If You Can't Beat Them... Almost Join Them; Warner Offers Cheap Movie Downloads In China
from the but-nowhere-else-of-course dept
Well, at the very least, you have to hand it to Warner Bros. Studios for recognizing that pretending that it didn't have to somehow compete with pirated movies wasn't going to succeed as an overall strategy. The major Hollywood studio has now unveiled plans to offer a variety of movies for download in China priced at a dollar or less. Of course, it's unclear if the movies will have annoying DRM or any other inconvenience as well. Considering that unauthorized movies are already available pretty much anywhere, if Warner makes it difficult or annoying in any way, people are going to just stick with the unauthorized copies that don't create such problems. Still, this is definitely a step in the right direction: realizing that it isn't effective to pretend you can ignore unauthorized copies and still charge high prices.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: china, downloads, movies, piracy
Companies: warner bros.
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I will bet you
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even better
In reality, I don't think warner will ever try to let go of DRM...not for another 5-10 years. They will need to head towards "if we keep this up, we'll bankrupt" before they are willing to move. At which point, they will bankrupt.
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Does this mean...
My movie collection may just grow significantly depending on the answer.
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What kills me, is WHY can they afford to sell them for $1 over there, but somehow pirated moves hurt the industry SO MUCH over in the US?
No different then publishers who sell text books on Amazon.co.uk for a fraction of what they charge @ Amazon.com.
Same printing, same publisher, same taxes... but college students will not pay $150 dollars for a gen. chem text book in Europe.
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You got that right
and I already have a great Chinese proxy...
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Re: Anonymous maybe, Coward absolutely.
Obama may not care much one way or the other about DRM and personal use, and that may not do much for us, but you can be absolutely assured that McCain would personally piss on your burning corpse if it made one of his campaign buddies 5$.
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Re: Re: Anonymous maybe, Coward absolutely.
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Re: Re: Re: Anonymous maybe, Coward absolutely.
By the way, tin-foil hat lovers, we already have a new secret, civilian, national police force. It's called Homeland Security. Remember that one -- the new cabinet-level department created by your hero, George W. Bush? Or will your cognitive dissonance kick in again, so that you can simply deny facts that don't fit with your view? Maybe claim that DHS is a subversive plot by Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers? What color is the sky today? The Democrats says it's blue -- so, what color does your cognitive dissonance say?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Anonymous maybe, Coward absolutely.
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China is a lost cause.
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I hope they never get it.
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Re: I hope they never get it.
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Making it more convienient is a huge challenge
Obviously the price Warner is setting is good, but the volatility of the Chinese internet, where your site can get blocked one day without recourse, and the penetration of existing pirated DVD stores will be difficult to overcome.
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