Apparently no longer content with the 28-day window in which it sells DVDs but doesn’t allow companies to rent them out, Warner Bros. is reportedly on the verge of doubling that time frame in an effort to starve viewers into starting to buy movies again.
According to AllThingsD, Warner Bros. is gearing up to announce the new window at next week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The 56-day rental ban will apply to Netflix, Redbox and Blockbuster.
Along with the revelation that HBO will no longer play nice with Netflix, studios are making it known that they’re not in the business of helping disc renters. Stretching the release windows, however, may well drive otherwise honest customers to piracy.
Warner Brothers Will Make Netflix, Redbox, Blockbuster Wait Longer for New Movies [AllThingsD via Engadget]
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It’s the Zombie influence. first 28 days, then 28 days later.
I never buy a DVD until I’ve seen the movie first. I see maybe one movie every two years in theaters. That means I don’t buy a DVD unless I’ve rented it. By making me wait 2 months to rent the DVD, if I decide to buy it the movie is now in the bargain bin. Win for me!
Doesn’t hurt their bottom line a bit since the rental companies purchase copies of the DVDs from them? Either way this isn’t going to make me buy movies, I can wait longer to see them. Especially given the amount of content that exists out there now.
Just when you think Big Entertainment has reached the nadir of cluelessness, they demonstrate the nadir is not even close. It boggles the mind how completely unaware these people are as to what is going on in the land of ones and zeros. At every turn they make the wrong move and give people one more good reason to pirate.
Ha! You people think you’re so much smarter than the movie companies. “If they wait 56 days, people might forget about the movies and not even end up renting them.” Here’s how the movie companies are going to counteract that: those previews at the beginning of the DVD – the ones that you can no longer skip over and are forced to play before you get to the movie – they’re going to DOUBLE the number of previews. Bwuahahahahaha!
Of course, if you rip the DVD to your hard drive, you can get around all the obnoxious, impossible to skip over FBI warnings, etc. Again, their measures to prevent piracy actually encourage piracy in an instant gratification, I want it NOW culture, which arguably, our culture has been tilting more and more toward.
Maybe I’m alone in this, but by the time the delayed release movies reach Redbox, I’ve forgotten that I even want to watch it. I can’t remember the last time I bought a new release dvd.
I can’t help but wonder if the drop in DVD sales/revenue has anything to do with the practice of deeply discounting DVDs six to nine months after they’re released. How many times can a person buy a DVD upon release, only to see it marked down to $10 or less just a few months later, before they catch on and react accordingly? But surely that’s not the studios’ fault, it’s somehow NetBoxBuster’s fault.
Putting up artificial barriers for customers who want to pay for your content seems like a very poorly thought out strategy.
I used to be an avid DVD buyer.
Then I got tired of all the unskippable crude that each DVD I bought had.
I switched to Netflix for a few years then dumped them when they went all flixster.
Congrats movie industry you drove a paying customer completely away from you.
The flaw in this reasoning is that I am fine with waiting years without seeing the movies studios release. *snarky grin*
Come on, do they really think we will all run to the store as fast as possible to pay over $20 for a craptastic movie?
Please. I can wait years. Get over yourself Warner Brothers.
If Warner Brothers can make some movies I want to buy (that I’d want to watch more than once), I’ll be happy to buy instead of rent. The problem is, they haven’t made one I’d want to add to my permanent collection since 1942 — Casablanca.
I rarely go to the movies and I don’t buy movies I haven’t seen before. Ergo: renting movies is the only direct path to me purchasing movies. Oh, you wish to delay that so that your movies are crowded out of my consciousness by other movies? Cool. You get no $$ from me, WB.
I have news for these movie studios. I hate buying DVDS – because once I own them, for some psychological reason, I no longer want to watch them.
But I’ll rent a movie, see it on netflix, watch it on TV, etc.
Don’t think this extension will do what they want it to do.
“Along with the revelation that HBO will no longer play nice with Netflix, studios are making it known that they’re not in the business of helping disc renters. Stretching the release windows, however, may well drive otherwise honest customers to piracy.”
Just because studios don’t want to offer their products in the way that some people want them it doesn’t justify piracy.
Hey WB and any other giant media company: There is nothing you can do and no trick up your sleeve that will make me buy your DVDs as long as I have the option to rent. I’ll wait out your rental ban, not matter how long you extend it. I’ll simply shrug if you choose to leave off special features from your “rental” copies. Wake up and realize that 99.9% of your movies are just not worth owning.
I can think of several dozen movies I’d love to own on blu-ray. The problem is, they aren’t available on blu-ray, while films that are trivial and ephemeral are plentiful. I have no desire to own a copy of The Hangover Part II. But I’d love to own a blu-ray version of Hitchcock’s The Birds, or Rear Window, or Vertigo, or a number of other Hitchcock films that look comparatively lousy on DVD, but aren’t available on blu-ray. There are some James Bond films I’d like to own on blu-ray — Tomorrow Never Dies? Not available. Or how about Chinatown, or The Apartment? I’d buy ‘em all, especially if the prices were reasonable. In the meantime, I’ll keep renting and streaming Netflix.
When’s the last time you looked around? The James Bond blu-rays have been out for quite some time. http://www.amazon.com/James-Bond-Blu-ray-Collection-Another/dp/B001CXYDO8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1325878949&sr=8-3
Also, The Birds will be out soon. http://www.amazon.com/Birds-Blu-ray-Tippi-Hedren/dp/B00466H3I6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325878840&sr=8-1
North by Northwest – http://www.amazon.com/North-Northwest-Anniversary-Blu-ray-Packaging/dp/B0017HMF6W/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1325878868&sr=8-2
Unfortunately, not all of the Bonds are on blu-ray, including Tomorrow Never Dies, Golden Eye, and Diamonds Are Forever, all of which I’d buy if they were. Good news that The Birds is coming out on blu-ray, though I’ll believe it when I see it. Rear Window, Vertigo, and a number of other Hitchcock classics are still unavailable. North by Northwest is of course on blu-ray — I bought it as soon as it came out, even though my DVD version wasn’t that bad (unlike my DVD of The Birds, which is a grainy mess).
I only buy movies I really love and will watch again, and haven’t been doing that much lately due to the shitty content that is flooding the market. So screw you, WB.
If it isn’t on Netflix streaming, I’m probably not going to watch it anyway. So I guess this isn’t a problem for me.
I never buy new releases for myself. I do buy them as gifts (My sister got the last 2 potters for xmas this year) I only watch movies once and will only watch them again on rare occiaion or if my tivo records one randomly off TV. The only Disks i but for myself are old favrates when they are cheep I bought Back to the future on blue ray (1 2 and 3) for like 20 bucks a while back. haven’t watched them yet. Most likely will end up watching the digital copies next time i am stuck on a plane.
These companies are SOOO out of touch with their customers.. ok, I’m just going to wait 3 months until I get to watch a movie which contains a script which has been done 100 times before or it’s a remake.. Yay!
Guess I’ll just have to rent the “new” movies from Redbox until a movie from WB which I might want to see..
It is rare that I will buy anything new, in terms of recent release. My general rule for movies is when the disc runs less that a movie ticket, I’ll buy a movie that interests me.
The very few things I’ll buy new are Mythbusters (wonderful show, that) and old shows from years ago put out by smaller companies. Stuff like ReBoot (“I come from the net…”), the upcoming Underdog box set (“Theres no need to fear, Underdog is here!”) and similar things.
For the rest, Netflix is a poor substitute for bargain bins, (they want the discs back) but I make do. The annoying thing is the number of old series that transfer to the save queue because they had all the discs damaged by either careless customers or the Post Offal. I’m heavily into Anime, and their continuously-thinning selection still blows the doors off of any local shop.
As for Blu-Ray, when I can play them on my Linux computer, I’ll consider looking in the bargain bin. I watch most of my stuff on the computer, the TV is primarily for weather emergencies.
I’ve spent a lot of time fuming over the paltry selection on Netflix. After reading this, I now realize that it isn’t entirely their fault.
I will wait 56 days if the movie is not worth buying. It will not make a difference for Warner Brothers. I don’t rent or buy many movies anymore. I don’t see a purpose in this.. I would hope no one gives in to this and the studios will be foreced to change their policy
Can’t remember the last WB movie I could not wait 56+ days for.
It’s all been downhill since they stopped making Looney Tunes shorts…
They can stretch it to a year and I still will just wait for it to be available on redbox or netflix. Why buy movies when I rarely watch them more than once anyway.
When I was younger (and had no money to spend on gas nevermind entertainment like movies) I pirated a lot. Now that I’m older, though, I want to pay and get things the convenient way. Making me spend $20-$30 to buy a movie I will likely only watch once is asinine though. I have no desire to build a massive collection of movies, since my own personal history tells me I won’t make ANY use of that collection. Instead of driving me towards piracy, however, it will just drive me towards alternate forms of entertainment. The harder you make it for people to consume your content, the less money you are going to get for it.