Netflix Will Delay Renting New WB Releases 418
Posted
by
kdawson
from the times-they-are-a-changin' dept.
from the times-they-are-a-changin' dept.
DesertBlade tips the news that Netflix will delay renting new releases from Warner Brothers for 28 days, and adds "Luckily I am so far behind in my movie watching that I will probably never catch up anyway." "It's part of a strategy by several studios to create staggered releases of DVDs so that the most profitable transactions are available first and cheaper rental options take effect further down the road. The move could be copied by other studios, forcing consumers to wait nearly a month if they want to rent popular movies from Netflix. ... The studio is hoping that the four-week window will push consumers interested in watching movies at home to buy the DVDs or pay a premium to rent them from stores like Blockbuster or from Internet and cable video-on-demand services. Warner Bros. already imposes a 28-day window on $1-a-night kiosk firm Redbox."
Re:What a great idea! (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah it was like $100
Rogue (Score:2, Informative)
When Netflix was a rogue outfit that bought DVDs "off the shelf" and thumbed their noses at the studios it was an awesome service.
Streaming seems to have turned them into a negotiating machine that gives the studios what they want at the expense of the Netflix customer. The result is that it has become a clearinghouse for unpopular content.
I just tried 'em again for a month, and it has become dismal.
-Peter
Silver lining (Score:1, Informative)
Re:What a great idea! (Score:3, Informative)
But is it legal to rent that way?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine [wikipedia.org]
The upside for Netflix (and us) (Score:4, Informative)
The summary did not mention what Netflix gets out of the deal: more on-demand content. From the article:
As someone who has Netflix Instant Queue available directly on my television (thanks, TiVo), I'm more than happy to wait another month for a latest release if it means I can decide on a Thursday evening that I'd rather watch "Big Movie A" instead of "Big Movie B" without having to wait 2 days (one day to mail back, one day to receive) to see it.
Re:What a great idea! (Score:4, Informative)
You are confusing performance rights with the erosion of the first sale doctrine that decades of propaganda printed on DVDs and VHS tapes has convinced you to buy into.
Actually performing a work (like on a stage) is and always has been seperate and not something transferred by a mere copy of a play, screenplay or sheet music.
COPYright --- see those first 4 letters.
Re:What a great idea! (Score:5, Informative)
I believe the term was "priced for rental." The idea was yes, the prices were absurd -- for anyone but a VHS rental business.
The economics of VHS tapes were different, though. Unlike DVDs, comparatively few people tended to actually go out and buy them, bar a few "core" titles (Disney movies for the kids, Star Wars, Godfather, etc.) VHS tapes were bulky and not easy to store, their packaging tended to look kinda crappy on your shelf, and their picture quality really was not good. Not only did they tend to wear out just from playing them -- and occasionally your VCR would outright destroy one -- but storebought tapes weren't that great quality to begin with. Remember, this was an analog tape medium, and it was in the manufacturers' interests to duplicate them for as low cost as possible. Often this meant they were made from low-quality materials and were duplicated on high-speed equipment. From a collector's/fan's standpoint, all but a very few were 4:3 pan and scan -- so between that and the poor resolution, the only real way to see your favorite movies was to wait for them to come to a local second-run theatre. So it became a kind of Catch-22 -- because VHS tapes were never that attractive, studios were never really able to get the economies of scale that would drive the cost of VHS releases down to where mainstream customers would pay for them.
People did buy laserdiscs, though, and those collectors were among the first to jump on the DVD-buying bandwagon. When regular people got word that DVDs gave you picture quality comparable to laserdiscs without all the disc flipping and swapping, DVD sales exploded. Way back in 2001, when cheap VHS tapes had become more common and DVDs were fairly new, revenue from VHS sales was still far less than that from VHS rentals -- but it was also less than the revenue from DVD sales, even back then. (This according to the Video Software Dealers Association [vsda.org].) I honestly think enough people buy DVD releases regularly enough that this waiting period won't be that big of a deal -- especially in the age of home theater. Even if you have to pay $20 to buy the disc, it's still cheaper than taking a date to the movies.
Re:What a great idea! (Score:4, Informative)
Sometimes. Rental places tended to do it. I remember being able to rent a copy of Star Trek Generations 8-10 months before I could find a copy for sale.
I don't know what the current practice is but VHS tapes for rental places used to be $75 a copy. There was a staggered release where the $15 to $25 tapes didn't come out for a while after rental. I remember trying to get the MST3K movie on tape after it came out for rent and it was at the ridiculous price. I think the theory was they could soak the rental places and then mop up the remainder of the market by mass-producing tapes at a lower price point. It's been so long since I've bought a movie I have no idea if they're still doing tiered distribution or if rentals are available before purchase copies. Physical media is so 20th century.
Re:What a great idea! (Score:5, Informative)
This is flat out wrong. First sale doctrine gives you the right to do whatever you want with the physical disk (including rent it to people from a vending machine). The content isn't yours, you still can't do public performance or make copies to rent but the original disk is yours.
The reason you pay more for a rented disk that you lose is probably because they like to gouge you. Also, sometimes "rental" copies are different, often they might have a different set of previews and a lack of special features (but get sold at an initial discount with a higher later replacement cost). In the VHS days, the expensive tapes were actually nicer than the retail copies--blockbuster would buy a couple copies on the expensive tape for long term rental and a bunch on retail quality (fast degrading) tape that they would sell off after new-release status was over.
Please don't spread incorrect info about things like first sale doctrine...it is a very important part of copyright law that a lot of companies would like to see go away and that will be easy if people already think it doesn't exist.
Re:28 days later (Score:5, Informative)
Why wouldn't this line of reasoning stand up in court if you were to be busted for downloading a movie? Really the way I see it is if its rent-able by netflix and I have an account in good standing I should be entitle to watch anything I could rent no matter the means of transfer.
Largely because you are creating a copy of a work protected against such behavior, you'd legally still be on the hook.
The laws aren't designed to limit your access to the material. Instead they intend to control the circumstances under which that work can be duplicated. Just because you have the means to access it does not mean you have permission to create a copy.
Re:What a great idea! (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure why this was modded "funny", it's the truth.
Back in the dark ages when VCRs roamed the earth, the movie studios didn't want you to actually own anything but decided that renting was ok ... as long as the rental stores paid $100+ per copy for each tape. This is why it was $5 a frigging day to rent the things.
Same with LaserDisc but it was even worse because most places weren't renting them ( Yes, get off my lawn. I think I paid something like $350 - $400 for the first Star Wars trilogy on LaserDisc. I still have them )
It's about the streaming (Score:3, Informative)
Netflix agreed to this because they are getting a discount on their DVD purchases and letting them cut costs.
I'm sure that's a big part of it...but the press release also mentioned that WB is giving them access to more of its catalog for their streaming service.
With physical DVDs, if WB refuses to sell directly to Netflix, they can always send someone to Costco, buy a bunch of DVDs, and rent them under the first sale doctrine. With streaming, they need an active contract with WB to do it (legally) at all. If WB decides not to renew that contract...well, there goes their streaming service. Or at least anything from Warner Bros.
Re:What a great idea! (Score:4, Informative)
That's absurd, of course they used high speed duplicators. What, do you think they just go buy a bunch of blanks, and put 50,000 tape-to-tape copiers in a giant room to produce the millions of VHS tapes distributed for a new release? The economics of a solution that silly are what clever engineering is made for...
Watch this video if you don't believe me. It's actually a pretty cool video showing a high speed duplication factory in operation. And they specifically state that the duplication happens at 240x real time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0RM1sNs4mo [youtube.com]
Re:What a great idea! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What a great idea! (Score:1, Informative)
Those boxes marked rental absolutely can be sold as used later. It's called the doctrine of first sale and applies to ALL movie media without exception. They could paint "IT IS A FELONY TO SELL THIS FILM" on the side of the box, it's still 100% legal to sell the original.