The DVD Is Dying. Hollywood's Plan? Do Nothing And Cede Ground To File Sharing
from the there's-no-business-like-no-business dept
David Pogue, NY Times columnist and known copyright infringer, has a new post up over at the Scientific American discussing piracy; more specifically, Hollywood's insistence on driving people to piracy with its lack of digital offerings and a distribution system that depends heavily on artificial limitations.The first issue plaguing Hollywood's thinking? The DVD is dead and no one in control has realized it. The future lies in streaming movies, not plastic discs. It took the recording industry several years to realize the fact that its customers were not nearly as attached to its physical products as it was. Add to that the fact that many people prize convenience over ownership and it's clear that trying to steer people toward purchasing all of their entertainment isn't the way to go.
Netflix's CEO says, “We expect DVD subscribers to decline steadily every quarter, forever.” The latest laptops don't even come with DVD slots. So where are film enthusiasts suppose to rent their flicks? Online, of course.The demand is already there and, as the technology catches up, it will only increase. You can take your music anywhere but most DVDs are still relegated to DVD players. Yes, there are workarounds, but when consumers are looking for the least amount of friction, streaming a movie easily trumps burning off a copy or ripping it to the hard drive. If they can't get the films they want in the format they want, they'll either skip it entirely, find a "competing" provider or look for something else readily available through streaming services.
Streaming movies offers instant gratification: no waiting, no driving—plus great portability: you can watch on gadgets too small for a DVD drive, like phones, tablets and superthin laptops.
Streaming services or online rentals, if implemented correctly, would give the motion picture industry some steady, if not increasing income well into the future. But it's completely disinterested in implementing these services in a realistic fashion, instead choosing to double-up on artificial scarcity.
For all of the apparent convenience of renting a movie via the Web, there are a surprising number of drawbacks. For example, when you rent the digital version, you often have only 24 hours to finish watching it, which makes no sense. Do these companies really expect us to rent the same movie again tomorrow night if we can't finish it tonight? In the DVD days, a Blockbuster rental was three days. Why should online rentals be any different?Yeah. Exactly. Why? Why 24 hours? Netflix, your main competition in this arena, will let you keep the DVD(s) all the way up until they actually shut down the DVD service, only this time for real. As for their streaming "rentals?" Whatever's available stays available for repeated viewings all the way up until it's yanked from the lineup, usually by one of you (points accusingly at the Motion Picture Industry).
Speaking of holes in the lineup, when are you (again with the pointing) going to stop doing this sort of thing?
[P]erhaps most important, there's the availability problem. New movies aren't available online until months after they are finished in the theaters, thanks to the “windowing” system—a long-established obligation that makes each movie available, say, first to hotels, then to pay-per-view systems, then to HBO and, only after that, to you for online rental.How's that "plan" working out for you, Hollywood? Keeping those pirates at bay with your sometime/later/still later/possibly never windowing? To be honest, I don't think you really care. Once all the distribution lines have been wrung dry of any cash, it's time to retire back to the boardroom and blame filesharing for any numbers that seem slightly weak. Blame them if you must, but who's screwing who at this point?
Worse, some movies never become available. Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, A Beautiful Mind, Bridget Jones's Diary, Saving Private Ryan, Meet the Fockers, and so on, are not available to rent from the major online distributors.
Of the 10 most pirated movies of 2011, guess how many of them are available to rent online, as I write this in midsummer 2012? Zero. That's right: Hollywood is actually encouraging the very practice they claim to be fighting (with new laws, for example).Look, I don't want to tell you how to do your jobs, but sweet something of somewhere, someone needs to be offering a little guidance. You don't offer rentals of movies people actually want. You do offer rentals of movies that everyone's sick of after their multiple appearances in various windows. Other movies you just flat out don't offer at all. And yet, it's piracy that's keeping you from "breaking even." I would assume someone has put a bit a thought into this self-inflicted predicament. Pogue finds something akin to an explanation browsing around Disney's website:
“Unfortunately, it is not possible to release or have all our titles in the market at once.” Oh, okay. So they're not available because they're not available."Not possible" being PR code for "not until we're absolutely forced to, but we will fight this every step of the way." But why all the fighting? It didn't work for the recording industry. It won't work for the movie industry. The television industry seems to have weathered the disruption slightly better, but still expends a lot of effort locking up currently running shows and shutting down live streams that would actually GAIN them additional viewers to sell to advertisers.
Pogue has appended a list entitled "5 Ways Hollywood Can Stop Digging Its Own Grave" to his post and they're all common sense (at least to the "layperson"). The largest Hollywood-wielded shovel should have disappeared long ago: the release window. Related: "When it's buyable, it should be rentable."
This is the way things work these days and it's not just something that went into effect over the last 72 hours. If pirates have your stuff several months before you're planning on releasing it to paying customers, how many paying customers do you expect to have left once you deign them worthy of throwing money at your product?
Final word from Pogue:
Listen up, Hollywood: Nobody ever went out of business offering a good product for sale at a reasonable price with an eye toward pleasing the customer. You should try it some time.
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But thankfully, I can rely on the fact TD will be posting why the next generation is still fighting for the option as piracy sites are taken down by their governments.
Did you notice the plural?
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(Also, we won a decade ago.)
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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win.
We're at the "fight you" part and have been there for a bit now. I wonder if they know what comes next?
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Look at it from Hollywood's point of view of the pirates:
First they fight you
Then they laugh at you
Then they ignore you
Then you lose
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Yeah, but you can easily go broke providing content for the 95% who never pay, especially when the 5% who would pay just download it anyway and don't bother.
Sorry, but they aren't offering any alternatives that make the money that DVDs make.
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But then again, I like to have space on my computer for games.
Hello, Battle Moon Wars.
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you can hold a lot of video content on that.
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People aren't buying DVDs anymore
Reaction: Don't change anything because clearly anything but the Status Quo will fail.
Thanks for demonstrating the Holywood modus operandi. You can meet us over here in the future once you are done being dragged her by reality.
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I don't understand who you think you're hurting here. If you think the laughable 95% rate is true (hint: it's not), then by not providing other ways to get your content, what do you think you're doing? The "95%" are able to pirate all they want, the "5%" are going to buy no matter what you do.
So instead of trying to change your business model to encourage the "95%" to purchase instead, you point at the 1% (note: no quotes) who are going to pirate no matter what you do, and say they represent anyone, so we're gonna sit here in a corner with our arms crossed, and hope everyone feels bad enough for us to do what we want? That's your business model now?
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You don't get it - they won't purchase.
You only have to read the rantings of people like PaulT here to get the drift. They say "I would buy it but it's not available in my market". But really, what he is saying is that "I would buy it, but it's not available in my market on the day it's released in theaters in another country, and not at a price I want to pay, like $1 or so".
Then, by your logic, the movie companies change their entire way of working and toss away 90% of the their income to satisfy PaulT... what would he say?
"I would buy it but it's not available on download with a super lossless video version with subtitles in Ukranian".
Basically, a pirate is a pirate. Some of them try to justify their acts, but it comes to the same thing. They don't change, even when you make them happy.
The only way to get money out of Paul? I suspect that setting up a fake file locker site like Megaupload and charging him a "membership fee" might be the only way to do it. He would be convinced he was sticking it to the man.
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You have to give people what they want. If you refuse, then you will, quite obviously, fail at your business. Business 101.
Piracy is just a side-effect of costumers not being served right. If you serve them right, they will come back for more.
Insisting on staying the course while blaming outside factors is unproductive and will quickly kill off whatever customer base you might have.
Many businesses have already figured this out and have adjusted accordingly, with great success (see: Valve).
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"We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."
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You, quite obviously, never heard of AT&T or Verizon.
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$1 times 100 million worldwide sales would still be $100 million more than Big Media had before. Multiply times many many movies per year, and your lame attempt at taking a jab at your hated "pirates" (who are actually, in the end, consumers, every single one of them) falls apart.
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So, to make your point you're totally pulling something out of you behind that PaulT (who speaks for everyone, no?) never said nor meant? Yeah, that's convincing.
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I am a pirate. And I buy stuff. I know, I know it's very disturbing for your little petty head but try to cope with the pressure and see the light beyond your dark cave. Pirates are also buyers!
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"Yeah, but you can easily go broke providing content for the 95% who never pay, especially when the 5% who would pay just download it anyway and don't bother."
You have no proof to support that 95% of people never pay, nor do you have proof that the 5% who do pay would just download it anyway.
I mean, what you're doing with such stupid moves (as waiting years or never to release something) is basically trading today's physical dollars for tomorrow's possible pennies. And then bitching when come tomorrow people say, "Oh no, I'm good. You said I should just wait til you were ready to offer me your product, so I decided to use those pennies to get some bubble gum instead and enter a bubble gum bubble blowing contest with my friends. Thus providing for myself my own form of entertainment, which was quite fun actually."
That's exactly what happens. People are forced to wait and so they turn to alternative forms of entertainment, which you have to compete with, and then you get upset that they aren't throwing their money at your when you decide to let them or that your revenues are floundering. Nope, can't be your own fault or more competition from other legitimate industries, has to be piracy. [shakes head in amusement]
"Sorry, but they aren't offering any alternatives that make the money that DVDs make."
Actually, they are. Digital downloads with extras. To that effect, I'll gladly pay for and have done so on numerous occasions for digital bundles of music albums that include extras mailed to me (ranging from t-shirts to posters to lighters, as random as that is, to shot glasses to key chains, to combinations of all that and then some). Yet, I won't bother to get the same album in CD format. Why is that? Because I want my music digitally and if you throw a few extras in then I've got even more reason to buy. Don't sell me any of it? Meh, you're loss. Not mine. I'll do without and give my money to someone else who is willing to offer me something I want.
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I'll gladly NOT give you $20 for just a cd.
Make it digital (must be DRM free and I get to choose the format I receive it in, up to and including FLAC) and throw in a t-shirt and poster and I'll gladly part with $25 or even $30. If I know that money is going directly to the band I'll even put in more money (if allowable).
Alkaline Trio is one band I know offers such bundles whenever they're new albums is being released and I've been buying them since they started doing so. (Helps that I'm a huge fan of the band. I even buy tickets to concerts I can't attend just to support the band. As long as the tickets are for "local" shows, as in within 4 hours drive, just in case I somehow can make it to the show.)
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Re: Loss of interest
With the wretched fare that is being produced today, mostly remakes that only improve the eyecandy, there is little reason to watch much of anything. And I don't want to own a DVD of a movie because I never watch one more than once.
The movie industry needs to make a better product, and make it more easily available, or it will go the way of the buggywhip industry.
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It might surprise you, but if people find that a provided service is bad enough they'll eventually find alternatives.
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Where did you pull that 95% stat from? You must work for the MPAA or RIAA, they are good at pulling stats from their arse too.
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The fundamental error is in the assumption that a decision is necessary. The two are not mutually exclusive, meaning both can be true. In fact, the first being true implies that the second is automatically true.
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Creative industries, see?
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Citation, please?
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> alternatives that make the money that DVDs make.
Sorry, but the automobiles aren't offering any
alternatives that make the money that buggy whips make.
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Automobiles don't provide an alternative way to sell an accessory that is needed for every automobile, and probably doesn't last for the entire life of the automobile.
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Sorry, but they aren't offering any alternatives that make the money that DVDs make."
Look, a DVD has mastering, manufacturing, packaging, warehouse, delivery, inventory, and other costs. A DVD is good for MANY YEARS and may be resold (with no profit to the movie industry) many times, given away ...
Providing a digital copy has none of those costs or baggage. I can't take a digital stream of the movie and give it to my neighbor, friend or even view it again next year, unless I pay for it again.
So a $15 DVD might be viewed for 10 years by hundreds of people, all for $15.
If I could rent a movie (known good quality) for $0.25, I wouldn't think twice about it and neither would the other 100 people (No need to pirate), hey look now the Movie Industry made $25 on a digital copy where they were probably formerly making less then $5.00 out of the $15 they were charging. It's called a 'micro payment'. The problem is the Movie Industry (and the Music Industry for that matter) are far too short sited to see that.
I refuse to pay $3 to rent a movie (for 24 hours) I can go watch at a theater for $4, or buy a DVD for $2 at a thrift shop.
Both the Movie and Music Industries choose to cry because things aren't the way they were, regardless of the fact that it actually makes it better for them.
Piracy comes with all kinds of problems, poor quality, corrupt files, possible malware..... People pirate, in large part because there is no reasonable option available, not because they are unwilling to pay (what they deem a fair price).
People are willing to pay, just not bend over and take it up the ___.
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THIS.
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Most pirated videos tend to provide better value than their purchased counterparts, No DRM- Play it where I want, when I want, on whatever device I want. Open Codecs- Same as above. Plus the added benefits of no unskippable ads, trailers or warnings and no retarded animated menus that are cool maybe once at most.
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I agree the DRM needs to go away, it treats the paying customer like a thief. Which tends to drive them to torrents hat they don't have to pay for.
If you had a choice between paying $1 and downloading a movie from a known source where the quality is known to be HD, with no DRM, or torrent a pirated copy - you would choose to torrent? I think most people would gladly pay for the known good copy. That is value over searching for a rip of unknown quality until I have wasted several hours getting the copy, only to find out that 5 of the 1000 parts were corrupt or it is a low quality rip...
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95% never pay and 5% won't use streaming services.
Basically, you have no business. You should go bankrupt and let other players take a shot.
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Would you ever try to start a business like that?
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The point of this post is that many of those who "never pay" don't because it's never for sale.
Look at how many downloads Taylor Swift just sold of her new single. Every single one of those purchasers could have ripped it off YouTube - they chose to pay for the easier option.
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Sorry but this is not an argument. They have not innate right to make a certain amount of money. Consumers felt that a DVD was worth so much money and were willing to pay that much, now they want the digital product and feel that it is worth less. It is what it is, but it is not the consumers problem to deal with, it is the providers problem.
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Aug 23rd, 2012 @ 7:10am
95% who never pays? Have you seen the movie ticket numbers? Did you notice that the most pirated movies are the ones that most money make? So who is babling nonsense here? The problem is that the MPAA/RIAA are cartels and this is a war for control of the outlets not for a couple of kids downloading shit.
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Tougher than we think
The thing is that the pirates have so much of a head start now that it can be difficult for the content producers and distributors to assure their product is paid for. It takes the right kind of DRM/TPMs.
The video game industry has been able to manage by incorporating online sign on DRM. You have to "log in" if you want to play. I think that model comes with it's own problems but it seems to be serving that community pretty well.
To my understanding, the e-book industry is running well too.
The film industry has to do something similar (or something else that will lock down their content while still allowing people to have sufficient freedom with the copies (or more accurately licenses) they purchase.
Again, in a world where most people don't see it as wrong (regardless of legality) to pirate a film, the reticence of the film industry is understandable. That said, they're only in this position because of their lack of a will to evolve in the first place, so I think we're back where we started.
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(FWIW: my movie collection is mostly VHS from the thrift store for the kids. There are fewer than a dozen movies from the last decade that I would consider worth watching twice.)
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And if the content is locked down, the freedom is insufficient.
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I'm not defending the Sony RootKit fiasco. However, when content distributes use DRM in a responsible way and do nothing more than protect the rights they should legitimately have, I don't see a problem.
The problem for me with reference to DRM is on a legislative level. Here in Canada, the content industry has successfully lobbied the Federal Conservative Government to include strict anti-circumvention rules. Under Canada's new copyright law, it is illegal to break a DRM for most otherwise legitimate reasons such as modification for people with perceptual disabilities. There are only 3 or 4 very narrow exceptions that have mostly to do with encryption research and reverse engineering for cross platform compatibility.
Under the new law, it is still an infringement if you break a DRM for an otherwise lawful purpose such as Fair dealing, format shifting or time shifting.
These are the problems I see with DRM and as I said, they're on the policy level. Responsible use of technological protection measures is not wrong and anyone who says otherwise just doesn't respect the rights of creators.
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The ethical problem is that DRM treats consumers as potential criminals by default, i.e. it's preemptive policing technology. It's simply insulting and calls for opposing such kind of attitude.
The practical problem is that it doesn't really protect any rights, since pirates break that DRM and distribute DRM free copies anyway. The only ones who suffer from DRM are legitimate users, who buy DRMed content and can't use it in a comfortable way because of all those crazy restrictions.
Therefore DRM simply has no good reason to exist.
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The point is and always will be: DRM offers NO benefit to the customer.
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FTFY
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Everyone else gets hosed of course, but they make out quite well.
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DRM is a result of irrational fear that nobody will pay for your product if it is easy to copy. Make a superior product and provide superior service and people will pay you. DRM is just a waste of time and effort to make your product more inferior. Then people don't buy your product because of the DRM and you say "see, I was right to add that DRM because else nobody would buy my product". It is self perpetuating.
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DRM is pretty much like having a crooked priest bless each and every item you wish to sell for a fee in order to prevent piracy.
The only person getting any benefit from it is the person selling you the fake service.
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I wouldn't worry, I seldom have to break DRM, I usually download a DRM-free copy =D
Responsible use of DRM still drives me to download the DRM free copy =D
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As others have said, all DRM is evil, and it has nothing to do with copyright. When I purchase something, the terms of the sale should be right up and in front of me. With DRM (which is usually hidden,) the terms of sale are usually not included and when they are, they can always be changed after the fact by poor business practices and greed. I've purchased way too many games that didn't allow me to use the game after some years, or didn't even install on my computer right after I purchased it.
While the company has no legal or ethical requirement to support their product years later, it should still be able to be installed and used on like equipment and operating systems to what it was intended to be used on, yet I've had quite a few games which I had to break the DRM in order to play them even 5 years after they were sold.
While I tolerate Steam DRM, even Steam DRM is evil.
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LOL... so innocent.
Hey everyone, check this guy out, he thinks DRM actually works!
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The dvd is NOT dead.
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Yes you can still buy all of those.
So you have obviously missed the point. Yes we know DVDs are still a gravy train, but the writing is on the wall and no one seems to care. The point you missed is that the game changed, its not just the medium that's changed, but the reproduction and distribution system as well.
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Netflix is nice but it is rediculously incomplete. The same technology that allows me to take my music with me also allows to take my movies with me. So "streaming" has no real advantage here in terms of capabilities or selection.
Plus any "cloud" service is dependent on the quality and availability of your network connection.
The content is already digital. You don't have to replace it with "streaming". Although the legal grey area that is DVD ripping does make a movie on physical disk seem less useful.
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It's all very feasible if the MPAA learns that they need to provide what their customers want, rather than what the MPAA wants and ISP's stop trying to hold back the networks so they can sell high margin services that don't provide the service people demand for a reasonable price.
DVD's and all other read-only media, are dead, technology has declared it so. The internet is a far superior and far more efficient distribution channel. But the old guard is holding back the infrastructure and demanded services in order to prop it up. This is the reason people are going around the legacy services and seeking out alternatives that actually embrace reality. Businesses that rely on a read-only model will inevitably fail because the internet is a read-write model and cannot be circumvented, the public won't allow it.
One day, everything will be done on the internet, everything. Cable, phone, movies, music, and every other communication medium will be assimilated by the internet. The MPAA/RIAA, telco, and cable providers will fight tooth and nail to hold back this inevitable paradigm shift, but they fight in vain. The internet bends to the will of the of masses and there are many more of us than there are of them.
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Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
Having online storage lockers from where you can buy and download films can't be that ridiculous a service surely? It must also be easier than housing 50k/500k films in warehouses around the world.
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The adjective you are looking for is ludicrous.
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Where did you get this idea? The introduction of older and lesser known titles is one of the great things about Netflix. I have watched so many older westerns and sci-fi movies that I missed growing up and would cost me thousands of dollars to get physically. Instead, I can pay $8 a month and watch anything on it any time.
The dvd will die when it is replaced by a better medium just as vhs and laser died when the dvd was perfected.
The DVD is being replaced by a better option, streaming. Is everyone able to stream yet? No. But in the early days of the DVD, not everyone had a DVD player. Broadband is expanding, but give it time to expand fully.
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Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
That's very questionable, since DVDs are easily compilable and transcodable to files (for personal use), therefore they have great usability advantage. Streaming services aren't that flexible, since they usually have heavy DRM. DRM free services selling video files indeed could be a better option, but where can one find such a thing?
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Re: Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
When will the movie industry catch up?
Personally, I would pay the same as for a DVD to be able to download the DRM-free ISO file for the DVD. I would be able to enjoy it on all my devices. When I don't have it loaded on any device* those downloaded files all fit compactly on a few inexpensive 1 TB drives without filling up my house.
The MPAA wouldn't have to deal with physical distribution. Another layer of middle man is cut out. No physical transportation and handling, it saves fuel of moving the object to my doorstep. It is instant gratification which makes me even more likely to buy.
But on the other hand, this would all be too convenient. Given the overwhelming desire of the MPAA to piss off everyone, it makes better sense for them to change movie distribution (for consumers) into 8mm film format.
*Note to MPAA: all my devices don't have infinite space
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
I'm not sure if distributing ISO files makes more sense than distributing simple video files. ISO needs to be mounted and etc. before using it. Video file on the other hand can be viewed by any software player. The only benefit could be writing the ISO back to the physical DVD (may be to watch it on dedicated DVD player?), but that's kind of going against the point of the article, that physical DVDs are becoming obsolete.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
Funny, in Ubuntu I just right-click on an ISO and pick Open with VLC.
Then I get the full DVD experience including the menu, bonus creatures, etc.
But it is also easy to skip the unskippable crap.
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Re: Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
Umm, there is nothing intrinsic to streaming that 'needs' DRM.
Yes, at the moment, the industry is determined to reduce the value of their products by insisting on DRM but if they eventually get a clue they will realise that DRM costs them money, disadvantage their customers and makes their product less valuable. Then, they will drop it and people will be able to stream and/or download without these idiots messing with them and plenty of money will change hands and reward either the creative talent or at least those who wrote the contracts that the creative talent signed.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
When DRM free video distribution channels will emerge, then one would really be able say that DVDs are dead.
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Re: Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
My WDTV with attached 2.5" HDD beats disc usability hands down.
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Re: Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
Now how can you ever justify a higher price for a movie than a music track, I don't want to pay more than Ł1 or maybe I will pay Ł2 just to compensate the artists more but anything over Ł2 for a high quality movie file is a waste of my money, I believe. And I want to own that movie at that price point. I want to be able to purchase a few of every genre of movie so that I can watch what I feel like watching from my library, if I am in the mood for a musical I will watch that or a comedy or a horror or sci fi, but I want the choice of what I want to watch when I want to watch it on the device I want to watch it on.
TLDR: Give me a high quality movie file for a reasonable price and I will not pirate it. promise, pinkie swear.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
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Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
That's very questionable, since DVDs can be easily copied and transcoded to files for personal use, therefore they have great usability advantage allowing you to use your data on any device of choice. Streaming services aren't that flexible yet, since they usually have heavy DRM and very limited ways of using them. DRM free services selling video files indeed could be a better option, but where can one find such a thing?
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Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
>> less popular subjects into the market.
>
> Where did you get this idea?
My Netflix Queue.
I also see this problem on iTunes. Less popular items are missing from both their music and video catalog.
What Amazon can sell me on hard copy is much more comprehensive by far.
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Re: Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
The biggest problem with the selection on streaming/downloading services is not that they can't or don't want to provide everything ever made, but that the studios won't let them.
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Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
There's one big asterisk here.
Getting access to DVDs means purchasing and installing a DVD player - a one-time charge of about $200 back in the day. And it's a physical hookup, so as long as your cord is good it works like new. Everyone owning a DVD player is like everyone owning a toaster.
Streaming is a monthly charge, unless you do it through your smartphone. And it also relies on public networks. Everyone streaming is like everyone making long-distance calls at the same time. Remember how that used to (not) work?
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Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
OK, lets think about this. I grant you that a number of lesser known titles are streamed, often because they are cheap. But compared to the number of titles on dvd streaming must always be a limited source. Can anybody really provide reliable streaming of 50,000 different titles? I think you must differentiate between a viewer who is looking for something entertaining to watch and one who is looking for a specific title. And I'm not saying you can't be both. There are people, like myself, who just want their own copy. But if streaming works for you thats great.
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reliable streaming of 500K titles
Why would anyone seed "Obscure Movie Produced in 1937"? The publisher might be willing if he gets money for it from a paying customer. The cost of seeding a torrent is insignificant compared to the cost of digitizing the movie (one time cost) or publishing it on DVD. And once the paying customer watches the movie and laughs his head off, he will probably tell a friend...
If the publishers put up their own download sites, the pirate sites would certainly languish. How l337 would it be to upload a file that is available from the publisher for $10?
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Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
How many movies are availiable for purchase? 50K? 500K? Is somebody really going to stream them all, forever?
Yes, see GOOGLE for details. (At least they would if the MPAA would get out of the way)
The majority of people in the USA can't receive streamed movies.
Cite Please?
According to a report out this week from the FCC only 6% of the US population don't have access to broadband. About 100 M choose not to subscribe (about 1/3 of the population). In either case hardly a majority.
Movies can be streamed over Satellite, Cable, DSL, 3G and 4G networks, these technologies cover something like 97% of the USA.
"The dvd will die when it is replaced by a better medium"
It has been replaced by the digital medium. Not just streaming. I should be able to download a movie to my hard drive and stream it to my TV, tablet, or convert it and save it to my tablet / phone.
If the Movie and Music Industries would get that through there thick heads, they could be making money hand over fist.
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Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
Saying the dvd is being replaced by streaming is like saying the supermarket is being replaced by restaurants. It's two different technologies and both will probably remain viable for a while.
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Re: Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
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Re: Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
" And of course streaming isn't free. "
Who said anything about free? If you are referring to the cost to host and stream, it is a lot closer to free than you think. Storage is DIRT CHEAP (on the order of 5 Cents per Gig or say 50 cents for a HD movie). Maintaining the Servers and Bandwidth needed to allow download and Streaming is not that expensive in the grand scheme (look at Comcast, Netflix, Akami... Compared to the costs of manufacturing and distributing a product it is a no brainer. Ever noticed how you don't get media when you by a new device anymore? Why, because it is cheaper for them to host the stuff and let you download, or make your own DVD.
"Saying the dvd is being replaced by streaming is like saying the supermarket is being replaced by restaurants. It's two different technologies and both will probably remain viable for a while."
Um, that is not what I said. I said "It has been replaced by the digital medium. Not just streaming." Meaning the download of digital media to the device of my choice. It's more like replacing growing everything yourself, in your garden, and storing it in the root cellar with a local market where you can buy fresh fruits, vegetables and meats all year long. It is an advancement in society.
Someone else said it here, something like Steam for games. Let me download with no real intrusive DRM. Track what I "Own" and let me re-download... VHS tapes get stretched, eaten... DVD's get scratched, cracked... Hard Drives fail...
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Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
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Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
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Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
Why not not have both and the consumer can have it either way.
Last year I decided to build a HTPC...just for my entertainment center.TV,Movies,Streaming,Bluray,DVD all feeding out to a large Plasma plus a wireless mouse and keyboard with a wireless connection to the internet and topped off by a 7.1 Surround.
Life is good on my sofa. Now all I need is content...
I sometimes have a 12mbs speed and sometimes it's 1mbs. So when I'm streaming sometimes I get Good HD and sometimes I get 280 or continuous buffering.I rented a movie from Amazon,and Netflix...the same thing certainly not HD.
That's my streaming experience.Not such a good life on my sofa.
I like TV (some of it) and it's free OTA and I get a consistent 1080I and it looks and sounds great.And you can watch movies on TV.I recently watched Ironman 1&2 for free and it was great.
I rent a DVD or Bluray and it's ranges from great to incredible.
I didn't spend all this time and money putting this system together to watch Crap! Streaming 720i? Buffering 1080i.Getting throttled for streaming to much? I think not!
Streaming is too much work...all I want to do is watch some HD content.
As too the future of entertainment? Who Knows?
But what I do know is that Streaming is no where near ready for Prime Time.
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Re: Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
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Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
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Re: The dvd IS DEAD
So, if I can serve that up for about $100/mo, why can't legitimate businesses? If all those streaming pirates are making billions of dollars via advertisements, then why doesn't the MAFIAA exploit the same?
I can tell you why, they don't want to, because all those streaming pirates are NOT making the 'big' bucks, they do it out of passion. And 'Big Content' has zero passion. They want to continue to fuck the public for the big margins they were used to, hence the imaginary 'lost sale' bullshit.
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Re: Re: The dvd IS DEAD
See how ludicrous copyright is yet? I hope bob blows a head gasket on that one.
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Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
You seem to have completely disassociated yourself from reality.
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Re: Re: The dvd is NOT dead.
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Not RE the article but I want to rant about Last FM
The whole attraction of Last FM (unlimited skipping) has now been destroyed by rights holders who want to control what I listen to. Do they not want my money for a service I like?
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Marble cake
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Motherfucking Eagle trumps Marble Cake.
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Can someone tell me what that means. I think I get the marble cake bit...
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http://rtb.techdirt.com/products/seized-tee/
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An idiot, and illiterate as well.
(Can't tell "there" from "their".
Doesn't know capitalization or punctuation.)
The ideal RIAA shill.
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victims of their own greed (a.k.a poetic justice)
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Re: victims of their own greed (a.k.a poetic justice)
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oh, they have realised it, but refuse to accept it in case it means they have to adapt to the digital age and start giving customers what they want and not want the industries want to give. the fact that this attitude is actually inhibiting their business more than any act of 'piracy' could ever do, is like pissing into the wind, it always comes back and gets you!
'Look, I don't want to tell you how to do your jobs, but sweet something of somewhere, someone needs to be offering a little guidance'
more to the point, somebody needs to be listening to and taking notice of the guidance that's been on offer for decades. trouble is, if they took notice of someone who actually knows anything, it would mean giving up some of their control and take away the options of being able to sue people for doing what the industries dont like and also stop them from being able to bribe politicians into making new, harsher, more ridiculously useless laws!
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Hey Hollywood! Listen up!
Window all you want. Whine about the starving artists all you want. Once I've paid for the first experience, I feel NO obligation to pay you again. BECAUSE, I'm old enough to remember that once you paid to see a movie, you just had to wait a year or two to see it on TV for FREE. There were NO other options once it left the theaters. Sorry that the tech left you behind. Good luck with that.
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Re: Hey Hollywood! Listen up!
Which makes you old enough to remember when television was going to kill the movies and then the vcr was going to do it, then they discovered that they'd make more money from the market that opened up than they did from both cinema showings and tv market. Now they don't want to do anything unless it will make at least as much money as the physical home market did at its peak.
You're old enough and I'm old enough that we must both wonder if they will ever take the rational approach to the incoming tide or will the sky always be falling for them.
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Re: Re: Hey Hollywood! Listen up!
I go to YouTube and watch episodes of "Electra Woman & Dyna Girl", but I'd rather have good quality DVDs.
You'd think they would try to capitalize on the relatively recent death of Andy Griffith by releasing "Salvage 1". That was a cool show.
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Actually...
The only solution is for the MPAA (and RIAA et al) to implement mandatory entertainment taxes on all the citizens of the planet, to ensure they don't lose money. Without those entertainment taxes, entertainment could cease to exist!
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Re: Actually...
For instance a tax on blank CDs and DVDs and Players.
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No alternatives so far
DVDs remain the only media which easily allow you to make a file out of the content (transcoding the data) and conveniently use it on any personal device. Until streaming services will get rid of their sick DRM - there won't be good alternatives to DVDs. Delays in their releases are unfortunate, but what can you do.
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Re: No alternatives so far
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24 Hours Rentals
They need to make the rentals last at least a week to make it worth it. What does it matter? I am only going to rent the movies once whether I get them for a day or a week anyway.
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They have money EITHER WAY. Rent from my store? Pay me. Download from my line using my bandwidth? Pay me.
They're making money both ways, just like Sony did with VHS VS Beta. Whoever loses, hollywood wins.
Why not keep fighting then? It's just more money for them, even if the dinosaur they are has been decomposing for ages...
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Say it isn't so
Personally I like DVDs.
They're cheaper to rent locally than online and I can easily rip them to my hard drive.It's less than a mile from my home and I usually pick them up/drop them off on my way to another destination.
Sometimes I have them back in a couple of hours and the rental company can re-rent them to someone else.
I see it as a win/win/win.
The movie producers get their money,the rental company gets their money and I get to enjoy a movie and have a copy for future use.I don't stress out about the delayed release dates or subscribe to the "instant getification" mindset.
One of the clerks did ask one time how could I watch 4hrs of movies in such a short time.I explained that we were "speed watchers" and we just play them back at double time.
He bought it and I had fun with it.
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Re: Say it isn't so
Sonny, DVDs are collectors furniture. Nowadays you can stream and our connections have evolved wonderfully!
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Re: Re: Say it isn't so
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120821/19130920119/dvd-is-dying-hollywoods-plan-do-nothi ng-cede-ground-to-file-sharing.shtml#c540
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Re: Re: Say it isn't so
My DVDs are always there, whenever I want to watch them. No ifs, ands or buts; no issues. I think people that laugh at my big DVD collection are the silly ones, not me.
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Re: Re: Re: Say it isn't so
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Poor Range of Music Videos Available
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1 - When I leave the theater and am all excited from the fun (Didn't say good.) movie I saw, sell me a DVD. Or a USB stick with a DRM free version. I'll buy!! Two weeks or much longer later, my wife gets the deciding vote and I may never buy the movie.
2 - I'm an older guy and I get nostalgic for the movies/tv shows of my youth. Sadly, I can remember far more shows that what is considered popular and can be found on DVD/streaming.
Surprisingly, TPB seems to have a few more old shows. I would love to buy the show of my youth, if it were for sale.
3 - I love Amazon prime. I pay a few cents for a show and I can watch it on my lunch break. I would buy many more but, the selection sucks. Why?
In short, I will pay for a bigger selection.
I will pay for a copy of the movie I just saw.
I will pay to revisit the shows of my youth. (Mrs Peel was hot!) (Fred Astaire was amazing.)
As far as saying there isn't enough ability to stream everything. Well, that may be true if you have to stream everything there is but, if you setup a service, like Netflix, then only what is selected is streamed. There has to be an opportunity to make $$$ there. I bet Netflix would spend the money to set that up if Universal were to allow them to host the entire catalog. I know this, someone would jump at the chance if a studio would let them.
And, ultimately, I the unremarkable consumer that wants to fork over his cash, would pay.
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Many have tried and few have had success in trying to offer better service, food and meals, Alcoholic drinks, cleaner and more accommodating theaters etc.... Simply because there is no profit incentive for offering a better viewing experience i.e. more butts in seats doesn't translate into higher profits (unless overpriced (highly profitable)concessions are purchased)
If a theater owner was given a more reasonable share i.e an incentive to get more butts in seats just imagine how much more of Hollywood's product would be sold at a higher ticket price (higher margins), free of worry of mass duplication. Again selling the experience not just the bits and bytes.
Unfortunately Hollywood's greed will be it's demise.
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Seriously?
What?
Mel Brooks was able to have Spaceballs out on VHS in time to use it for the filming of the movie. That was 15 damn years ago. You mean to tell me that with advancements made in technology since then it's not possible to release in the theater, online, and DVD/Blu Ray at the same time? What exactly makes it "not possible" to release in those three formats without a 3 month window in between each?
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Retailers
If the studios and record companies could clear themselves of the retailers in their organizations, they could figure out another business model to bring in money. We've seen this before. When VHS was introduced, the executives in the theatrical rental department were the ones screaming against home video, and the MPAA sued instead of jumping on that new platform. It took the porn market to show the movie industry that tons of money could be made through home video.
The secret to success for the movie industry might be to put out blockbuster films steadily through the year and allow people to stream from day one instead of ganging up blockbusters in the summer and holiday seasons. Most of a film's money is made in the first couple of weeks of release. Let everyone who wants to see a film see it any way they want, either in a movie theater (maybe in 3D), at home, or on their iPads. By the time the revenue from that movie runs out in four weeks, then release the next blockbuster. Each studio then needs to put out 12 blockbusters a month and then fill in with some little films like teen horror flicks, romantic comedies, and so forth. If the studios did it right, they could have $100 million or more flow into their coffers every month and not have to worry about piracy!
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FUCKHOLLYWOOD
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Idiots will Idiot
It took me a long time to find a silver lining to this entire mess, but I did find one. This should be a boon for independent film makers. No matter how terrible the production values and low budget the film you should be able to get far more exposure today and increasingly into the future as hollywood slowly shuts down and online streaming ramps up. That is also great for movie lovers because we don't have to suffer through an entire year of b comedies with the same formulaic patterns and reboots of old hit movies.
This idiotic business blunder should deliver unto us a new utopia of movie enjoyment with a vast array of choices.
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Why can't the movie industry copy this model? Please don't say that it's fear of piracy because the pirates are already providing these movies in DRM free formats. Would the files get pirated? Probably, but that's already happening and the studios are making exactly $0.00 from it. Put nice, high-quality copies up for same in various formats. For example, DVD quality in Xvid/AVI, medium quality in H.264/MP4 and high-def in H.264/MKV. Let people download the format(s) that they want, and keep them.
They wouldn't even need iTunes to do it. They could hire some college kids to digitize the movies, and set up the web site. People are already doing this sort of thing for free, so I'm sure some of them wouldn't mind getting paid to do the same thing.
No special software required, no membership required, just go to the web site, make a one-time payment and download the movie in the format(s) of your choice. If they could ever straighten out the licensing mess, they could put the majority of their catalog online for less than what it would cost to do a single DVD release. Very minimal investment and they'd be making money off films that are sitting in their vaults gathering dust.
Of course they're too greedy to ever do this. They want the content locked down so that people have to pay each time they want to see it.
Remember this commercial;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ9qcp6Lcno
"Every room has every movie ever made"
Except for movies that are lost, we have the technology to do that today, but you'll probably never see it happen, both due to greed and copyright law.
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Yeah but...
Trust me, there's method to their madness. If they can't cry foul then they can't insist on control over the new medium of distribution that is totally ruining their business model. If they can't get control then they can't keep their monopoly, and that's just a "No Dice" scenario for them. Who cares if they can be profitable under this new market, they just want the old one back.
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Also, to set the record straight, most laptops do ship with DVD drives, it's the Ultra Slim/Netbooks that usually ship without them.
The majority of users buying computers in this day and age are the mom and pops upgrading that old compaq they've had for 7 years. So when they get their new Windows7 desktop and laptop the first thing they do is install all of their software or look for a DVD drive to burn scanned copies of their pictures.
I think you missed the point that DVDs are used for other things besides movies.
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Plastic Discs
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Hollywood Cedes Ground To File Sharing
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really?
I don't think so, and I certainly still DO prize owning them, rather than convenience. I'm fairly adept at most tech things, but sometimes working with the streaming doesn't really appeal to me. I'll take dvds over that, as long as I can.
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Re: really?
DVDs circulate for FREE at most public libraries. the only fees are if you are late. Perhaps I 'll show a search related to Library circulation of DVDs.
In our library it is clearly the most circulated item (over books, or even music cds, mp3s, etc.
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Clearly, you do not have small children
Not so for my 3 and 5 year olds. They are quite content (no pun intended) to watch the same learning DVD/cartoon movie/etc over and over. I suppose I could continuously stream from Netflix - but that would be absurd. Much cheaper/more convenient to buy from the used bookstore that sells used DVDs (or find a good deal online), rip it and have it available on our 2 HTPCs. Also, we have the DVD for traveling in the car - how the heck do I stream in the car or on vacation without a brutally expensive data plan and tethering??
Now, I'm sure that once my kids are 10 and 8, that'll change, and they won't want to re-watch the same thing over and over. But, until then, buying a DVD is still VERY viable and appreciated.
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Duh
This statement is so off base that it almost invalidates everything written after it. It pre-supposes that Hollywood studio management, most of whom are MBAs, accountants and sales people, are unable to read simple balance sheets.
Well, guess what? They can read them. They know the figures are in a tailspin. They've known it for years. They just don't know what to do about it.
Most of the people in charge at the studios are the same people who were in charge in the "glory days," the days when making DVDs was akin to a license to print money. These people are old school to the max. They don't get the reasons that DVD has died and don't know how to go up against competition and so they just keep on doing what they've been doing in the hope that something somehow someday is going to work.
I used to work for one of these studios. I'm someone who wasn't upper management himself but had regular access to these people and their meetings. I sat there 7, 8 years ago when they'd sit around and say "we don't want to have some Napster come along and do to us what it did to music" and then spend hours arguing over what flavor of DRM was best. I would say, "forget DRM, get the stuff out there NOW before people develop habits of getting it in other ways" and I'd be asked to leave the room.
The one thing that's killing them the most these days I think is the release window. It will be years before it goes away. Theatrical is the only division of the studios that is doing well now and they won't get rid of the window because no one is willing to alienate the theater owners short term in favor of longer term good.
The studios remain profitable, perhaps not as profitable as 10 years ago but profitable. They cut costs and do massive layoffs on an annual basis. Nothing will change for a very long time.
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Re: Duh
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Survey Says
Streaming: Popular and convenient. Selections vary widely though current professional catalogs are severely restricted. Serves professional content producers and amateurs equally. Dependencies on players, operating systems, network availability. Relatively inexpensive though somewhat burdensome time limitations. Portability is nil.
Torrents: Popular, convenient and incredibly efficient. Selections are dependent upon the global catalog (read: vast). Dependencies on local storage available. Relatively free(unfortunate but such is the current case). Catch and release (like=keep, dislike=delete, repeat as necessary). Supplants VCR, CD, Cassette, DVD and Streaming options.
Theaters: Popular - is an experience, an event. Can be expensive and concessions are an enormous expenditure. Advantages are the experience of the delivery platform. Can be considered a risky venture. Extremely limited selections, quality (of both the venue and the content) and availability.
Current distribution, delivery mechanisms and restrictions, licensing and other requirements are adversely affected by a management tier that is wholly ineffective given current global market conditions and are imposing undue and unnecessary burdens, requirements, limitations and expectations on both their clients (producers and creators in general) and their clients' customers. They are adversely influential to governments and legislation. Monopolistic behaviors. Oft considered to be a cartel in their use of strong-arm "agreements" and contracts, threats, litigation, seen to employ grossly illegal, unethical and immoral tactics. Mysterious and undue influence on governing bodies. Protectionist to the point of being detrimental to their own needs and effectiveness as well as to the needs of their clients and their customers. Historically short-sighted. A veritable threat to progress on many fronts.
Customer satisfaction varies greatly with each delivery mechanism. Client satisfaction varies widely though, for the most part, currently remains beneficial to their largest, top-tier creative organizations, which happens to remain to be their primary means of finance.
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It doesn't matter how high the chairs are stacked in there vain attempt to stay dry. The mighty industry ship was comfortable and powerful yet only those that are willing to abandon ship and try different vessels will be left alive.
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I still buy movies
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Re: I still buy movies
They only rent them out.
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Here's what I don't understand...
The automotive industry sells a product, i.e., a machine you get into and move from Point A to Point B. But they know they need to supply an enormous variety of product options depending upon their customers' lifestyles, wallets and geographic location. Just because a kick-butt hybrid comes along doesn't mean the SUV market is "dead." And they even have thriving rental options along with sales!
So why can't entertainment marketers (and the fans) wrap their minds around multiple formats and delivery systems coexisting? Why hasn't Hollywood actively tried marketing the permanence of DVDs to collectors like me at the same time they promote the "convenience" of streaming for the renting mentality?
It seems to me they should cater to the customers' diversity rather than shove this one-size-fits-all mentality down our throats. It would be like the auto industry forcing us all to drive hybrids and no other kind of car or truck.
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Streaming
I am so sick of reading on tech blogs about how good this service or that service is when that is not my experience at all. None of them match the service my local video rental store used to give (before it closed down) and generally the selection of both old and new release movies is terrible. I am very anti pirating but I have to say, when I ask all my friends which service is the best, they all say Pirate Bay and I'm beginning to understand why.
Friday night in our house is movie night and since our rental shop closed we now spend half an hour trawling through the online movie selection desperately trying to find something we want to watch – it's pathetic.
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DVD's dying? .....simply not available!!!!
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