Movie Downloads to Coincide with DVD release

gihan_ripper writes "The movie download firms Movielink and CinemaNow have made a deal with the big five studios to ensure that downloads will coincide with DVD releases at Blockbuster and WalMart. Unlike previous deals, these will be full purchase downloads, and not merely for a rental period. The move is aimed at stemming the rising tide of pirate downloads, and DRM will be in force to prevent copying the movies to DVD. The first batch of downloadable movies will include Brokeback Mountain, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and King Kong."

Order of the Phoenix?

Wow-- talk about a quickly released download-- they haven't even shot it yet! http://tinyurl.com/p58qk [tinyurl.com]

Re:Brokeback

Why would somebody be embarrased to see a 2 hours Marlboro [rareads.com] commercial? well ok ok, only the first half of the movie was, but seriously I was just waiting to listen to the man saying "come to where the flavor is, come to the Marlboro Country" (or the equivalent in the USA ad)

Eh?

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Amazing! Not only can they transfer movies automagically over copper wires directly into my home, but the cables apparently create an inverse tachyon beam that brings movies in from the future!

Re:Eh?

There's some joke reference to Spaceballs [imdb.com] to be made here. How can there be a video of Spaceballs - we're still in the middle of making it? Alas, my brain isn't working fast enough this morning.

Obligatory 1984 comment

'When I was arrested, Apple said that PPC processors were evil.'

'PPC processors are evil. Good. And Apple always said that PPC processors are evil, has it not?'
Winston drew in his breath. He opened his mouth to speak and then did not speak. He could not take his eyes away from the dial.

'The truth, please, Winston. Your truth. Tell me what you think you remember.'
'I remember that until only a week before I was arrested, Apple used PPC processors. They even proved that they were the better ones. Intel's processors were the evil ones. That had lasted for nine years. Before that '

Jobs stopped him with a movement of the hand.

[..]

'Do you remember,' he went on, ' writing in your diary, "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two
make four"?'
'Yes,' said Winston.
Jobs held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.
'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?
'Four.'
'And if the party says that it is not four but 4.0000000097768 then how many?'
'Four.'

Can't Burn?

If you can't burn a copy to play on your DVD player, then forget about it... Unless it's cheaper than buying the DVD (by at LEAST $10)... I'm fine with them putting the CSS encryption on my burnt DVD, but they have to let me burn it for me to even consider it...

*Note* I only dl movies if I want to watch it first before buying, but I normally do actually buy the DVD (if the movie doesn't suck).

Bullpuckey.

I can't believe I'm allowing myself to be dragged into this but...

I'm ready to defend myself in court.

Good luck with that...your tail will be handed to you. No matter how you try to portray it, the point will remain that you downloaded and viewed content distributed through (presently) illegal channels.

Look. I agree with you in principle; my family thinks its funny how upset I get over those anti-piracy commercials. My five-year-old can recognize those as "the commercials Daddy don't like". But your "jab" at "The Man" or whatever it is you *think* you are doing to the *AAs out there only fuels their propaganda. Try before you buy does not apply.

You've got plenty of options to exercise your rights that are perfectly legal:

• Don't watch the movie. Period.
• Read reviews: check independent review sites and check with friends *before* you see the movie. This may require you to skip the first few weeks that the movie is open. Having principles is tough, man. :)
• See the movie at the "cheap seats" i.e. go to a second run theater (usually costs less than a rental). Now you've probably had to wait a month or two.
• Rent the movie

When you circumvent the legal distribution channel (whether you agree with it or not), what you tell the *AA is: "I *really* value your product, enough so that I will do whatever it takes to get it and I'm also willing to contribute to your propaganda regarding piracy and illegal downloads by actually being a participant in your (already) inflated statistics!". What you are not telling them is: "Your product sucks, your business model sucks, your distribution channels suck and your attitude to wards your own customers sucks. Until you change your act, I'm not willing to give you any more of my money."

Which do you think will be more effective:

• Committing what is presently defined as a criminal offense (and not likely to change if you live in the US).
• Hitting them in the pocket book by denying them first-run revenues

Here's a hint: This isn't "civil disobedience" - its theft of service (or something of the sort - spare me the "theft only applies to physical property, yadda, yadda, yadda arguments - the point is that you've not paid for something for which you are obligated (presently) to play; there is no one feeling sorry for you who is willing to do anything about it.

You want to be effective: convince your friends and family to stop going to the first-run theaters; convince your friends and family to not download DRM'ed DVD images (should be an easy sell); if you can, convince your friends and family to not purchase DVDs.

If you value the content enough to view it (and you are giving up 120 minutes, on average, of your time to view it) you should pay the $3-4. Its not your content and the owner of that content has a right to earn money from it. Your *only* rights are to choose not to view the content or purchase the product upon which the content is found.

DRM?

both sites for now are only allowing the movies people buy through downloads to be stored on PCs or on devices like the game player Xbox outfitted with certain Microsoft software

Cue to DVD-Jon crack in 3.. 2.. 1..

Seriously, does anyone know how much effort it would take to crack these DRM'd formats and export to AVI? What sort of security is in place? And wouldn't anyone be able to make a "bootleg" analog copy anyway?

Re:DRM?

Why do their work for them? I say, if they don't want to release in a format I can use, then they proceed without my dollars and with my negative word-of-mouth.

Thanks...

...but I think I've already dowloaded most of those.

Encrypted, cannot play on DVD players

Who wants to download something you can't burn and then watch on your home theater?

I will just buy the DVD thanks.

Re:Encrypted, cannot play on DVD players

Who wants to download something you can't burn and then watch on your home theater?

I dunno, who wants to buy a movie you can't rip to your PC without violating the DMCA?

Oh, that's right, everybody.

Nice idea, but...

Unlike their current services, in which online shoppers pay around $4 to rent new movies for up to a month, the films will be sold for prices "similar to home video," says Ramo.

Are they trying to deliberately kill the idea of movie downloads? Simultaneous release, same price... why should anyone wait for a few hours for a download when it's just as quick to get the actual DVD? And costs as much? The DVD can be passed on to others and there's no need to install special software on the PC to actually get it running.

Looks very much like an alibi action - "we tried to offer it, but nobody wanted it! So why should we bother?"

It's worse than that

Unlike their current services, in which online shoppers pay around $4 to rent new movies for up to a month, the films will be sold for prices "similar to home video," says Ramo.

Ramo (Chief Executive of Movielink) is more explicit in a separate LA Times article [latimes.com] where he admits that Movielink will actually be selling the online downloads for about double the street price of the physical DVD. The article quotes movie studios as saying that they don't want to alienate their existing DVD sales channel operators, since DVDs currently account for 46% of studio sales -- about double the take from the box office.

Piracy fears also prevent online services from giving technological early adopters what they really want -- the ability to watch downloaded movies on their televisions. That's because the studios insist that downloadable movies include rigorous safeguards on copying. Users, for instance, can burn a DVD of a downloaded movie, but it will play only on a PC.

[...]

Ramo said download-to-own movies would sell for $20 to $30 -- up to double the $15 that discount retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. charge for DVDs, with downloads of classic titles for $10 to $17. He said the premium reflected the convenience of the service and the flexibility to transfer the digital download to two computers, as well as the ability to create a backup DVD that also would play on computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system.

Reading quotes like this really make me wonder if some of these executives are living in a bizarro parallel reality, or if they've just gotten accustomed to spewing this sort of doublespeak nonsense with a straight face. Supposedly consumers will be happy to pay double for the "flexibility" of being able to back up their new movie to computer and play them on their computers. Well, when I buy the physical DVD from the store, surprise surprise, I can play my DVD on my computer OR the TV -- and guess which display I'm going to be watching most of my shows on, my 20" monitor screen or the 35" TV downstairs? Backing up the DVD is a snap too, and I don't have to deal with the annoying hassle of Movielink/CinemaNow's homebrew DRM.

Last I checked, paying more for something that I can do strictly less with wasn't the dictionary definition of "flexibility", but hey, I'm not a high-paid exec, what do I know.

Re:Nice idea, but...

you're still looking to at least an hour for a 1.4GB compressed copy, even longer if this service uses full 4.6GB uncompressed.

FYI, commercial DVDs are definetely not uncompressed, they use MPEG2 compression. Also, full dual layer DVDs are closer to 7-8GB, not 4.6GB (of course, this includes things like extras and special features, which I'm not sure if these downloads will have).

Re:Nice idea, but...

They don't want to kill movie downloads - they want to kill physical media and not give consumers a price break. Americans pay far less for movies and music than the rest of the world, and the movie companies would make a hell of a lot more money by narrowing distribution down to a single middleman with no costs for physical media. It would also mean no more movies passed around between friends, shown at parties, schools, etc.. Sure people probably won't pay full price for downloads now, but the service can take a loss for a few years while they work out the bugs, and then Harry Potter six or seven can be released as an internet exclusive, at which point the movie companies start abandoning physical media and start reaping huge profits.

DRM galore

FTA: Movies can't be "burned" or copied onto disks that can be played on other devices, such DVD players. The movies, however, can be copied to play on as many as two other PCs

Of course, it would be too easy if they were let out of the DRM jail...

Customers can hook up their computers to their TV sets using specially equipped video cables

Uh? Specially equipped cables? WTF are they talking about? Something that's got to do with HD and/or closing the analog hole?

Let me guess

320x240 video, 96kbps mp3 audio + some drm monkey dung.

Or I could run over to a torrent site and get BareBack Mountain,

Brokeback.Mountain.DVDR-Replica.torrent
RiPPER......: Replica GENRE......: Drama/Romance
ViDEO TYPE..: NTSC RUNTiME....: 134 min
AUDiO TYPE..: DD5.1 STORE DATE.: 04/04/06
iMDB RATiNG.: 8.0 RLS DATE...: 03/17/06

I wouldn't mind paying for it but make it worth my while.

Hollywood still doesn't get it

Offering movies and then restricting them to a PC, most likely some form of Windows Media DRM crap, for the same price as you could buy the unencumbered DVD in the store is not a way to market a new service! This is even worse than iTunes Music Store and their lossily encoded AAC DRM-restricted music files. At least with that you can burn a sub-CD quality version to a CD and rerip it to MP3 format to archive it.

I'm confused

Exactly... If the download is at the same price as a DVD, all I get is a ripped DVD but without the backup. Where's the value in that ?

The download should either be

* Full retail DVD price, allowing backups, format shifting etc. Collection format.
or
* Rental DVD price, with DRM restrictions. Throwaway format.

WIndows only?

Both companies seem to only support Windows and IE. What about the other half of the planet. Opensource aside, there is still a pretty big Mac base out there. It makes great market sense to alienate a group of users like that.

So basically...

The move is aimed at stemming the rising tide of pirate downloads, and DRM will be in force to prevent copying the movies to DVD.

So basically, they aim to compete with piracy by selling me something less convenient at a higher price? Genius!

Seriously, when are they going to get it that the only thing they have going for them is convenience? The black market of free downloads is always going to be cheaper. The only way you can fight it is to offer a better, more convenient product. And tying it up with DRM that prevents what is probably the second most desired feature after watching it is only going to screw that up.

Why would I buy from them when I can get a copy that I can burn to DVD at a cheaper price? It's sad when anonymous pirates can provide better customer service than multinational corporations that created the damn thing in the first place.

I hates me the DRM, but this could be good

Although I don't like DRM I think this is something of a hopeful sign -- to see more legal movie distribution via download. If it gets to be common knowledge that download != illegal (much less "piracy" or "theft"), then the MPAA and RIAA won't (I predict) be able to pass a lot of goofy, anti-P2P legislation.

The stifling effect of widespread DRM is another serious problem, but I would rather for the moment rather see legitimate, mass-consumption downloads, and then we'll see less "troll" legislation.

Prevent copying it to DVD?

So basically they expect people to watch the films exclusively on their PC, rather than their living room TV. You end up with a product much worse than a DVD for a strikingly similar price. To make it even worse, you have to spend hours of your own broadband bandwidth to download it.

Not only that, DVDs can regularly be had for reduced prices at high street DVD stores, I'm willing to bet these downloads will not have equally aggressively prices sales periods.

This just lends credibility to people saying they are basically just setting legal downloads up to fail, so they can push for harder legal restrictions afterwards.

A download is a lower quality product than a hard copy DVD, as you don't get the physical copy and packacking. Since there is no physical reproduction, no physical transport and no extra goodies, people have certain expectations to price. Since you don't get physical media, your investment is a lot less secure.

Any download replacement should be:
a) much cheaper
b) convenient
c) easy to backup

This product fails on all of these points.

Not relevant for me

Unless these morons (both MPAA and the legal DL sites) figure there is a LEGIT, ORIGINAL buying community got sick of waiting for DVD "plastic" to watch them on their computer OUTSIDE of "America", I wouldn't care less.

Also as WMV and RealVideo, Quicktime supports 5.1 sound for ages, if you pay the same money as Dolby Digital or DTS DVD to a stereo download, you have been err.. what was the term? :)

If it is kind of hard to understand why a random guy on Slashdot got real mad about the situation

1) Consider you want to watch a Region 2 DVD , you don't care about the region fight.
2) Go to Amazon.co.uk, turn OFF "one click" feature and..
3) Put couple of DVDs in your shopping list
4) Fill in the delivery form as you live in Istanbul,Turkey or some other European country outside UK
5) Look to "shipping and handling" cost and be amazed. If you have only 1 DVD on that list, it will be generally HIGHER than the Movies original cost.

Step 6 is generally launching a pirate client and download the freaking movie. As a guy in industry, I don't. Can't blame others if they would in current amazingly stupid scheme of things.

Good news, everyone!

Now that you can download movies anywhere in the world as soon as the DVD is released, there's no reason for discs to have region codes anymore.

And yet again the paying customer gets shafted.

DRM will be in force to prevent copying the movies to DVD.

Joe six pack will soon discover the evils of DRM when they can't burn the film they legally paid for onto DVD to watch on their new HD TV or their HDD / Computer fails and they have to buy all their movies again. Unlike the pirates who can happily burn / backup their W4r3z.

A lot of people, especially the tech savvy ones will still choose to get the pirate downloads. Remove the DRM and let people burn their own DVD's.

Let me spell it out for the MPAA! Will you pay for a product which is inferior to one you can get for free?

Downloading

Seems to me the industry wants to offer downloads just because they've heard people like to download movies, as if they (the movie execs) think the act of downloading were, in itself, the objective. And if it flops because people don't like the prices and/or the restrictions, the executives won't understand -- because, after all, they were letting us "download."

Well, I dunno. That's the way it sounds to me.

Sell individual scenes

One of the reasons why iTunes Music Store works is that although music is priced at about the same price per minute as the same content on CD, you have the option of buying individual songs. And in fact this works very well for me. I have probably purchased between fifty and a hundred individual songs where I want the individual songs but do not like the artists well enough to want eleven more.

So... maybe they should try offering individual scenes from movies.

This wouldn't work for every movie, but "Basic Instinct" would probably lend well itself to this treatment.

Did Sony come up with this idea?

From the article
Movies would cost $20-$30.
They would be resticted to specific hardware (your Windows equipped computer).
You can't watch them on your HD home theatre system.
Sounds like the PSP UMD format.

Why can't we just buy the DVD from Wal-Mart for $15, and then walk to our PC and put it in, and then watch it? Then when we're done, we take the DVD, walk to the home theatre DVD player and drop it in and watch it again. Boy, all that walking has got me tired.

DoubleSpeak yet again

Unlike previous deals, these will be full purchase downloads, and not merely for a rental period.

Which is DoubleSpeak, because it's untrue. If you can't transcode it to run on other devices, extract clips for purposes allowed under Fair Use, and the DRM prevents you from playing a restored backup on an upgraded or reinstalled purchase, it's not a full purchase now, is it. . .

Vivid is releasing porn that can be burned to DVD

This is interesting news, in light of this story [ehomeupgrade.com]:

A new service being launched by Vivid Entertainment on April 3rd, 2006 will allow consumers to purchase, download and burn a complete DVD for instant gratification. Always on the leading edge of technology innovation, the adult entertainment industry is again among the first to offer the ability to download and burn a fully functioning DVD complete with menus, chapter navigation and subtitles (do adult entertainment videos even have subtitles?). The initial launch of the service will include 30 movies from the Vivid Video collection and will cost about $25, which is the same price as purchasing the physical DVD.

This may not be exactly what Bill Gates was referring to when he said that the format war between Blu-Ray and HD DVD would likely be the last, but this is clearly a step forward for the digital distribution of content. The Vivid download DVDs are using a DRM technology that will only allow the video file to be burned to a DVD once. This technology is an important step in providing Vivid with the confidence to go forward with its plan. It's not known whether the burned DVDs will be encrypted with CSS and can be unencrypted and replicated using software such as DVD Decrypter or DVDShrink.

Mainstream studios will probably pay close attention to this service to see if the initial 30 DVDs start to show up on P2P networks with any greater frequency as an indication of piracy rates of movies distributed in this manner. The benefits of digital distribution are significant since it reduces manufacturing and distribution costs as well as any issues with inventory surplus or shortfall (not to mention personal discretion). Despite these advantages, I don't think we'll be seeing any of the major studios following suit anytime soon.

I think they're shooting themselves in the foot by not allowing you to burn a DVD of major Hollywood titles, personally, but maybe they'll fix that after they see how Vivid's experiment goes.