More Distro Chaos

Presented with the option of buying a film on disc or just renting it, it practically goes without saying that springing to purchase a a film sight unseen must happen far less regularly than just plumping for a hire. This situation will also be exacerbated by Netflix-style postal services and VOD. It isn’t any wonder, then, that the studios are considering a plan that would give sell-through discs a window of their own, a protected chance to tempt consumers into a more profitable course of consumerism. I’ve read a report from The LA Times (found courtesy of Screen Rant) in which Netflix CEO Reed Hastings is quoted as having made the following claim during a conference call: "The studios are wrestling with declines in DVD sales while the DVD rental market has been modestly growing. One of the mitigating steps some are considering is introducing a DVD retail sales-only window for a few weeks."

Already, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. have pulled their discs and gone to court with Redbox, the $1-a-night robo-kiosk people. The studios argue that Redbox are devaluing the product at that price, and they may have a point. As a collectormaniac consumer, I’d love to see the prices on both rental and retail discs continue to drop (and drop and drop) but as a film lover, I’d hate for this to create a climate of fear that sees the studios less willing to invest in risky (read: not utterly banal) films.

Dare I dream of a future world in which the studios have become extinct and the film culture is no longer shackled to profit and investment but the labour-of-love work of people settling for reasonable wages and looking to express themselves? Imagine a world where a film director earns, say, $90,000 for a year’s work and an actor bags $45,000 for a four week stint on set. It’s bizarro economics, and might sound more like a burger joint than the supposed dream factory of Hollywood but it is films getting made, and I’m sure just as many of them would be good. Can we even fantasise the film industry as existing in a completely different strata of the economy? And if not, why not?

Back to the rental question. Hastings has identified a silver lining to the proposed rental delay, and related it in the same call: "If we can agree on low-enough pricing, delayed rental could potentially increase profits for everyone."

And for the consumer? A greater tendency to borrow discs from friends maybe and perhaps even a huge rise in piracy. Time will tell. - Brendon Connelly

Taking away from the experience to make money... UGH!

Fox To Remove Special Features From Rental DVDs
Posted on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 7:26 am by: David Chen
File this in your the “Yet another way Fox has found to inspire geek hate” folder: According to a report by VideoBusiness (Via CNet), 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is going to start stripping rental DVDs SKUs of special features like commentaries and featurettes, in a horrendously misguided attempt to spur retail DVD sales. Retail copies available for purchase will retain all the special features. This policy will begin on March 31st, when DVD releases like Marley & Me, and Slumdog Millionaire will be subject to the features removal. Other Fox films such as The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Wrestler, and Notorious, will soon face the same fate.

It seems nobody is happy about this situation, including video store workers. According to one video store buyer in the VB article: "Can you imagine explaining this to all of your customers? People will think when they rent, it should have everything on it. And why shouldn’t it? This is just silly, and consumers aren’t going to be happy."

The move raises a number of issues. For example, how will the used DVD market be affected? More significantly, how will the policy affect Netflix, which typically allows you to rent special features discs (or discs with special features already on them)? Will Fox prevent Netflix from receiving the retail copies?

Since the First Sale Doctrine allows any copies purchased allows any retailer to rent a legally purchased copy of a movie, we may still see retail copies on video rental store shelves. Video Buyer’s Group president Ted Engen remarked: "There’s no question that some rentailers will go and buy from Wal-Mart and rent out the copies, and you can’t stop that. But it’s not going to be that big of an issue as people think. The main thing is that studios have to add value to get customers to buy, and they aren’t buying. Numbers have been falling through the floor."

I can understand Fox’s desire to stop the bleeding , but you don’t do that by taking value away from already-existing products and annoying your customers. Maybe instead, they should focus on creating discs with special features that will make them worth owning. In fact, I heard a rival studio is already doing some cool stuff with special features and tie-ins involving a small Zack Snyder film that was released last week…