To ensure that legal movie downloads pose little or no threat to retail DVDs, the prices have been set similar, or in many cases, higher. For example, classic movies would be priced around $13.99 (some will go for $9.99). Newer movies will sell for around the same price as retail DVDs. King Kong will be sold for $19.99 as a download while Amazon offers the retail DVD for $14.99. The pricing is not the only problem however.
The movies are protected by Microsoft's Windows Media DRM software. They will not be compatible with iPods or PSPs and consumers will also "not" be able to create a DVD-Video from these files to play back in a regular DVD player. Additionally, most downloads will not feature any additional "extras" like retail DVDs to. With all these facts in mind, it is hard to see the benefit of actually using either of these services.
A reason for the high pricing could be the studios attempting to avoid a price war that the music industry is currently facing with Apple. Overall, one could also speculate that the movie industry is answering criticism that it offers no real legal alternative to "Internet pirates" that the MPAA files lawsuits against. If you pirate a movie, you can either burn it directly as a DVD-Video, or you may have to encode it to create a DVD-Video. Neither of these services offer this possibility so how can they be expected to stop people from downloading illegally?
The movie industry needs to learn that on the Internet, full length movie downloads have been available for years. Consumers have become accustomed to certain things, such as the ability to encode their downloads to another format. Also, since downloading illegally is usually free of charge, setting retail DVD-like prices isn't going to turn people against piracy. It's fair to say that many consumers would be willing to turn to a service that offers the same abilities and qualities that pirating offers but at a low cost.
The movie studios however are not willing to sell content to consumers for low prices, even if they are digital downloads and not sales of physical products. Instead the idea is to target BitTorrent sites and file lawsuits against sharers in an attempt to stamp out piracy and gain control over movie distribution online. That tactic will likely never work. The movie studios need to learn to adapt to this "environment" and then offer something more consumer-friendly with costs that will compete with piracy. Of course, you can never beat free, but many Internet pirates cite ridiculous DVD prices for their actions - get the hint.
Source:
Ars technica
Written by: James Delahunty @ 3 Apr 2006 15:32
