
How Hollywood plans to keep prices up as movies go online - AndrewWarner
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/12/hollywoods-plan-to-keep-prices-high-as-movies-go-digitaland-why-it-just-might-work.ars
======
joubert
I have Netflix. For movies that are available on BluRay, I love getting the
disc, but for the rest I use Netflix' PS3 streaming service.

I probably watch on average one movie a day.

~~~
loganfrederick
You have the time to watch a full length movie every day?

------
praptak
For me the biggest part of the price of watching a movie is my time. There
isn't much room for additional physical dollars that I'm willing to put into
the experience. I cannot even remember the last time a movie was worthy of (my
time + ticket/rental price.)

~~~
DannoHung
Gosh, you must be a rather depressing person to be around. I'm imagining a
friend telling you about a funny anecdote and then you interrupt them by
giving a stern look and pointing to your wristwatch.

~~~
thwarted
I guess you're also imagining him having paid his friend $8-$12 before his
friend started telling the anecdote?

------
Periodic
The whole rental business reminds me of some conversations I've had with
friends trying to explain how the first-sale doctrine
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine>) increases the value of
the books, movies, and games that they buy, and for that reason the digital
versions which cannot be transferred should be sold cheaper, where they argue
that since the experience is roughly the same the cost should be.

Basically, since you have the right to resell a book, DVD or CD that you buy
to the used store, a friend, or a yard sale, that copy is worth more. That
value is included in the retail price. Would you be willing to pay as much for
a car if you could _never_ resell it not matter how good the condition was?

As an example, take that movie you only end up watching once, the DVD and the
digital download cost $20. If you get the digital download you would watch it
once and that would be it, it would sit on your hard drive until you deleted
it and then just be a database record on some server somewhere. If you bought
a physical copy, you could sell that copy, say for 50%, to a friend who was
thinking about buying it, or to at a flea market or the like. The net result
is that the digital copy costs $20 and the physical copy costs $10. Which is
the better deal? Sounds to me like the digital copy should only cost $10.

Of course, most people don't resell their movies, games or books and end up
with selves storing a bunch of items they don't need and don't plan to use
again. But that's another rant.

------
njharman
They've missed the boat, by several years.

All (new)movies are online at a price of zero (not counting risk of being
convicted for copyright infringement).

Legally, more movies are online at a cost of greencine or netflix account.
There's also Hulu and the like.

------
vaksel
The movie industry should just get together, and create a content streaming
box like Netflix.

Then on movie release date, you'd get a popup, that so and so movie came out,
gives you a 3 minute preview, then prompts you to watch it for $39.99

Movie industry doesn't have to pay a dime to theaters, people don't have to
pay the money for overpriced popcorn, and everyone wins.

\+ there is the incentive for people to buy the movie to be able to talk about
it at the water cooler on Monday. Could make it a cultural thing, make it the
thing to do, to watch the movie on release weekend.

And for piracy, there is no reason to do it, since you are offering much
higher quality offering, and are making it easy for people to watch your
movie.

~~~
CrazedGeek
$40? That's... way, way, WAY out of the range most people would pay to watch a
movie as individuals. You would have to assume at least five people watching a
movie in front of the same TV before you get any relative benefit whatsoever
from the purchase.

~~~
vaksel
find how about $19.99? And on top of the movie you get all that extra stuff
they add to DVDs?

~~~
mattmaroon
Where do you live? I didn't know there was a place where a DVD rental costs
$20. Market rates now are about $1 for Redbox or a video store, up to $5 from
your cable company on demand.

~~~
ojbyrne
People do pay more to see a movie in some cases though. Either they pay $20 to
see it in a theater (including overpriced popcorn and soda), or they purchase
the dvd.

~~~
steveklabnik
People don't think of it as "I paid $20 to see it in the theatre," though. I
know that everyone I talk to says, "Let's go to $5 movie night," even though
with popcorn and drink it's more like $12.

~~~
mattmaroon
Also we're not talking about theaters here, which are a value added service.
We're talking about watching at home.

~~~
ojbyrne
To some people (those with expensive home theatre setups) theaters are often a
value-subtracted service.

