A couple of interesting stories have popped up over the last few days that imply that Studios are beginning to test the water on allowing the public to download movies. One of them is Warner Brothers themselves.
According to Hollywood Reporter through Kung Fu Cult Cinema, Warner Brothers in Holland is allowing downloads of movies through the local Internet provider @Home. Customers of the ISP can download movies for between 6 and 12 Euros. (At today’s exchange rate that’s 4-8 GBP, 7-14 USD). The films are then available for viewing and are copy protected.
Ruud Lamers, director of Warner Home Video Benelux, said Wednesday that the move was an important step in fighting piracy. For Warner, legal digital distribution of our product is vital for the future of our company. It could create a new business, he said.
Well yes it could, but at least you’ve tried to be honest. It’s new business, not to combat piracy. If you’re letting me download a movie to my computer rather than forcing me to watch it in the cinema or on a copy protected DVD, it’ll be much easier for me to hack the software copyrighting it than the current options. So get real, it’s not for piracy, it’s for more business.
Initially they’re looking at offering fifty titles (including the Harry Potter films), but having teamed up with another company they’re offering over 6,000 titles. Looks like the trial is running through January, so all you Dutch people go get signed up and tell us what it’s like!
Meanwhile, Hong Kong company M@TV are running a download service according to Asia Media through Kung Fu Cult Cinema:
M@TV, operated by Mei Ah Entertainment Group, has a library of more than 1,000 movies. The online store is currently on trial, at www.hongkongmovie.com, with 30 movies available. Downloading a film costs $5, which allows unlimited viewing for three days. Image quality will range between VCD and DVD…
…To download a movie, users have to register with the website, and download video-viewing software developed by Mei Ah. The files will be locked, preventing them from being burned on CD or DVD, or forwarded to other computer users.
We’ve already written about the shopping giant Tesco offering movie downloads, yet they’ve not offered the service yet. You’ve already said how you feel about downloading movies.
Looks like the revolution has started, although on a very small scale. I wonder how long this will take to hit mainstream? It’ll be interesting to hear the results, so if you’ve experienced either of these services, or are going to, please let us know how they fair.
For the rest of us we’ll have to wait and see when we can get a service, or even join the Hong Kong site! What do you think, is this a positive move, a decline in Cinema, or just another revenue slot?
For the layman it’s easier to download a piece of software to copy a WMV than it is to rip the media off a physically protected disc.
The future players will indeed try and contact back, but more effectively they have the new key system which looks amazingly hard to crack.
I do think the de-regionalising of DVD’s will help loads, then the consumer gets much more choice and someone feels they might not need to try and get hold of a pirated movie from another region that may never be released here.
Regardless, this is not going to solve the Studio’s self-perceived pirate problem. Cutting of stars salaries, using smaller stars, dropping budgets of movies and advertising budgets are all ways to do it. That and offer the customer the choices they want!
Well the discs are just holding media, so cracking the encryption really is not about the medium it√¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s on. It may even be easier to defend a legal download than a disc, by making the downloaded movie file “Call Home” for a licence before it will play. Readily available software will remove the copy protection and region encoding from a DVD with ease (I won’t name any of said software here though).
I am not sure I agree with copy protection on movies though, if I pay for something I should be able to store it on my hardrive if I wish, its like telling people they can’t rip their CD’s to MP3 and their for play them on their iPOD’s etc.
I think de-regionalisation would help and I also think the US should start defending other people’s copyright laws before crying about their own products being pirated. i.e.
“The Berne Act” clearly states: films unreleased in the United States, including original version of films altered and or edited for release in the United States, are not protected by American copyright; thus, they are considered public domain.
BITH – It’s far easier for the layman to copy a video on your hard drive than a DVD.
As a layman it’s way easier for me to download some crack software and just drag and drop the video onto another device. Whereas it’s a bit harder for me to copy a DVD, sure it can be done, but it’s easier on software.
What you’re saying though is that de-regionalisation would be the real answer?
LOL Richard copy protected DVD means nothing, the web is full of rips from “copy protected DVD’s”; I pay for movies because I don’t like stealing (My personal choice, not to put others down for theirs). I can see why the Asian movie market would want to go for this; they are getting hammered by the western bittorent sites, partly the fault of the DVD companies in the west taking far too long to release the Asian product. People read about a new Asian movie on the net say from Twitch, Kung fu cult cinema etc. and want it now, not 2 years later when a western DVD company finally gets round to releasing it.