Unfortunately it’s not full movies yet, just screeners for the Industry. Fox is planning not to send out DVD’s anymore to people (like us) who receive pre-release copies of movies for review anymore because they blame us for copying them and placing them on the Internet for others to download.
The story is from Cinematical. Quite frankly I think it’s about time. So here I am reviewing small independent movies and the Directors are cutting copies and sending them to me. Now I think that’s fantastic that I’m getting free movies and the chance to review them for loads of people, but what about the cost and hassle to the smaller movie makers? Surely it would be easier if they could distribute them on the Internet? Well yes it would be, but let’s face it, it’s only going to be the big distribution Studio’s that are going to be able to afford the costs of the distribution system on the Internet. The small independents, who should be using the Net, won’t be able to afford anything other than standard file sharing.
Anyway, overall it’s a good thing, it’ll save them costs anyway and hopefully that will be reflected to us cinema goers…not a chance…still, I think it’s a good step in the direction of Internet distribution full stop.
There’s a downside to this though, think of the reviewer who might be watching your movie to review it at home on a nice Home Cinema system with digital sound and a big screen. Now they’re going to be reduced to a small monitor, showing differing degrees of picture qualities, and possibly nothing better than free stereo speakers provided with the PC…for me that means I’m reviewing a hugely inferior quality product to a DVD screener.
Back to the piracy arguement…this is surely making it easier for people to distribute? Download straight to your PC and straight into your fileshare directory (if you were to do such things)…Yeah, lot easier!
