Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Monday, Apr 10, 2006
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Monday, Apr 10, 2006 |
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Internet Variety - Cinema Marketing - Online Marketing Just download Vipin V Nair
ONLINE movie downloads come at a price, given their convenience.
Hollywood's cautious move towards the Internet gained some fillip in the last week. A number of major studios have decided to sell movies online on the same day of their DVD release. Now movie buffs in the US have two options to (legally) own films such as King Kong and Brokeback Mountain: Either get the DVD or simply download them onto their computer. So far studios have been offering movie downloads through rentals, which would last for a day in users' computers. Also, movies were available for downloads only after a month or so since the DVDs reached video stores, which significantly dampened the attraction to rent them online. On the other hand, illegal movie downloads kept flourishing on the Net. Six studios — Warner Bros, Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox and MGM — have tied up with Movielink, a movie download rental service. Sony and Lionsgate will sell their films through CinemaNow, another site. No doubt, Internet-savvy film fans will find this new service a great convenience as broadband connections make downloads faster. Instead of stalking up DVDs, now they can keep their favourite film collection in their computer. However, such conveniences come at a price. You will have to shell out much more to download and own the film than buying it on a DVD. Movielink, for instance, will sell movies for $20 to $30, when you can buy the DVD for $15 or even less from stores such as Wal-Mart. (Classic films are available for $10 to $17). For that price, you can keep the movie on the company or transfer it to up to two computers. CinemaNow will sell films for $9.95 to $19.95, and they will be playable on only onecomputer. And even though you can burn the movie into a DVD, you can watch it only on a PC; it won't be compatible with your DVD player. Studios have put such restrictions and the higher prices because they don't want the existing offline business to suffer and upset retailers. DVD sales, estimated to account for 46 per cent or more than double the box office collections, are one of the most important sources of revenue for Hollywood. Obviously, nobody wants to tinker with such a huge revenue stream. What remains to be seen is whether users will be immediately inclined to buy films online with such conditions attached. Even if these services take off slowly, it is crystal clear that this is the way forward. When more service providers start selling films online - there are expectations that Wal-Mart and Amazon would launch their own movie download services - that would give a momentum to online movie sales. And remember what Bill Gates said? There won't be any DVD in a decade.
Picture by S. Siva Saravanan
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