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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The last line says it all. People aren’t just going to magically buy DVDs and Blu-rays just because the studio decides to extend the No Rental time frame.
They are going to simply find other, less legitimate ways to get what they want.
The studios astound me. They are actively screwing over people who might otherwise give them money.
They didn’t learn from MP3′s….so sad. Cable and movie companies make no sense. They need to do HD movie rentals for $3/2days while giving you the option to purchase it, DRM free, for maybe $2 or $3 more. They might think their product has a higher target price but consumers have made it clear that is not the case.
Drop the price, get exponentially more customers buying, hopefully make more money. The longer they make people wait, the less hype and relevance the movie carries.
Exactly.
You see, one of the problems with movies (versus music) is that people tend to watch a move once, or maybe twice. In some special cases, certain movies that an individual particularly likes, they may watch countless times, but the vast majority of the time, a movie gets watched only one or two times per viewer.
For this reason, buying movies doesn’t make sense.
Rather than solving the problem by trying to find a way to monetize non-purchase options, something that would likely be an all-around win, they choose to clamp them down.
Bloody brilliant.
Thank you for saying this. I own very few movies, not because I don’t like movies. Because I rarely want to see a movie more than once. My gf buys tons of movies, often several versions of the same movie. I’ve never understood that.
Unlike books, which I re-read, or TV shows, which I will buy on DVD if I really like the series, I watch a movie on Netflix or television, and then I’m finished with it.
This is pretty much how we are. We don’t want to have these things around all the time when we’re rarely going to watch them again. We’d rather rent it, watch it, and be done with it. I’ve been doing this most of my life with books. We go to the public library, get books, then return them.
I’m the same way. I will purchase DVD/BluRays of my favorite TV shows, because I tend to watch those over and over again. My shelf is full of TV show box sets. But for movies, unless it’s one that I absolutely love, there’s no point in me buying them since I know I probably won’t feel the need to watch it ever again. And even for those few movies that I like enough to purchase on DVD, they’re usually old enough for me to have watched a few times, so the extra 56 day release window wouldn’t affect me. I would never purchase a BluRay/DVD of a movie I’ve never watched before, which includes most New Releases.
Movie studios are completely in denial about how consumers are choosing to purchase and use media. Redbox, BB, Netflix have replaced having a physical movie ‘library’.
They have a death grip on the way things used to be and refuse to acknowledge that us consumers are doing it differently now.
Plus they act like their content is worth waiting 56 days for…like we’re on pins and needles for that crap they’re shoveling at us.
Having worked in the rental industry, I can say that people definitely exist who spend so much time watching movies that they were right there, knocking on our door, at opening time, to pick up the new releases every week.
Though, I think in most of those cases, they would not really change their DVD purchasing habits, but instead wait until the delayed new releases were available to rent, rather than buy.
Exactly. Studio marketing manipulations are no match for my ability to disregard purchasing their DVDs. Now that there’s no movie rental place near my home, I watch old Columbo reruns from the library. Peter Falk is awesome.
Take that! Studio executives.
Doesn’t seem like there are that many people who do it, since there’s only one rental place open within ten miles of my house now, as opposed to the dozen there were ten years ago.
No kidding. 99% of movies that come today out are not worth the time it takes to watch them. No loss, I can wait the 56 days, if I watch them at all at that point.
Consumers may also stop watching video on a regular basis and cut down the amount in their lives. Can a HBO show be successful with less than a quarter million viewers and 50,000 or so DVD sales?
People will just forget about the movie, during this time. Movies I want to see in theater, I will see.
The ones I want to rent, I will rent; unless I forget that movie exists, while a new shiny one comes out. I can’t pirate a movie I do not remember wanting to see
I only buy really good movies on DVD
Inconvenience doesn’t justify piracy.
To some, it does; particularly when those people feel they have been patient with the system up to this point.
No it doesn’t, but honestly considering all of the dirty tactics they have employed (and continue to use to this day), fuck ‘em.
Yep make it harder for people to give you money… time to visit the Bay AARRGGGGG!!!!
AAAARRRGGHHH!!! LOL…. AYE!
Hoist the Jolly Rodger! Avast mateys! Hollywood off the starboard bow – load the cannon with grape-shot!
Yeah. That’s totally going to work exactly how they plan it.
If people are willing to already wait 28 day’s, 56 will likely not matter. WB could run into an issue with their movies being largely forgotten about after such a period of time, however, which is not good for them or the distributors.
what if they make the wait 1 year, 2 years? 3 years? at some point people will just forget the movie.
If they forget after 56 days, any longer is a moot point.
Yeah this is what I was thinking. If I wasn’t excited enough to go see it in theaters, why on earth would I feel the need to buy the DVD rather than just wait another two months to rent it? What will happen is that I will probably just forget about the movie entirely as it is eclipsed by something else I wanted to see.
I think for most consumers if they like the movie enough to buy the DVD they will, but changing the rental window time isn’t going to increase sales by a noticeable amount.
I tend to go to the movies about 3-5 times a year and then wait for everything else on Netflix or Redbox. I have no issues waiting 28 days and will have no problems waiting 56. I’ll also have no problems waiting 112. But, by that time I just might forget about the movie entirely.
I regularly wait a year or two for things to come onto Netflix streaming. If I really want to watch a movie I splurge and pay for a rental on Amazon streaming. I only go to the movies when it’s a social thing and I have a strict policy of not buying DVDs – too much clutter for what I’m only going to watch once.
I have so many movies/shows in my Netflix queue it won’t bother me one whit to wait an extra 28 days. Heck, most of the time, I don’t see a new Netflix DVD for several months after it gets into my queue anyway.
I so rarely buy DVDs and this won’t change my mind.
As someone who usually only rents movies, all this means is that they have effectively delayed release 56 days instead of 28. If I needed to see a movie so badly I couldn’t wait, I’d have seen it in the theatre ( which I haven’t for nearly ten years).
At some point they may stop renting movies all together, at which point I’ll stop watching them.
> they may stop renting movies all together
Unlikely. The studios may stop selling DVDs directly to rental companies, but Redbox can still buy discs from Walmart and rent those. It’s perfectly legal, just more expensive for the rental company because they have to pay retail prices for their stock. They did this for a while before they caved to the 28-day delay.
If that doesn’t work out for them, Canada is also in DVD region 1, and NCR (Blockbuster Express) was importing discs from there for a while. Maybe they can explore that option too.
I spent several years working for a video rental company–small mom-n-pop sort of place, they went out of business a few years ago. But in many cases, the copies of movies we bought to rent out cost more from the rental catalog than they did at retail. Often, we would just hit up Wal-Mart every Tuesday and buy a stack of the new releases for $5-10 cheaper–each– than we’d have to pay through normal channels.
If there was a bulk discount, we never saw it.
… We’d also use it to get around the whole “blockbuster exclusive” thing. Because that was a piece of crap. There wasn’t a Blockbuster in the neighborhood at all. :/
“May well drive otherwise honest customers to piracy.”
Arrrgh for Piracy. Hoist the plank and set the sail mates. There be booty for everyone!
They really don’t get it, do they? People who are dying to see a movie will watch it online, illegally (and probably already are). People who don’t care about waiting (me, for example) are still not going to care about waiting. Why is this hard to understand?
At this point, if there’s a movie I want to see, and I don’t catch it in theaters, I wait for Netflix. If it doesn’t come to Netflix, I don’t even bother. With very few exceptions, I do not buy movies anymore (nor do I pirate them!) because I find that they sit on a shelf, unwatched, for years at a time. I pared my collection down to a dozen DVDs, ones that I could watch over and over again, and I haven’t watched any of them in months.
If studios want to make it harder for me to watch their content, I’m cool with that. There are tons and tons of people making their own visual entertainments on Youtube and on their own websites, and they are often much more in line with what I want to see anyways.
Cats being startled, for example. I could watch a hundred videos of cats doing that “poing!” thing when they’re surprised. And they’re free. And they’re available whenever I want to see them.
Who would have thought that the movie studios could be brought down not only by their own incompetence and stupidity and failure to provide their customers what they want legitimately, but also by kitteh videos.
Compared to a lot of the movies being made nowadays, cat videos on YouTube are more interesting and entertaining.
And ultimately more satisfying; I can watch a bunch of cat videos, be entertained and delighted, and walk away feeling like I didn’t waste money. Sure, Time was probably wasted, but that was the point of looking up cat videos in the first place!
People still buy movies?
Yep, this is the thing. I don’t buy DVDs anymore, and no rental market manipulation by the studios is going to change that. Different folks have different reasons (my reasons: I don’t have the room for any more keep cases, and frankly the user experience for DVD and Blu-ray pretty much sucks, with all the forced trailers and stupidly designed menus).
If I see your movie it’s going to be online. I will pay for it if you give me that option.
If a movie is like…one of my top 10 of all time, I might buy it. That’s a really limited list though, and about 1 movie every 4-5 years makes the cut.
I still do not understand how a “rental ban” works… do studios really have the power to say “You bought this, it’s yours, but you’re not allowed to do x with it”?
No; what they do is not sell to netflix/redbox at discount price.
They can go to wal-mart/k-mart and buy them but it would get a lot more costly and their business model would not work at their current rates.
Okay. That makes sense. Still won’t work like the movie companies want it to, but at least I’m not confused. Thanks.
Rental companies buy them at discounted bulk prices. The studios simply state they will not sell at these discounted rates until 28 days (or 56 days) after release on DVD.
If they wanted to pay retail for the all they copies they buy, I suppose they could do that. But that’ll blow their bottom line up.
And they can’t just do that for a few movies. If they did that for one, the studio would not sell them discounted copies of their other movies.
I thought the hole idea of the original 28 day delay was to discourage people from coping the movies they rent from Redbox/Netflix.
Could be part of it but DVD sales are down so they came up with the 28day wait to try and “fix” that. guess it did not work and their next genius idea is more waiting period.
It also means there won’t be any co-marketing activities with the studio until the rental window opens. I’m not sure it’s a big deal in the rental business, but every dollar helps.
I occasionally buy movies but I refuse to go to theaters and will not buy a movie I haven’t rented first. I’m sure I’m not the only person like that. By lengthening the time between DVD release and rental, they certainly delay that revenue and risk losing it completely because I might very well just forget about it. They won’t be able to drive rentals off the “own it today on blu-ray and DVD” advertising campaigns like they do now (unless they want to extend those campaigns another month), and like it or not rentals do drive some sales.
The definition of stupidity is to do the same thing but expect different results.
If I already waited 28 days to watch a movie, it doesn’t interest me that much and therefore don’t mind waiting another 28 days and I was never going to buy it to begin with. Just because you make me wait longer to rent it does not mean my desire to buy it will increase. In fact, just the opposite. Suppose I was allowed to rent it right away. I might find that I really liked the movie and would be willing to buy it. But now I will have to wait 28 or 56 days to know that.
This is pure stupidity. If your strategy didn’t work when you made rentals wait 28 days, what makes you think it will work when you double that? I’ve long been convinced that movie studios are run by dinosaurs who fail to realize the old ways of treating customers are extinct.
Finally, I have one big gripe that I must say when talking about movie studios. If I pay for a movie, I want to be able to watch the movie with a few seconds of me putting the disc in!!!!! No forced coming attractions! No forced “FBI warnings”! No forced “the opinions in this commentary”! Why can’t that be at the end of the movie in the credits? No forced long menus sequences! I just want to push play and begin!
I agree. I have rented a movie from Redbox.. decided I liked it and then went out and bought it. On the other hand I have rented movies that I would never buy because they were that bad.
I’m not sure they have any control over the FBI warning. But your comment is well met.
Actually, they do. If they didn’t, the warning would be on EVERY movie.
And f*** that, that warning should not be on a movie I bought.
Just rip everything you own to your computer. Instant access, no scratched discs and no commercials, just the movie.
Ditto. All this stretching to 56 days is doing is making me lose even more interest in their movies, PLUS now I’m pissed off at Warner Bros. So all thing being equal, I’ll pick a non-Warner Bros movie from now on.
Smart move, Warner Bros!
This may actually backfire because the more casual part of the market won’t get to rent stuff until after it has started to be discounted.
I am beginning to think the Movie Industry hates it’s customers as much as the RIAA.
WOW. Heads up their asses, heads up their asses. Must be a nice fantasy land they have there.
WB, handing people THE SHAFT once again.
When it comes to movies rentals…release date means nothing. If I really wanted to see the movie, I would have gone to the theater.
The longer rental release schedule just makes it more likely I’ll never see the movie as I will have forgotten about it.
We’ll only see this change if people stop seeing their movies in theaters, stop buying their movies and stop renting the movies when they are released. They only care about money and if you aren’t hurting their bottom line, they don’t give you a second thought.
Do the stars of films/shows get a percentage of the money that Netflix/Redbox/Blockbuster pays the studio for the rental copies or anything like that? You’d think that the stars would get upset that this was taking money away from them.
Id rather spend $15 on the dvd than spend $36 on 2 tickets and $15 on a pallet of popcorn and two drums of soda. I’ve always bought dvds and been a happy Columbia House customer for many years. I might be one of the few but I love REwatching my old movies. The best part is I dont have to return it and no commercials! I toss the boxes and file them alphabetically in paper sleeves so they fit in shoe boxes. With close to 2000 movies I always have something to watch.
Columbia House is no more. Sony BMG bought them and closed the Columbia House plant.
BMG bought them in 2005 and continues to run it with the same name. The Canadian branch went belly up last year.
I haven’t bought a movie in a while, but I can usually rewatch a movie endlessly. I mostly attribute it to my horrible memory. I’ve seen the movie “Johnny Dangerously” over 1,000 times and it still cracks me up every time.
Jeez, $18 movie tickets? Seriously?
Yeah, $18 is ridiculous. I’m not sure that’s not a made up number. In the DC area, where movie tickets are really high, we don’t pay more than $11.50 a ticket for regular showings. IMAX or 3D obviously cost more.
Friday/Saturday night prime time ticket $15 plus $3 for the glasses if its 3D. Megaplex is expensive. There is $1.99 theater across town but its nasty and your car is likely to get broken into in the parking lot if you go at night.
http://collider.com/ticket-price-hike-for-3d-movies-effective-tomorrow/20489/
Here is a good article talking about the ticket prices in Georgia. At the Regal Mall of Georgia movie tickets are $17.50. Sorry but I dont make a habit of making up things. Ticket prices are high all over the state.
Wait wait wait… does this article mean to imply that people purchase movies on DVD? Why the heck would anybody do that?
I have literally never purchased a movie on DVD.
Some people like to collect DVDs, some people like to rewatch their favorite TV shows and movies whenever they want. I know it’s cute to say things like “People still use the Post Office?” or “People still use checks?” on the Internet, but obviously they do and it’s dumb to pretend otherwise.
Yes, I buy DVDs, have said so many times on this site, and I’m tired of seeing the “people still buy this?” comments as well. Some people buy a lot of things that other people don’t. That’s how the world works.
I don’t do it often anymore, but I have plenty of movies (and TV series) on DVD. If a new movie were to come out that I absolutely adore, and I could get a good deal on it, I’d buy it now. That hasn’t happened since Serenity, though.
I don’t really do it with movies, but I know a lot of people who do.
I do it with TV series. A friend introduced me to True Blood last fall. I know, I know – totally late to that party. Once I realized I liked the show, I went on Amazon and ordered every previous season. Since then, I’ve loaned them to several fans, who are now also TB fans.
“Apparently, no longer content…” You need a comma after apparently.
No they don’t, that would be a comma splice.
A comma splice joins two independent clauses (your comment for example). “Apparently” is not an independent clause.
No, that would change the content of the statement.
Techdirt, a while back, wrote about how Warner actually has been saying the 28 day delay was successful. They take a stab at explaining how that may not be accurate. Perhaps the doubled delay will bring out problem with Warner’s logic.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101005/12213211291/warner-bros-claims-that-annoying-customers-with-28-day-rental-delay-is-working.shtml
Essentially by claiming your successful that means your successful. I guess good job…OBAMA…?
I don’t care if I have to wait. The movie will still be there for me to rent at some point. I am very patient, and will probably just forget about the movie and never rent it at all if it takes too long for them to release it. IS there actually a contingent of people who have so little self control and are so impulsive that they buy a movie because they just can’t wait a couple of months after the DVD release to see a movie? I understand buying a favorite movie, but buying it just because you have to see it the moment it is release seems weird to me.
If it’s that exciting that I can’t wait, I will splurge and go to the theater. But, that only happens once or twice a year. Harry Potter was my one splurge last year. Hunger Games will be my big one next year.
Well…28 days didn’t work guys, let’s try 56? No? How about 352?
Just make it a whole year (or, 2, 3 … n) for all I care, studios.
Why do people think that extending this time frame is going to make people more likely to pirate the movies? I’m sure there will be an uptick, yeah, but not what people are thinking. Example – dragonfire81 (the only comment I can see on the screen right now) may be computer savvy enough to know how to torrent a movie, so with this extension, dragonfire81 may torrent when s/he wouldn’t have otherwise.
My parents, on the other hand, don’t even know what a torrent is, and I’m pretty confident that the majority of the public are more similar to my parents than to dragonfire81 in that respect.
Because there are people who know how to torrent movies but don’t because they like supporting companies they like, or actors they like, or shows they like, etc. This could lead to those people doing it, and could lead to people who don’t know how learning to do so.
Point, squinko.
I like how your comment basically says, “Why do people think people will be more likely to pirate movies? I mean, I’m sure people will pirate more movies, but my parents won’t.”
Then I didn’t do a good job of communicating what I was thinking… what I’m saying is that yeah, people like us may pirate more movies, but we’re the exception to the rule. Kind of like those who are all irritated about Android phones coming with locked bootloaders – most of the public’s reaction to that would be “boot what?”
“Warner Bros. is reportedly on the verge of doubling that time frame in an effort to starve viewers into starting to buy movies again.”
You miswrote “in an effort to drive everyone to piracy”. It’s a common mistake, the keys are like right next to each other, but you might want to proofread your articles before publishing them.
Back in the days of VHS, you typically had to wait 6 months to a year to be able to purchase a movie – anything before that was strictly rental only. I wouldn’t be surprised if the opposite eventually becomes true for DVD and BR – sale only for 6 months followed by rentals.
My Netflix queue is 37 movies; if I’m lucky, I’ll watch 2 per week. I can probably add a new — theatrical — release to it today, and by the time that movie hits the top of the queue, it will have waited out the blackout period anyway.
Or, as others have said, I’ll just lose interest in seeing it anymore and take it off the queue by then.
I almost never buy movies, but if I do, I get it on Amazon instant play. That’s also how I rent movies.
If it’s not available there, I just don’t bother.
“Stretching the release windows, however, may well drive otherwise honest customers to piracy.”
Oh give me a break. No honest person will be “driven” to piracy because they can’t rent a disk in the timeframe they want. Impudent, indignent, not-so-honest people may try to claim that as some kind of justification…but it isn’t.
The studios own their content. They get to do what they want to with it…and if they want to release it for sale for 2 months before it’s available to rent, that’s their deal. You can always buy the disk and then resell it if you well and truly only want to watch it once. Or wait for it to show up on TV and watch it for free. DVR it. Or even wait for it on Netflix etc. and watch it for almost free.
Cue the waaaaaambulance.
I never understand how someone can say almost for free. People can be driven the piracy. For example, **wink** I **wink** may have gotten fed up with the ads, commercials, constant double dipping and decides screw these guys, screw the government, find a way around what they do. I was driven. Sorry if you’ve never been driven before to fight things besides what the government/corps tells you to fight.
I am glad millions of others did it. And yes people can be driven over the edge, if being denied early releases is the edge, for the simplest of reasons. So take your “Studios can do what they want, when they want stance and shove it.” Soon as corps and governments get tax breaks, and other well off institution and individuals get any sort special treatment, they owe people, because people directly.indirectly fit the bill.
As an egotistical self deluded man/woman once said, “Cue the waaaaambulance.”
……..
Please tell me this post was a joke. I laughed my ass off. I envisioned a skinny hippie, living in his mom’s basement, wearing a Che shirt and gallons of patchouli going on and on about corporations and justice etc before his mom yells at him to clean his room.
“As an egotistical self deluded man/woman once said,” –>Pot meet kettle.
“Soon as corps and governments get tax breaks, and other well off institution and individuals get any sort special treatment, they owe people, because people directly.indirectly fit the bill.”
—So….everybody owes everybody?
Yes….hahahahahaha….Is that what you want to hear? My moms basement is warm. Not sure what a silver spooned(spooning) individual like yourself wants to hear from a lowly basement, sorry mommy’s basement dweller can say.
When middle class and poor pay more taxes than the higher ups, something has to be done. It seems arbitrary but pirating is a step in the right direction, at least till SOPA passes or a form of it.
Wish I could continue to embarrass you non arguments(reread your paragraphs, no arguments), but my mom is calling me to clean my room.
You may indeed be causing embarrassment, but I suspect it’s mostly on your behalf.
I can’t tell if you are trying to suggest that this is a good move on WB’s part or not. Sure all of us honest and patient people will have no trouble waiting to watch the content in a legitimate way, or in my case forgetting about that content entirely until it shows up as a suggestion for me 3 years down the road. However, sticking your head in the sand and pretending that there is not a large amount of people who would prefer to buy their content legitimately but would opt for piracy purely out of frustration due to policies exactly like WB’s new one is simply being ignorant to the way things work in reality. I’m not condoning piracy in any way. This extension of an already misguided policy sure seems to be encouraging piracy more successfully than it accomplishes any of its actual intentions.
In summary; Stupid policy has obvious ramifications? Rectify by using identical misguided logic to turn stupid policy into stupid policy +1. Wait for obvious ramifications to become more prolific. Profit?
Warner Bros is desperate. I really don’t care about the rental ban. With the caliber of movies coming out lately, I can wait a year if I have to. Nothing has come out that makes me want to stand in line at the theater, or purchase an overpriced DVD/Blue-ray. Besides, all they are doing is pushing more and more people to torrents. I promise the first day ANY movie comes out on DVD, a high-quality torrent is available before the sun goes down.
Not only are the movies themselves of a lower quality but the product placements have gotten way out of hand. I have no problem with real brands being used in movies (whether or not the company in question paid for its inclusion) – what I do have a problem with is the growing trend of film scripts being written around the product placements rather than the other way around. “Young Adult” has to be one of the worst offenders I’ve seen in awhile, I counted over four dozen product placements – and that’s not including that sections of the movie were essentially full out commercials for Hampton Inn, Apple, and MiniCooper.
By comparison, Home Alone 2, my favorite holiday movie from 1992 has one product placement – American Airlines, and it was subtle. I don’t count the Plaza Hotel because they didn’t pay to be included in the movie, and face it, is the average movie goer going to be able to afford a stay at the Plaza?
Off to the pirate bay I go….
ditto
What is this piratesbey? Never hear…of…it…**wink**
Is it a place where I can walk the plank or something. It must be a resort where I can ENTERTAIN myself and not worry about the “man.” Sounds like paradise. Although I think the government should be called pirates since they are the anti Robin Hood. I am sure this piratesbey is a nice getaway.
I still buy physical media, but I never buy it in the new release window. I know most dvds will drop to around $5 new, and if I really enjoy the movie, I’d rather wait a year or longer for a “Mega Ultimate Super Special Edition Director’s Cut”. There’s plenty of media to consume, I am patient.
I’m starting to try to push myself to develop a similar philosophy with video games. I’m *trying* to wait until there’s a special bonus edition available (with DLC and bug fixes).
At this point though, even if something dropped to $5, I still would hesitate before buying it. I spot great deals on good “old” movies, and I still end up not buying. I’ve gotten to the point where if I can’t get it on netflix, I’ll only buy it if I know, without a doubt, that I could watch it every day for a month and not get sick of it.
Most of the DVDs that I still own fall into that category, where I could–and HAVE–watched them far too many times.
I think somebody should start a boycott of content providers that do this. I am fine with them doing with their content what they want, but I also believe in the power of the customer. If more people are aware of the situation and agree not to buy anything these companies do until they become more reasonable, it might make them shift gears.
So 1 person will but the DVD and post it online. Then a million people can download it, watch it, and delete it. I’m not saying it is right but this is a horrible business model. A better business model would be to charge more to rent new releases.
In addition to the many unveiled references to pushing customers to piracy, extending the period before movies are available for rental increases advertising budgets for the movie as the rentals will come two months after the DVD release.
It seems it’s a TORRENT-tial, downpour of unending bad moves by the entertainment industry. It’s a MEGAUPLOAD of bad new towards consumers this past week. It’s a RAPIDSHARE-ing of terrible, anti rent sentiment in the industry. Wish the TORRENT of bad new would stop, and we could all do something about it.
I love everyone’s rationale….”The studios are stupid because now I will go pirate it because they are screwing me”
It’s their content…they can do what they want. And for some reason, people don’t realize that it is breaking the law to do what you all propose. Like you are the victim or something..because you can’t get your “fix” on movies. Read a book.
The real problem is what they charge for a movie in the theater. They are losing money on movies lately because nobody wants to go to the theater and pay 13 dollars for a movie and actors, for some reason need to be paid 5 million a flick. Then the guys on top also need a few hundred thousand per picture. If you want the problem to stop….boycott all movies for a long period…force them to charge less for their movies and pay the people involved less.
Seriously, why do thy get paid more than teachers? People bitch that their taxes are too high and that teachers make too much money; but are more than willing to drop 13 bucks on a move then go buy the DVD for 15 bucks….priced that way so actors can get paid way too much money.
It’s senseless.
Taxbreaks give me the right to bitch. Wow!
The rental market is returning to the 80′s mindset when it used to take forever for a movie to release on VHS, and then it was really expensive to buy.
There really hasn’t been a movie in recent years that I had to see in the theater or the instant it came out on DVD. The biggest problem studios are facing is the fracturing of Social Identity and how people fit themselves into their social group. Twenty years ago, if you didn’t see the latest and greatest movie to come out, you were a social pariah, now there are so many other ways to connect that missing the latest movie is kind of a non event now, and as I mentioned before, the quality of movies has dropped. There is so much focus on making movies for that “perfect” demographic, that they are missing the mark. That’s partly why I’ve started to finding that independent movies have better entertainment value than most of the “Major Motion Pictures” that come out. I kind of feel sorry for the studios, because they haven’t realized that the past decade has completely changed how they need to run their business…they will catch up eventually, but not before they face some losses I afraid. A move like this just further shows that they still don’t quite get it.
I usually “save” a movie to my Netflix queue when they start running previews for it. That’s before it even hits theaters, it shows up when it shows up. I watched Hangover II last night and it had at least 5 ads where neither menu or skip worked, only fast-forward. So long as studios keep putting out discs like that, I won’t buy them. I don’t care how long I have to wait.
I agree. I got fed up with the 5 minutes of UN-skippable ads that for some reason come with every movie purchase.
We should all send Warner Brothers a letter: “Dear WB, thanks for ensuring that by the time your movie gets to stores, I will have forgotten about it entirely and just won’t care. Or I’ll just pirate the damn thing the day it leaves theaters. Either way, you suck rocks. Love, the internet.”
WB is one of the orgs trying to shove SOPA (essentially internet censorship handed down by ‘copyright holders’ against what *they* consider to be “infringing sites.”) down our throats.
I looked at the list of WB movies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Warner_Bros._films) and I can honestly say that I have only seen 3 of the movies on the list for the past two years. Two of which I saw in the theaters and have or will purchased on Blu-Ray (Harry Potter). The other I waited until it was in the Redbox and even waited a while after it appeared in Redbox because it was not in when I checked and did not feel like driving another block to the next closest one.
Most of the other movies on the list I probably will never watch unless I am really bored and it is on Netflix streaming.
OH NOSE!!! How will I ever live!?!? I have to wait longer to rent a movie. Bah, who cares anymore? I only go to see a few movies a year in the theater, I refuse to buy a movie on DVD that I might watch twice. Which leads me to renting, so what if I have to wait a few days more to watch something from a rental place. It seams to me that all companies have no clue as to what the world is like and wish to live in their own bubble. Screw them I’ll find my entertainment elsewhere.
Hey, don’t extend the window too far and send your company into oblivion. If it’s too long, we’ll forget about your movies entirely and you’ll lose out on most of the after-market gains.
I don’t even have to wait for the movie to hit the retail shelf – most 1080p bluray rips are available a week before the movie drops, sometimes sooner.
Movie studos are delusional.
HA! I’m patient enough to wait for their shitty movies to be released on DVD so I don’t have to pay a premium to watch them in the theaters…I can wait another month to rent it.
Yo ho, Yo ho a pirate’s life for me…..
DVD sales have only been a significant source of revenue for the movie studios for about 10 years. Now that sales are waning, it’s like they’ve forgotten how they ever made money before DVDs existed. And they’re so focused on keeping that revenue from DVD sales that they’re not thinking seriously about what comes next.
So what? There’s not one movie I absolutely have to see right now, and I’m not going to a theater with a bunch of people who act worse than farm animals in a barn. Another couple of weeks isn’t a big deal.
I waited to watch “The Help” – just got it on Netflix this week – and while it was a good movie, I can’t imagine sitting through it at a theater as it was over 2 hours long. I want to see “Contagian” too, and when it comes in the mail, it comes in the mail…I’m not stressing over it.
The studios are still operating under the assumption their films are “Gone With The Wind” quality. So sad.