Redbox Won't Cave To Warner Bros. Demands; Will Buy WB DVDs From Other Sources And Rent Them
from the good-for-redbox dept
With all the talk of movie studios trying to create a new window between DVD releases for sales, and DVD releases for rentals, it's sometimes forgotten that Redbox tried to fight this fight a few years ago... and ended up in a big legal battle with the studios, before caving and agreeing to delay rentals. However, it appears that the company may be ready to fight back again. Rather than accept an increased 56 day window with other annoying restrictions, Redbox is apparently telling Warner Bros. to take its dumb idea and to shove it, because it'll just buy the DVDs from alternative sources:However, after lengthy talks between WB and Redbox this month, the companies couldn't come to an agreement over the new demands from the studio.This could get interesting, because the last time they had this fight, the studios sought to block companies like Walmart from selling to Redbox, and Walmart put in place some restrictions to make it harder for Redbox to do this. I still think Redbox could potentially crowdsource these purchases, and get around any restrictions.
Instead, Redbox has opted to turn to "alternate means" to purchase the films on DVD and Blu-ray it makes available to rent for as low as $1.20 a night through its more than 28,000 kiosks -- and offer them the same day they hit store shelves to buy, according to Redbox senior VP of marketing Gary Cohen.
Either way, it's stories like this that show why the First Sale doctrine is so important. Redbox should be able to buy from alternative sources and then be free to rent those movies. And that's the case due to "first sale" rights -- even if Warner Brothers wants to pretend they don't exist.
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Filed Under: copyright, first sale, movies, rentals
Companies: netflix, redbox, warner bros.
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Hmmm
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Re: Hmmm
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In order to eat that steak, laws must be passed to prevent others from breeding fish.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Hmmm
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FTFY
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Incidently, back then Disney tried the same thing with expensive "rental only" tapes and consumer versions stamped clearly "Not for Rental". They refused to sell these to video stores. So the store owners simply bought them as individuals and rented them all the same. The experiment was soon ended.
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Re: Re: Re: Hmmm
Granted, if you get 1/10th the viewings out of the consumer-grade copy, and it's less than 1/10th the price, it's still a better deal (unless you factor in the upset customers who get the screwed-up consumer copy at the tail end of its shelf life).
My wife tells the story of her consumer-grade copy of "Little Mermaid", where she and her sister watched one scene so often that the tape eventually got screwed up and would automatically start to rewind when that scene was over.
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Re: Hmmm
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I remember the fight
I thought then that Redbox and another kiosk style service should have fought harder. But I also think now that there should be some kind of lawsuit against the cabal.
My thought is simple provide us with what we want or go away. Please just die!
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Simple economics my young effendi.
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(FACEPALM!)
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Wal-Mart risks less than 1% of their business.
The movie studio risks something like 25% of all DVD sales.
Which do you think will cave first?
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Wal-Mart's power over their suppliers is almost surreal.
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In most cases if company A wants to sell floor cleaner or birdseed at Walmart, they are at the beck and call of Walmart because if they decline Walmart's terms, companies B-Z will sell other products. There are no other distributors of WB videos.
I'm a little surprised that Walmart doesn't have more pull with WB though.
Both are abominations.
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Companies like Nintendo and Apple dictate the MSRP for stores like Best Buy, which is/was technically against the law. (I think this sort of changed recently, but I can't remember the details.) So what these companies do is provide money for Marketing if the store keeps the product at the MSRP. So while Best Buy is free to sell a Wii for 1/2 off, they will lose out on money Nintendo would pay them for "marketing purposes".
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FTFY
/mature
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I can understand if someone went into a Wal-Mart and bought 20 of the same movie at once, but there are easy ways around doing that while still purchasing the needed number of copies.
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They can't do anything about 20 guys who each buy 5, though.
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Otherwise it becomes an MMA contest where you have to have been stealing even if you were only 5 feet away from me paying out money 2 minutes ago.
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What concerns me would be WB and other studios teaming up with AutoDesk in their efforts to destroy the First Sale doctrine.
We must remain vigilant against that.
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- Burn the village!
- Burn the village!
- And...
- Rape the horses!
And we must...
- Ride off on the women!
- Ride off on the women!
And...
- we plunder!
- Plunder!
- And...
- Prune.
- Prune the...
- Hedges.
- Hedges.
- Of many small villages.
- Of many small villages.
Who the hell are you?
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tttttwat
you make as much sense as my bad joke
As always. AC's turn to physical attacks. Bash meaning stop. Most ACs' want us all to experience pain. Physical pain. No accounting for reality.
says the hypocrit,
What exactly are you saying here, that everyone good or bad deserves a say, or only a select few,
physcical attack?????
AC or Registered, you take the bad with good
i for one think its refreshing that this site does'nt ask you to register, just to write a bloody comment, like every other fucking site out there,
my bad for not making it clear that it was a joke from three amigos, and at the same time, piss of with your little hissy fit
get your almighty head out your almighty ass
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(You put burn first, and then plunder.)
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After reading this
"We must remain vigilant against that."
AND
"We must bash them any that try. In war everything is OK"
for some reason it made me think of this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCC_i_PyEog
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Every time an artist wins a ruling against a record label that sales of digital materials are a license and not a "sale", it creates more support for the idea that it is only a license, which is not resalable. That is to say that any physical product could be resold, but the rights inherent in it are not.
It's when you start to put their pieces together that you can understand that you cannot have it both ways. If digital sales are a license (yeah for the artist make more money screw the man!), then it makes it easier for those same labels to negate your first sale "rights".
Which would you prefer?
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Completely correct, but this is only a limited-time issue. i.e. there are no new artists who get more money for licenses vs retail sales (the labels have seen fit to nip that in the bud with new contracts), so these types of cases will dwindle as time goes on.
Hopefully there will be few enough of them that it won't do any lasting damage to First Sale.
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I prefer the First Sale doctrine be maintained. At the very least for physical products like CD's and DVD's and software disks. I understand it gets a bit trickier when it's a sole digital product like a MP3 download and I can understand to a degree why licensing is important there.
Secondary markets increase the value of the primary market. Think about it this way: Would you spend as much on a car if you knew that you couldn't resell it, because all the software in it would stop working, making the car useless?
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Find away for customers to buy the discs.
I don't know what the going rate is for buying from distributors is but I might be willing to do this. Netflix could just ask customers to include the disc in a mailer and Redbox could have mailers at the kiosk.
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Re: Find away for customers to buy the discs.
Additionally, Redbox would need to some sort of central processing system to accept discs, perform verification, etc. This couldn't be done at a Redbox machine since it involves extra technology to read the disc, determine if it's a legit copy, apply it's bar code labeling, etc. Something none of them have. Either way, it's a huge upfront investment.
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Here's one plan I can imagine:
1. Customer signs in to her Redbox account.
2. Click a button to register to buy 1 copy of movie X that will become available on a future date.
3. Redbox ships customer a DVD "return" plastic jewelbox that is barcoded to know what movie it is and that it is due to be "returned" by midnight of the day the DVD is first available for sale.
4. On date disk is available, customer buys a copy from local unsuspecting Walmart store.
5. Customer watches movie, which is due back that evening in the rental jewelbox obtained much earlier in step 3.
6. Customer returns movie in jewelbox obtained in step 3. Each day late it is returned, the customer is docked the per day rental amount just like any other movie, until customer ends up owning the movie and can non longer return it.
7. Redbox pays customer. Or customer could elect redbox credit. Any number of payment mechanisms available. Put it back on your debit card. Snail mail you a Visa gift card, check, etc.
Redbox may offer bonuses to "return" the newly purchased DVD to a specific machine at a specific location.
Who thinks Redbox would need WB's permission to do this?
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WB hires shills to go to every Redbox they can find;
shills get empty box.
Shills throw away empty box.
Repeat x10000 costing Redbox a fortune in shipping empty containers!
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Re: Re: Re: Find away for customers to buy the discs.
Now Redbox has your name and address. They can know better than to take you up on your efforts next time. Furthermore, they might put an upper limit on each crowdsource purchaser based on reputation.
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Redbox has an Android and iPhone app for crowdsource buyers.
Once you're in the Walmart and have, say, six DVD's in your hand, you can then use the app to register this fact with Redbox, who can instantly decide if they want six, or maybe only four. The app could instantly tell you how many Redbox would like you to buy. Once you check out, if Walmart had prevented you from buying more than quantity X, you could then register that fact on the app so that Redbox now has an up to the moment "inventory" of how many DVD's it is about to own and what machines they will be returned to.
One of the replies to my earlier post suggested that the empty return boxes might be obtainable from the Redbox machine. Good idea -- but only obtainable to someone who has the app and a certain level of "reputation" as a crowdsource purchaser with Redbox.
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Step 3 wouldn't even need to include the jewel case since you can get empty jewel cases from the kiosk when you do the "return".
Step 2: Redbox could set-up an affiliation through Amazon (or some such) where the customer could purchase the disk, Redbox would make money on the affiliation purchase, and the Redbox disk label could be sent with the disk. Heck a jewel case could even be included in the packaging in this step if needed (maybe a select-able add-on).
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Why make the effort?
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I meant, why would Redbox not just ignore them? People will, of course, see films they like, but it seems to me that a business such as Redbox (or Netflix in another case) is just cutting its overall margin for the sake of promoting an antagonistic supplier's material.
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That's why Redbox won't ignore them. Blockbuster and Netflix will continue to have WB movies, because people want them. Having a poorer selection of the things your customers want from you is not a good business strategy. Also I suspect most movie watchers don't know what studio most movies come from (I know I don't). They will just see that Redbox doesn't have a third (or whatever) of the movies they want to see, and go somewhere else.
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To be honest with you all, this is exactly why I bit torrent or red box movies instead of going to the theaters now. Movies in the past few years have been crappy and uninspired. Definitely not worth my money. The Footloose remake comes to mind. Really, Hollywood? You want me to pay for this crap? Good, quality, movies are hard to come by these days. Put out good content and stop being greedy, Hollywood, then maybe you might get some money out of more people.
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http://www.ingramentertainment.com/
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http://www.ingramentertainment.com/
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Remember when....?
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WB just announced sales where at an all time high. They are now imposing a limit on the numbers of copies a person can buy. For fear that all those darn sales might result in a copy being rented.
Furthermore only the top one percent are allowed to view their movies. Those that can purchase not rent a movie.
Another worry is that a demand for toys and other promotional products might increase if you watch their movies.
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redboxprofits.com/intro
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