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Looks like Redbox has told Warner Bros to take a hike with its effort to double the waiting period for new rental DVDs to 56 days. When the contract to acquire discs directly from Warner Bros expires today Redbox will “work to provide Warner Brothers’ movies through alternative means,” says Gary Cohen, SVP for marketing and customer experience. He adds that Redbox “maintains direct working relationships with every other major studio.” Disney, Paramount, and Sony provide new DVDs to Redbox the day they’re released; Universal and Fox require the kiosk company to wait 28 days. Redbox is taking a big risk by choosing to buy Warner Bros discs from outside sources: That could be more costly. What’s more, the company may not be able to buy enough copies of hit films to satisfy its customers — especially if Warner Bros can persuade retailers to cap the number of the studio’s discs they’ll sell to a single customer. (Earlier this morning Walmart agreed to continue housing Redbox kiosks to early 2015.) But Warner Bros also is taking a gamble: There’s nothing to stop Redbox from flooding the market with used Warner Bros DVDs a few weeks after they’re released, when rental demand for the titles lets up. Still, Warner Bros wants to increase the delay before providing discs to low-cost rental companies because it believes that will help to boost sales. That’s become an important initiative for Warner: It’s also leading the pack in offering discs under the entertainment industry’s Ultraviolet campaign which makes it possible for buyers to also stream movies to digital devices. Earlier this month Netflix agreed to the 56-day delay. Studios fear that their profits will take a hit as cash-strapped consumers increasingly rent discs from low cost services; Redbox charges $1.20 a night. Rental spending exceeded sell-through last year — the first time that has happened since 1998 — Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne says in a report this morning. But Susquehanna Financial Group’s Vasily Karasyov says today that “declining DVD sales have no impact on major studios’ profitability” because discs are expensive to produce and market.
Redbox Vows To Acquire Warner Bros DVDs “Through Alternative Means”
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These wait times are forcing me to spend my entertainment dollars on alternate forms.
This won’t work…I’m not going to pay $20 just to see a movie a few days earlier…I’ll just pirate it. The entertainment industry thinks they can force people to buy their garbage. They can’t. Even if pirating was impossible, I would never pay their idiotic prices for a movie I only care to see once. I fail to see how $20-30 is a worthwhile investment for something you spend 2 hours doing…
I agree completely. We just had a heated piracy debate a couple of weeks ago. Redbox and Netflix are the best ways of fighting piracy because they’re easy and cheap for the consumers and studios still go out of their way to make it difficult to watch their movies legally.
“Gimme gimme gimme, need some more. Gimme gimme gimme, don’t ask what for.” – Black Flag
James, no one is “forcing” you to buy anything. Grow up and move on from this disgusting case of entitlement you seem to have. You don’t have the *right* to anything here, and the high cost of something is not justification for you stealing it. If you don’t want to pay for it, don’t watch it, which is the best way to send the message that the price is too high. Regardless, the entertainment industry doesn’t owe you shit.
I think you missed James’ point. Someone might be inclined to rent a film but they don’t want to spend an arm and a leg for it so they want to be able to rent it cheap. The studios should know that delaying the release of their films means that people will become distracted with other things in the meanwhile and move on. But they appear to think that doesn’t matter.
The bottom line is (and James’ point) that it’s better to spend a couple of bucks on something that may or may not be good because it’s a couple of bucks. Forcing us to spend $20.00 because that’s the only way to view the content forces us to move on to other things or other means.
It’s easy to say that if you don’t like it, don’t buy it. But how can you know that before you even go in? And likewise, studios don’t want people to adopt a don’t buy it mentality. They want your money.
So tell me, what would be a better alternative?
This is where the value of brick and mortar stores comes in. You can rent at Blockbuster the day it comes out. Everybody likes to snark about how antiquated brick & mortar stores are dead (they almost gleefully celebrate it for some insane reason), but it’s a perfectly valid alternative.
Have you ever wondered what the basic difference is between Red Box and brick and morter?
Answer: None.
One just offers a different method of distribution. You still have to drive to the machine and pay money to rent the film, and you still have to return or face late fees, so why is the industry treating one different than the other?
No, James’ point is perfectly clear. He feels he’s entitled to entertainment at a certain cost and if it’s too high he feels entitled to steal it. All the arguing over whether it’s *really* stealing or not is ridiculous. It’s against the law, and for good reason. Sorry if those of us who depend on the entertainment industry for our livelihoods have a problem with James’ mentality, but I guarantee you if he was on the other side of this issue he’d feel quite differently.
You comment illustrates that vast disconnect between the industry and the real world. The market determines the price, and the market is telling the industry that it is less willing to pay the price that the industry sets. Its no different than any other industry.
From a marketing prospective, this is as dumb as the Netflix debacle from last year, and what’s more, I think you know that. Making people who don’t wish to purchase a product wait months later to rent it causes them to move onto other things in the meanwhile. Anyone knows that you need to strike while the iron is hot. How much money does the studio lose in the meantime?
Frankly, if you really do depend on the entertainment industry for a living, you should be mad as hell at WB for making such a bone headed move.
OMG-thats ILLEGAL! But practical, and realistic!
You know, James, the prices on the new Mercedes also seem really high. Why don’t you just take one and leave what you think it’s worth.
That analogy would make sense if those cars were mass marketed and produced. When Wal-Mart starts selling Mercedes in bulk then you may have a point. But the reality is that they are a niche market.
So by your logic it would then be okay to steal… Honda Civics?
Sorry, but Flick’s original analogy is solid.
Only if Honda Civics were sold for 20 bucks a pop at the big box stores. Last I checked, brand new never owned (as these so called films would be) Honda Civics run upwards to $25,000. How many people living on a budget are going to drop that kind of money on a brand new car? You can’t even finance it at a reasonable rate.
Nice try though, but if you want to make a snarky comment, you would be better served to actually think a bit. Failure to do so only makes you look like the stupid one.
If you steal a Honda Civic, its previous owner is now deprived of having a Honda Civic.
If you make a COPY of a movie (or a song, or whatever) the previous owner STILL HAS the movie (song/etc). No one is deprived of anything
Copyright infringement is not theft. If I download a movie without paying for it, I am not depriving the owners of the movie the use of their property.
Stealing a car is theft. If I steal a car I am depriving the owner of the car the use of their property.
You know, another reason this analogy doesn’t work is that cars are not copies of each other. Each car is made individually all with different parts. If the entertainment industry physically made each specific copy of their film that they sell, then the analogy makes sense.
But that can’t happen. And, frankly if we could develop a way to copy something like a car as easy as a film, people would do it in the same numbers you see pirating.
So no matter how you slice it, the analogy doesn’t work.
Movie piracy is no different than shoplifting from a store. Those who do it are thieves, plain and simple.
I KNOW, RIGHT? I mean, TWENTY DOLLARS for 2 HOURS! That is CRAZY!
… James, if you don’t have $20, you shouldn’t tell everyone. Incidentally, courtside Lakers tickets cost – gasp – more than $1000 most nights.
It’s really not that dramatic that a movie ticket costs $10, or a DVD twice that. A freakin’ Pizza Hut pizza will run you $10. If you don’t have it, that’s tough.
Stuff costs money. Quitcher bitchin’.
Yeah, you know it’s a good thing this sort of thing didn’t happen to the music industry. I enjoy buying complete albums for $20.00 a pop and only getting one or two songs that I wanted.
You know, if the industry would embrace this, they could form a service much like the ones in operation (i.e. iTunes) that will give people only what they want for a limited budget. I agree in principle on the pirating, but if you take away the valid reasons people do it, than what would they boast about?
The simple fact: If somone is not buying the DVD in the first week of release, they won’t buy until it drops around Thanksgiving week.
Warner, if you want to sell more Blu-rays drop your price $10-$15! Then I might buy some.
Warner puts out shit… who cares?
ultraviolet is horrible. it doesnt work well and is not going to catch on guaranteed. forcing users to register for something so that they can access their movies isnt going to work. theyre just asking for people to illegal downloads so they can get a good digital copy. take a look at the reviews on amazon for the last harry potter movie…all the negative reviews center not on the movie itself but ultraviolet.
No surprises: if Redbox had accepted the delay, it would have set a precedent for the other studios…
Strange decision from Warner.
The precedent was already set when Netflix stupidly accepted the delay.
Like others have said, no amount of “wait time” will push consumers into paying 20-30$ for something they can just wait a bit longer to watch for pennies on the dollar. Not many people these days remember, but it used to take years to see movie releases for rental/purchase, now if its not within 3 months the window for studios to continue to earn money off the film closes. Stop trying to make your money off the sales, and start teaming up with Netflix, Redbox, and Blockbuster to earn money from rentals instead.
They just don’t get it. Let me buy it or watch it how I want to. I would have bought Hangover II on iTunes if I could have in HD. Instead it’s only for sale in SD or through Ultraviolet. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Way to go Warner, pay attention to what happened in the music business.
Yeah — this is a short-sighted strategy that’s going to blow up in their faces.
Maybe the government should shutdown WB. The way I see it, they just did more to promote piracy of their movies than any website ever has.
let me guess…this was a Mindy Herman ‘big’ idea….anyone who would hire that woman to run their company is an idiot (just google the LA Times article written by Sally Hoffmeister) about her tenure at E!..drunken fist fights and stealing from the on air talent..
Greed goes both ways. It is this sense of entitlement that causes people to threaten piracy. They are essentially saying, “I demand that you let me see this movie that you put all that work and money into making, in the release window of my choosing, at the price of my choosing for $1.20, or else I will steal it from the Internet.”
Look, you don’t have to buy it for $20. Nobody puts a gun to your head. But please give it a chance to sell for the people who are willing to pay. Even if a small percentage of people keep collecting movies, that puts more money into greenlighting movies. It means that more films have a chance of being made, and that entertainment jobs remain robust, and we have the opportunity to do what we love to do. The sale of DVDs and Blu-ray discs is still the single largest percentage of revenue to a film. I don’t like waiting 56 days either, and you can speak with your wallets and maybe the studios will listen. But don’t threaten to steal something just because you feel entitled to pay just a dollar.
I should clarify that most people won’t switch from rental to purchase, just because of the window. But there’s no denying: the easy availability of cheap rentals has cut down on purchases by a lot. And every sale you lose, it would take 20 rentals to make up for it. So you save the ones you can, and it makes a big difference.
Rigging the system to (maybe) squeeze out a few dollars has nothing to do with greenlighting the making of movies. It’a a desperate move by the keepers of a broken, obsolete distribution model.
The sooner we all move into the future, the better. And more avenues for more viewing can mean way more content, and not just for the 18-35 year old dimwitted male.
Industries based on mega hits are SO last century. See the music industry for details.
1) Retailers already limit the number of new titles they sell to 5 per customer. They also put out signs that say “No dealers.” This has been going on for more than a year, since the last time Redbox had to dance around the studios trying to cut them off. The author of the article writes like these are new issues. They aren’t.
2)Redbox cannot just flood the market with used DVDs. Most of their revenue-sharing agreements explicitly require them to return or destroy their rental copies, so they are contractually forbidden from selling them used. Or is the author talking about the future copies Redbox will buy from stores to stock its kiosks — copies for which Warner will have already made money from the initial sale.
Man the arrogance of people who work in the industry busting the balls of people who want to pay less is pathetic.
I don’t pirate but it’s because if the arrogance that’s portrayed in this thread that I’ve brought down what I spend on media by about 4/5ths over the last few years.
I used to buy a lot of content but I’m not supporting the condescending brats in this thread anymore.
I applaud Redbox for this decision. As part of not dealing directly with Warner if I were them I also wouldn’t advertise any of their movies on my website or kisok screen.
Sure have the movie there to order if you’re going through the menus but there’s no reason they need to give free advertising to WB products. Plenty of other studios whose movie posters you can slap on the screen.