The Movie Studios' Next Step in Online Movie Delivery 182
Con Zymaris writes "Here's another piece on the how the movie studios are trying to co-opt the movie delivery mechanisms of the 'counter-culture' set, but instill major restrictions such as IP-address range verification to ensure country of origin, and maximum 24-hour-play lifetime for each downloaded movie."
Very cool. (Score:2, Interesting)
Well executed, convenient to me as a consumer, and available under terms of fair use.
If this works smoothly, I'm all for it. It's about time content providers realised the Internet was a place to do legitimate business!
Re:Very cool. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you consider self imposed restrictions on availability on an otherwise world wide network 'convenient', then I guess maybe it is.
It's just like DVD region coding. A convenience to the people who are lucky enough to be in the right locale, and an artificial hindrance to others.
Ray
Re:Very cool. (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow, wouldn't it be a wonderful development to actually see dot coms working on a legitimate business? Imagine a simple plan where consumers pay for a rational price for goods, and the actual content providers get paid for creating content.
I could really use a dose of honesty. I'm burned out on all the stupid selling for less than cost and making up on volume...funding free music with parasitic programs that try to claim commissions on all internet sales--popup ads and all the other silly things dot coms do to make money for nothing.
I could really use some good down to earth honesty from the mainstream-culture. I am just too burned out from the dishonesty of the counter-culture.
Too bad... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Too bad... (Score:5, Informative)
Hmm, maybe MPlayer [mplayerhq.hu] will support the format? Even if it is a new digitally signed media format, players like it are very good at using the Windows based codecs.
Not time to panic just yet, there are still a few compatibility options.
there is simply no way (Score:5, Insightful)
if they're enforcing a 24 hour playable window from time of download, this can only be enforced via software control. you can't throw in some downloadable atoms that will explode after a day. so that means if an open source program can play it, it can also be recompiled to disable the 24 hour restriction.
How about with public key? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't think that such an idea would be impossible -- but I'm inclined to agree that practically, we probably won't see that happen.
Re:Too bad... (Score:2)
... if you're using an x86 chip. Otherwise, too bad for you! Relying on software that is only distributed in binary form is BAD, for numerous reasons.
Re:Too bad... (Score:2, Informative)
The problem is that the original company will probably make up some legal thing like "illegal to view with anything else then our software", or make the format itself include some kind of crypting component that will disable any 3rd-party-software compability
Re:Too bad... (Score:5, Funny)
'higher preferred'...That means Linux right?
Re:Too bad... (Score:3, Informative)
VPN + NAT.
Now I can share the one movie with anyone I want, anywhere in the world for the next 24 hours. Doesn't sound that secure to me. IP is never a good way to check security.
Re:Too bad... (Score:5, Insightful)
I was actually reaching for my wallet. I have wanted something like this for a long time. The internet offers the promise of more choice than the still choice limited and time restricted movies available through cable TV pay-per-view--like that advertisement, "every movie, in every language, ever made, ever." Truly refreshing--even my local Blockbuster doesn't have that.
And I even have the latest Windows Media Player installed--so I'm good to go, right? But oh--no Mac support, irregardless that I got WMP from a legally purchased copy of Microsoft Office for OS X. I guess Windows media isn't Windows media, so I'm back to Netflix as my best option. Too bad. My wallet is back in my pocket, and another company loses me as a customer due to a short-sighted market penetration strategy.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Too bad... (Score:2)
Except when Linux and Mac users represent a greater percentage of the initial target market, in this case, early technology adopters who spend more disponsable income on new technology (Linux) and multi-media types with higher disposable income in total (Mac), many of whom are likely to have the video capability and bandwidth to enjoy these films.
To top it off, if you can prove that the security works with the Linux types and test the media features with the Mac group, you're more likely to have a solid product and if there are any screw-ups or major changes you'll only burn bridges with a smaller and more forgivable bunch than the mass market. Convincing early adopters alone does not a market make, but winning over important niche markets can be an important, less risky, and cost-effective way to get things started.
Ignoring these smaller markets might make sense if you're offering a non-revolutionary commodity service (e.g. ISP services) but not when you're trying to change the whole culture. This was a major failing of many dot-coms - they did the math and focused on the big markets only. The numbers were there in theory but they burnt through millions without making a dent. Many successful companies with new models, like Wal-Mart for instance, established themselves in smaller niche markets before focusing on the other 90%.
Re:Too bad... (Score:3, Insightful)
However, Harry Potter and the other Warner titles in the deal, such as Mars Attacks and Dial M for Murder, are sold separately as a download for about $US4 ($7.30).
Like this for example. I can download this movie (call it 700 MB) over my fairly quick little connection here (1 Mb/s peek) and spend 8 (bits/byte) x 700 MB = 5600 min or about 1.5 hours downloading the movie. I can then watch it for upto and including 24 hours.
Or... I could get in my car, drive to Blockbuster, and rent the DVD for about $5.00. I can watch it for at least two days, probably three if I rent it at the right time, and spend about 10 to 20 mins depending on traffic conditions.
So what, exactly, is the draw of this?
Re:Too bad... (Score:2)
Downloading movies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even with a very fat pipe, downloading 700mb for an ok-quality divx or 1400mb for a good quality DivX is still a very long wait. Streaming a pixelated mosaic still sucks over broadband, too.
Besides, if you have a broadband connection, chances are you live in a town with a Blockbuster video, and you can afford a $50 DVD player -- it's still by far an easier solution.
The media companies should just give up these crappy pay alternatives to piracy, as the capitalist model does not work in the digital world where there are no laws and the ability to mass-duplicate any form of media, unless the draconian Palladium takes over -- which will be over my dead body.
It'd just be easier to sell cheap DVDs and CDs ($10/DVD, $5/CD) with a business like newegg [newegg.com], where you get everything in 2 days and the prices are rock bottom. More people would actually buy their music and movies at full quality instead of downloading them if their prices weren't exorbitantly fixed.
Re:Downloading movies? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Downloading movies? (Score:2)
Re:Downloading movies? (Score:2)
It would feel like a long wait if your p2p program sat there cluttering up your "desktop" while you waited for the movie to finish downloading. If you do everything using command line tools and cron jobs, however, there's none of that kind of waiting involved. You are right that people who use broken OS's might as well go to Blockbuster.
Re:Downloading movies? (Score:2)
Even if I have free content to offer, I still have to shell out some decent scrim to get it out to more than just a few folks.
Doesn't it seem like the biggest barrier to many of the coolest and latest web technologies (including cellular stuff) is waiting for the cost of bandwidth to go down before it gets mass acceptance?
Re:Downloading movies? (Score:2)
Even if I have free content to offer, I still have to shell out some decent scrim to get it out to more than just a few folks.
Excellent point.
If only there were some way to spread the cost of distribution across multiple hosts.
Maybe there is be a way to mirror your original source file across hundreds, or even thousands, of other nodes, all of them available to redistribute your content on demand.
Perhaps the people who download and make of your content (your customers) would be willing to help you out. Maybe they will be willing to use their computers for storage and their bandwidth for distribution?
This way, the cost of your bandwidth is spread across so many people that it becomes a negligable amount for each individual. Also, since there are potentially thousands of available nodes for accessing the content, you have a high level of redundancy built right into the system.
If only there were something like this....
changes are afoot (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because you're not aware of the big leap coming in streaming video...the joke will be on you, me thinks.
The liscensing is being worked out now....
Re:changes are afoot (Score:3, Informative)
However, i for one don't see any indication that the "someday" when this big leap occurs is going to be anytime even remotely soon.
I mean, the last i checked, all the big bandwidth-selling companies-- especially the DSL providers [google.com]-- are having lots of financial difficulties. Also last i checked there's an absolutely huge glut of dark fiber just sitting there because doing the last mile to most places just isn't financially viable.
I wouldn't say the bandwidth market is dying, but it really honestly looks like it isn't going anywhere at the moment, and a lot of changes are going to have to happen before we start seeing big leaps of any sort.
Am i wrong?
P.S. If by "afoot" you meant "sometime in like five to fifteen years", then yeah you're probably right and i apologize for wasting your time
Re:changes are afoot (Score:2)
I think the last mile problem is an issue not of telcos and cable companies being unable or incapable of providing the service profitably, but rather that they are uninterested in allowing people to download data quickly and as much as they want. Rather than creating "power accounts" (where the users would pay substantially more for a very high bandwidth, unlimited capacity pipe), they are actively imposing bandwidth caps. They would rather the Net go back to nice, static HTML pages that are simple and fast to route, than to administer an overhaul their systems to take advantage of these new applications of the Net. And if they can, they would just as soon kill off interest in these applications (unless, of course, they can get a piece of the content providers' action for their part in the service).
Since the "last-mile" is currently property of Cable and Telco companies (and 3rd party usage of these lines are cumbersome at best), the solution in my mind is a fast, reliable, cost effective two-way over-the-air broadband solution. Then a broadband ISP could hook into some of that backbone glut, and bypass the last mile issue. If they can pull substantial business from the current broadband providers, they would have no choice but to improve their service.
But this probably falls into your "five to fifteen years" timeframe, so never mind.
Re:changes are afoot (Score:2)
They would rather the Net go back to nice, static HTML pages that are simple and fast to route, than to administer an overhaul their systems to take advantage of these new applications of the Net.
This brings me to the most important point of my original post, the one that wasn't in the post because it was very late at night and i kind of forgot to put it in:
Absolutely everything would be better if the ISPs would get off their asses and implement some kind of functional multicast routing implementation. If we had the infrastructure and routers we had now, but the routers included IP multicast, the world's current infrastructure would probably be able to handle an order of magnitude more of the streaming video kind of stuff, at least.
But, of course, this brings us back to the original problem, which is the lack of financial incentives for the bandwidth companies to upgrade their systems.. ah well.
Seeya.
Re:Downloading movies? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Downloading movies? (Score:2)
(If I had to pay the per meg charges, I'd be up for around $100 per movie. Oddly enough, I think I'll buy the DVD.)
Re:Downloading movies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fair point, though I disagree. I've seen 500kbit video that was quite acceptable. However, I don't want to debate about personal tastes. I have an alternative proposal.
Why doesn't AT&T provide this service for it's broadband customers? All they have to do is place a few servers between their customers and the outside world (heck, those might already be in place) and provide these movies as streams right to them.
The stream wouldn't have to go out to the net, so ATTBI would have pretty good control over the QoS. The connection should be pretty fast and reliable. And, it shouldn't cost them any extra to stream it down since they're not going to the outside world.
I'm a little surprised AT&T hasn't done this yet. It'd be quite an upsell.
Re:Downloading movies? (Score:3, Insightful)
AT&T need to install MBone but hey give it twenty years
Re:Downloading movies? (Score:2)
Re:Downloading movies? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're being short-sighted. 30 years ago it was "a joke" to waste your expensive long-haul serial links on e-mail. 20 years ago it was "a joke" to waste your precious BBS caps on images. 10 years ago it was "a joke" to waste your 14.4kB Internet connection on music files.
Today I have no concern with downloading email, colour images, music files, etc. Movies are still too big for me but I've no doubt that in 10 years it'll be par for the course: just like music files are commonplace today. The companies are going to use the bleeding edge crowd - the people who can afford a phat pipe - to develop and test software interfaces and licensing.
This is the frontier. These people are the pioneers. You're the luddite proclaiming "there's no immediate benefit so there's no point in even trying". Pooh to you.
Before we all start complaining (Score:5, Interesting)
It is pretty unfair to think they should give everything away for free however it's also unfair to impliment such strong rules on the end user. Maybe in five to ten years we will have a solid system that (most) people like. [Plus maybe some decent broadband to help online movies become more of a reality
Anyone agree?
One big problem with this article (Score:5, Interesting)
I am preoccupied with my digital rights like most /.ers. Hence, I don't participate in this garbage. However, since the fall of Napster, many have sought legal and legit ways to get media on the Internet--the Internet is more than suitable. Hence, they accept license agreements that resemble the physical limitations on renting movies at Blockbuster, for example.
As much as I hate the DMCA, etc., this doesn't bother me too much. I don't lose any rights by not using the service which I frankly don't really have a burning desire to use, as others do.
So others may face crappy lame restrictions. If they don't like it--stick with Blockbuster. However, a number of people here on Slashdot have been asking for similar services for a while, and now that it's coming, I see no reason for anyone to whine (what did you expect?).
Yeah, probably won't survive long (Score:2)
Of course, you could probably IP spoof etc. For those that don't know enough to do so, well, they're no worse than they were before the service came around.
However, I could see a lot of fallthrough on this service. Capturing applications would be made to capture the movie streams, and then they'd probably end up on kazaa, etc anyways prompting a big I-told-you-so.
Also, with ISP's already capping users due to kazaa bandwidth usage etc, somehow I don't think a dedicated movie-through-internet system would please them much more...
The tighter they grip, the more fall through (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:The tighter they grip, the more fall through (Score:2, Informative)
ssh into a box in country B, from country A. Then tunnel the file to your machine.
connect to the internet, then connect to a router in country B, ala anonymous browsing services [anonymizer.com]
have a looooong network cable from country B to country A :)
hack into a major internet provider ;)
alter the program which reports the IP, or otherwise spoof the IP address verification
et etc...
Note that there are only two main methods I can think of here:
Going somehow through a machine which actually has the country B IP address
Somehow faking your IP so the verification process is foiled.
Way too expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
-with a sound and image quality far superior
-that you will get in less time that it takes to download it
-that you may be allowed to keep longer than 24h
-that you can watch on your home theater and not on your 17" computer screen
Do they have customers for this service at all?
Re:Way too expensive (Score:2)
-that you can rip to DVD or SVCD overnight or even quicker
The point is that plenty of people will pay extra for convenience. This (And not early release) is why pay per view is so successful even though the least expensive movies tend to cost $8 or so.
Re:Way too expensive (Score:2)
Where do you live that PPV movies cost $8? I can see paying more for "special events," but PPV movies are usually closer to $3-$4 most places. (Even at $3, Netflix is still a better deal...everything on PPV is pan-and-scan. :-P )
Re:Way too expensive (Score:2)
This is not true. I have watched crouching tiger, hidden dragon in english-subbed chinese letterbox on PPV.
Re:Way too expensive (Score:4, Interesting)
Price is fine, its the monitor thats the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
For the sake of objectivity I'll list some Pros:
-700 megs if encoded properly should be somewhere
between VHS and Satellite TV quality.
-You don't have to drive to the videostore to return it.
-The possibility for a huge selection. How many Blockbusters carry that foreign or hard-to-find film you've been dying to see?
-The 24 limitation isn't bad if you consider that this is "on demand" with some serious lag. You simply download it the night you want to watch it.
A few people have discussed quality already but I think you make the best criticism here with:
>-that you can watch on your home theater and not on your 17" computer screen
Exactly. Watching this on a monitor will only make its lack of quality more obvious, the sound will be poor unless you have a kickass sound card and speaker system, you can't crowd around it like you can the TV in the living room, etc.
What this is lacking is a internet/TV convergence device that lets people (especially non-techies) transfer the download to their TV. The lower resolution of a television compared to a monitor will help to cover up the artifacts and other low-quality issues. Sitting 8+ feet from the TV helps too. If WB leased a webtv-like broadband device with a HD big enough to hold a couple movies along then I'd be all over it.
Re:Price is fine, its the monitor thats the proble (Score:2, Interesting)
Check this [broadq.com] out. It's exactly what you ask for: a insanely simple to use Internet/TV convergence device, which, using the PS2 as an interface, streams mpeg, mp3, divx , xvid and more over your local LAN from your PC. I've been playing with it for over a month and it's beta but cool. Works on Linux, Doze and OSX.
I submitted a story on Qcast to
Netflix overcomes (Score:2)
Even Blockbuster has longer rental times now. I think that many people rent a movie without a defined period of time to watch it, and squeeze it in where they can... so Netflix works out pretty well for a lot of people and has very good turnaround time for a mail service.
Yes, with online rentals you can have the movie the moment you want to watch it (especially using some kind of stream so you get to start watching right away). But online rentals run into the problem of people settling down to watch a movie then being inturrupted, and wanting to watch the movie later - sometimes days later.
Even if the player convergence with TV was really good and I had the bandwith to stream a good quality movie (well, I do have that already) there would have to be very substantial benefits to the online rental beyond sheer immediacy for me to use it.
Not to mention that every time media companies try this sort of thing they forget that people like watching the full movie and not a pan&scan travesty - DVD has opened that door and they keep trying to shut it again, why is beyond me.
It's not IN the theater anymore (Score:2)
your TV isn't big enough to show the movie as it was originally filmed, you have to go see it in the theatre!
Well, the movie that I want to watch isn't currently in theaters. And it won't be until the studios set up digital cinema so that theaters can dedicate half their screens to something other than recent releases.
Re:It's not IN the theater anymore (Score:2)
How many older movies are there that would draw a consistent crowd better than movies that people haven't seen yet. The market for people who want to see older movies on the big screen is pretty limited, alas.
Home theater is prohibitively expensive (Score:2)
The market for people who want to see older movies on the big screen is pretty limited, alas.
Really? I gather from previous Slashdot discussions about movie piracy that there exist lots of people who would still want to see movies on the big screen even if they are available otherwise. My own adoptive parents are two of them. Not everybody has a four-figure home theater rig.
Re:Home theater is prohibitively expensive (Score:2)
Re:Price is fine, its the monitor thats the proble (Score:2)
At the local video store here I pay $6.00 for 3 DVDs. Sure, it's only for 24h, but that's three movies, a 6 min round-trip drive, and 24h.
Instead, w/this god-awful idea, I would have to waste X-amount of hours downloading a movie, sit on my COMPUTER and watch it, and then it is still only good for 24h.
Ok. I download a TON of DVD-Rips from Kazaa. I have a TV-out card to my VCR's RCA inputs. I *could* tape these... Why? I can download the movies faster, rent them faster and CHEAPER.
This is doomed. They have one idea in mind... Blaming us for it failing...
Re:Way too expensive (Score:2)
Why would I prefer it over digital movies on my 17" computer screen?
Ah, no way... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ah, no way... (Score:2)
Akamai (Score:2)
The only way it would ever work is if they partner with the ISP to host data on their internal network (or a dedicated link to their own network).
You mean like Akamai [akamai.com]'s core service? Apple already does this with QuickTime movie trailers.
Re:Ah, no way... (Score:2)
5000 / 700 = 7.143
So 7 full-length movies a month, plus the usual sort of activity I do on the net that doesn't involve movies.
I don't even rent that many in a month. And at $4 per 1 day rental (new releases, I hope), it comes to $28 per month in rentals, which is roughly my budget per month to rent anyway.
My big worry though is that the program you'd need to play these movies would probably be bloatware programmed by a bunch of lazy monkeys and have a billion banner ads extolling the virtues of WB, their website, the movie's website, the website for the theatres that it originally played in, and the overpriced pop that was sold in the theatres it originally played in.
Or worse, they'll put TV commercials in at the beginning and no fast-forward button, giving you a real "theatre-quality" experience while at the same time wasting your bandwidth on the extra 15 minute footage.
Whatever the case may be... (Score:5, Funny)
Some Simple Math... (Score:5, Informative)
5 gigs = ~7 movies @ 700 MB each = 40$ (monthly rate for adsl)
+ 4 US$ * 7 movies * 1.5 exchange rate = 42$
= 82$ total (plus tax)
82$ for 7 movies? That I can only watch for 24 hours each? When I can buy NEW DVD'S for ~20$ each! It seems that the movie companies are shooting themselves in the foot multiple times with a plan like this...
Geographically limited (Score:4, Interesting)
Worse than slashdotting (Score:2)
IP spoofing would probably work better in this case, I wouldn't want to pipe 700mb downloads through my proxy...
Shaw on Demand (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.shawondemand.ca/ [shawondemand.ca]
nah... (Score:2)
the movie studios are trying to co-opt the movie delivery mechanisms of the 'counter-culture' set
I'd say more like: "the movie studios are trying to get a clue and are pulling their heads out of their ass another inch".
I have no interest in their movies, legally or otherwise, but at least they're giving it a go. Maybe it will work out and they won't pass any more legislation. That's what I care about.
Not gonna work... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention...$7.50 a movie? come on now. I'm not so lazy that I'll wait 6+ hours to download a movie at twice or more of the price of a dvd at the blockbuster or hastings or hollyvood video, all within 10 minutes.
I appreciate the effort, but it's just not gonna be pleasant to use. People download movies because they want to keep them and watch them when they feel like it. How about me being able to download a movie for $7.50, or even $10, and keep it for an unlimited duration? Heck, even if I have to put in a credit card number each time for verification (ala e-books) it wouldn't be bad at all.
Implementation answers expiration? (Score:2)
It would be fun if it turned out to be as dumb as many of the older expiry settings for shareware... changing the date on your fixed those pretty handily.
Re:Not gonna work... (Score:2)
-
You've caught on to something! (Score:2)
Like, come on, which would you rather download it from? Someone else's ADSL modem that has a 640K upload speed and 3 other people on it, or through the studio's OC-148, where you can download it at your max bandwidth?
For only $12 US, I'll choose the studio, thanks.
Your right to hack your own information (Score:3, Interesting)
Every company in the world would like to be able to sell you a product with a self-destruct device embedded that you couldn't remove legally. Only Hollywood thinks that it is their right.
Re:Your right to hack your own information (Score:2)
Something has got to give: It can either be your rights, or their business model. Which do you pick?
The Bandwidth of Blockbuster (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, if it takes you 15 minutes through BlockBuster and back, with a 5 GB DVD, you are getting a nice 5 MB/second transfer.
Re:The Bandwidth of Blockbuster (Score:2)
Take a reasonable collection of digital media that any of us own, and compute the bandwidth obtained when moving from one residence to another. Depending on how much you collect and how short the move is, you can easily twiddle the numbers to get into the terabytes per hour... even higher if you're willing to fudge a bit.
Just moving around the pathetic 20GB drive in the laptop I'm writing this on four out of seven days between school and home racks up quite a lot of bandwidth... and lest ye think this is just an academic exercise, I'd point out it's real, fully usable bandwidth: I quite frequently use this bandwidth to transfer large chunks of data in preference to my cable modem, esp. for home->school, since I'm stuck with 15KB/s upstream. It is much, much faster to transfer my MP3 collection by driving to school and dumping it there, then by uploading it from home.
Re:The Bandwidth of Blockbuster (Score:2)
24 hours? (Score:3, Funny)
Considering how long a DVD-quality movie will take to download (without going into bandwidth caps or more draconian ISP measures), that will leave me exactly 37 seconds in which to watch the movie before it erases itself.
Re:24 hours? (Score:2)
You mission, should you choose to accept it (blah blah blah...)
This tape will self destruct in 5 seconds...
24 hours runs out, movie self destructs.
-
Regional zones? (Score:4, Funny)
These days it's getting harder and harder to justify the segregation. It's easier and easier to launch a movie around the world. For example, I went to Brazil a week after Spiderman was released in the USA. I watched that movie, in Brazil, with Portuguese subtitles only a week after the launch.
Now, I can understand the desire to prevent people from watching the movie on-line so that they can go see it in the theater first. But why is that such a priority anymore? Seems like they still make money either way. In some respects, they could make even more money. There are movies I want to see. I'd be happy to watch them if I had the tape, but I'm not so interested in making it to a theater to watch them. I'm sure there are lots of people that feel that way.
If their concern is over theater attendence, why not make the experience more appealing? Headphones would be nice so you can't hear the occasional ringing of a cell phone. Bigger screen? Better quality film? I dunno.
In any case, I don't mean to ramble. I have a question: What is the big screaming deal about regional lockouts for movies? Is there an issue I didn't raise? It's just puzzling to me that they feel they need to prevent somebody from Australia from watching a movie in the USA. What if I'm vacationing there?
Re:Regional zones? (Score:4, Insightful)
Say Australians will pay the equivalent of $25 USD, but Japanese will only pay the equivalent of $15 USD. Region encoding allows them to market to both areas at the price people will pay there without allowing Australians to pay less. It's called price discrimination. If you take economics and study the supply/demand graph for estimated purchases vs. price, you'll see what I mean. Basically it's a method for a company to charge a higher amount for people who are willing to pay more, while not losing those customers who are unwilling to pay the higher price. It's not illegal to do price discrimination, (witness how cell phone companies charge more for minutes during the business day...people who need those minutes during the day will pay more, because, well, they need them.)
However, the method the MPAA has chosen to use does infringe on Fair Use rights.
Re:Regional zones? (Score:2)
Re:Regional zones? (Score:2)
For instance the complete first season of Babylon 5 is about $76 CDN from Amazon.ca. It's $74 US from Amazon.com. That's about $26 US cheaper for the same product (and I assume it'll be shipped from the US). I imagine Amazon alters a lot of their prices bases on the region they are selling to.
A lot of the time items that are sold in both the US and Canada will not be at comparable prices.
As for the Next Step Online Movie Delivery, I doubt that it'll catch on. I'll actually be surprised if it does. At $4 US per movie, that's $6.50 CDN to watch a movie once. I often buy used DVDs (guaranteed skip free) for $9-$10, a new one costing between $19-$25.
Good luck to the folks trying to get it off the ground though.
Re:Regional zones? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well I live in New Zealand, and we get new releases from anything between a day ahead of the states and six to nine months behind.
Movies are sometimes released a day early because NZ is on the other side of the International Date Line, so we hit the official release date before anyone else. Some movies have been very late though, because the major holiday seasons are at completely different times of year. (Southern Hemisphere means that summer is around December/January, etc.)
It makes complete sense for the movie industry to restrict the sale of US-released DVD's in NZ, because often it's been released on DVD before it's hit the theatres here.
Ironically though, they can't. Region encoding was ruled as anti-competitive in New Zealand some time ago. Although the movie industry can sell as many region-encoded DVD's and DVD players as they like, it's also completely legal to take their player down to the local shop and have it de-regionised. It's also legal for businesses to parallel-import goods (such as DVD's) from other companies, bypassing the NZ movie industry.
Re:Regional zones? (Score:2, Insightful)
Now, I can understand the desire to prevent people from watching the movie on-line so that they can go see it in the theater first. But why is that such a priority anymore? Seems like they still make money either way. In some respects, they could make even more money. There are movies I want to see. I'd be happy to watch them if I had the tape, but I'm not so interested in making it to a theater to watch them. I'm sure there are lots of people that feel that way.
I think they would lose a lot more that way than they might gain (and I'm sure that's what they think). The goal is too maximize the revenue potential of each distribution channel. The studios have always been convinced that most people won't go out to a movie if they can or have watched it at home. Most films make a big chunk of their box office take on opening weekend, and then attendance drops off. With the methods currently in place, they can always pick up the people (read: $$$) who didn't catch the film in the theatres with the rental/sale release, but they don't lose any of the people who do go to the theatres -- people who might just stay home and rent if they had that option. A lot of people rent or buy a movie they liked when they saw it in the theatre. So the studios make money both ways, but they make more by getting people out to the theatres first.
My guess on the Harry Potter download being restricted to the U.S. is that Warner Bros. is just nervous about the whole thing. They want to get their feet wet and see how it goes. I doubt they'd have picked that film if the second Potter film weren't opening soon...it probably comes with at least a trailer for the new flick. It's hard to imagine they are very worried about piracy ... they know it has been all over the P2P networks for months already.
Michael
The reason for region lockouts: © law differences (Score:2)
why not make the experience more appealing? Headphones would be nice
Theaters already do that. They play the soundtrack on very low-power FM radio because some viewers may have hearing aids that are more compatible with their radio sets than with the theater's THX setup.
What is the big screaming deal about regional lockouts for movies?
The reason for region lockouts is that copyright law differens from country to country. For instance, Peter Pan and The Time Machine are still copyrighted in the EU but public domain in the USA. These works [slashdot.org] are still copyrighted by the Bono estate in the USA but public domain in Australia. Sometimes a studio has to release a movie in one market and use that market's box office revenue to pay the up-front royalties for licensing derivative work and public performance rights in another market.
Re:The reason for region lockouts: © law differenc (Score:2)
And that answer on the regional zones was very interesting. Thank you!
proxies (Score:2)
What is the sound of math (Score:3, Funny)
Wait a minute... (Score:2)
Intertainer.com WAS doing online films (Score:3, Insightful)
They just closed shop and filed suit [com.com] against the major US movie studios claiming that they couldn't get content at a reasonable price. It turns out that the movie studio "synergies" are set up to get any other source from being able to provide content.
So as we suspect, the MPAA isn't against movies being available on the net, they're just against the content coming from anywhere else than the big studios.
Shouldn't it be (Score:3, Insightful)
So I signed up for an account... (Score:4, Informative)
Most of the newer relases are avialable only to premium members. Yes, they have an adult selection for you
There are a few free (as in beer) movies. Shorts mostly, a LOT of Mr. Bill from SNL, other movies no one's ever heard of.
Randomly cruising through the 650 movie list, I checked out a free 6 minute short, "Automatic". (It was pretty much the first 'free' one I came to.) Run in a window the stream quality on cable was 'not too bad'.
Pop it out to full screen, however, and there was significant pixelization.
(Philips 17" monitor, PIII 850, Intel i815 integrated video, or a Dell Latitude with AGP Matrox vid)
Oh yeah, don't have any auto pop up things (email, IM, whatnot) running on that PC. Awful annoying have your email client scream at you during a quiet scene in the movie.
Would I pay $4 for movie from here? Not a chance. Would I pay $10/month for premium access? HA. Netflix at twice the price is waaaay better.
The home movie experience is so far from the average PC user as to be unworkable via this method. I suppose if you had a hotrod PC dedicated to the living room, with all the fancy graphics, a fat pipe, a $1000 monitor, and a really good vid out signal, then maybe you could reproduce the quality of a $200 TV and a $60 DVD player.
But probably not.
Next, we shall investigate capturing a movie from here via a USB Dazzle.
BMWFilms.com (Score:2, Interesting)
Has anyone considered BMWFilms.com? I mean, their films are short, but they are free. The only product they are trying to sell is BMW automobiles, and I already own one before I started watching their stuff. Now if they could just get other films produced, then we'd be in business. They don't even care if you share the films with your friends. Only hangup is that they need Windows Media Player, or Quicktime (they offer a third option, but as I don't use it and don't remember what it is - I won't guess).
When are we going to get tired of watching stupid Hollywood films, and just make one of our own - open source film.
What is the market for this?? (Score:2)
But, who would actually use this? Sure, dorm dwellers might want to watch TV & movies on their computer monitor to save space. But, they can already do that with DVD's.
At home, there is no way I'm gonna watch a movie on my 19" monitor rather than my expensive TV. On my big screen, the quality is even more important. I'm looking to upgrade to HDTV on D-VHS or HD-DVD, not downgrade to grainy overcompressed low bitrate formats.
Linux? (Score:3, Interesting)
I have mixed feelings about this. (Score:4, Interesting)
Now getting the streams at the same time the movie is in the theatre would be interesting. It would be nice to check out a movie before dropping $50 on a flop. You would not have to watch the entire thing, just sample until you know you want to go. They could even include exacly this sampling feature.
So, it is likely I will remain uninterested in this --for now.
Do I wish it would fail? Not sure really.
Even though, I am not likely to use the service, I do know plenty of people that would. They should have the choice to do so.
Problem is that boom or bust, our Internet will be changed to meet the needs of those providing these services. I think this means more lockdowns, slower access for 'non monetized' traffic, and trouble for open systems in general. Think about it, they will *NEVER* make this avaliable on an open platform because they know better. Though they could just produce a binary, but why bother. Most of the money will be in the win32 user market.
This really is just continuing evidence that we are all still in trouble. Open systems and networks will suffer because they do not generate revenue which is what this is all about right?
Something to keep an eye on though.
Uhhh, nope. (Score:2, Informative)
By keeping the average bitrate to a range DSL can stram over, it's not so bad. You've got a movie at your fingertips.
But on the other hand, I know what 650MB movies look like, and no matter what format you use they still look like crap. Worse than VHS, let alone DVD.
Sounds like they'd be better suited to cap the movies at around a gig and have the users have like a 2 minute streaming buffer or so. At around a gig, you can get much better than VHS quality.
Re:What's the issue here? (Score:2, Informative)
Um, you "can", but not legally unless you jump through the proper "public performance license" hoops. Otherwise all you're allowed to do is to show it in your home to friends/family.
Re:What's the issue here? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What's the issue here? (Score:3, Insightful)
The last part of your is true though, DVDs can really dent box office sales.
charge them for the popcorn (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What's the issue here? (Score:4, Funny)
You know, the big red or blue screen that says something about public viewing, FBI, punishment, fine, jail...
Re:What's the issue here? (Score:2)
No worries... looks like the DVD rippers and encoders skip that track automagically.
(kidding)
Re:What's the issue here? (Score:2)
Of course, even software EULA's are of debatable enforcability.
Brain Failure (Score:2, Insightful)
If the client address is spoofed then it can't expect any IP datagrams to be routed to it when the hosting site responds to that address.
"Specious Argument" + "FP Syndrome" = "embarrasing declaration"
HTH
Re:So what? (Score:2)