a bait and switch by the MPAA. They'll claim that no one is willing to pay to download movies when they can just "steal" them instead when the truth is that onerous DRM is what is killing the product, not copyright violations.
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Sparky, 3 Apr 2006 @ 9:23am

Had to say it...
PORN!!
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MrCrispy, 3 Apr 2006 @ 9:45am

what a joke
I am getting so sick of this nonsense. If I buy a movie, I want a hard copy in the highest quality format possible. I would never pay for a movie I can only watch on my computer. I would also never pay for anything with DRM protection. What gives them the right to limit what I do with something that I paid for? If someone chooses to break the law, they will be punished. If they put a little more trust in us consumers, maybe they would start making some real money selling media online.
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crystal_tech, 3 Apr 2006 @ 11:03am

Running home
Let me just run home and grab my broom!!!
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Dave, 3 Apr 2006 @ 11:42am

SO destined to fail...
Most users' hard drives will be full after 5-20 downloads. Talk about limiting your market!

Wait... was this news released on April 1st? You got me - April Fools!
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Ishwaku, 3 Apr 2006 @ 11:46am

Bad Idea
I might as well buy the DVD from a store, with special features. And have the option of sharing it with my friends.
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benjamin tucker, 3 Apr 2006 @ 12:25pm

porn indeed. 20 - 30 for sub-HD quality? the industry is in for a rude awakening.
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Just Another Joe, 4 Apr 2006 @ 6:42am

I heard about this site on the local radio station here in Houston, TX.

In addtion to paying the premium price for restricted content, you are also retriscted to playing your movie on only 3 computers.

http://www.movielink.com/kb/user/article.jsf?id=40

It will be interesting to see how this plays out especially if someone develoupes a program to strip off the onerous DRM on these files.
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- Anonymous Coward, 28 Apr 2006 @ 9:33pm
  
  Re:
  "It will be interesting to see how this plays out especially if someone develoupes a program to strip off the onerous DRM on these files."
  
  which will be sooner than later.
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mimi all day dont hate, 29 May 2007 @ 6:43am

y yall bittes hatin yall mad
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mimi all day dont hate, 29 May 2007 @ 6:43am

y yall bittes hatin yall mad
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