“The way iTunes changed music, Warner Brothers wants to change movies,” Julia Boorstin reports for CNBC. “Today the studio gave me an exclusive look at an entertainment app it’s been working on for years – the ultimate destination for people to buy *all* digital movies, not just Warner Brothers’. It’s an app code-named ‘Digital Everywhere,’ and it’s set to launch this summer.”
“‘Digital Everywhere’ isn’t a retailer like iTunes, but rather it gathers all the various ways movies can be bought or rented,” Boorstin reports. “It also organizes an individual’s entire library of digital movies and TV shows – not just Warner brothers. And it will consumers to access their library from any internet-connected device – a TV, laptop, iPad or smartphone – through a cloud authentication system, called UltraViolet, that will be released this summer from a studio consortium.”
Boorstin reports, “Warner Brothers goal is to push consumers to buy instead of rent. The studio’s looking to change the proposition of ownership, making owning a digital file more valuable than it is now, when it’s stuck on the device where you bought it, and more valuable than owning a DVD, since you don’t have to cart it around with you.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Ellis D.” for the heads up.]
No wonder they wouldn’t let Apple do that.
Exactly. The movie studios learned from the record labels.
Yes, and not only that, but all those content providers will be able to keep track of all of the videos on your computer, and help you delete the ones that have not been legally downloaded! No extra charge!
No way Time-Warner figures this out…
OK Warner, If all you want to do is make it it easy to rent video, why isn’t all of your movie content available on iTunes now?
oops I meant “buy”
so why is all Warner content not offered for sale now?
These Hollywood executives will never get it. They are driven only by GREED, GREED, GREED… and never what is best for the consumers.
THAT is why iTunes succeeded… because it was best for consumers, and consumers recognized that.
And when the pricing comes out, that’ll be “years” of work down the tubes.
So they want to create a online service that u will trust with all your various logins to different services u get rent and buy media.
Good luck with that, they sure never get mine.
If it works it sounds like a great idea.
Almost like a hub for different distributors of media.
Can’t say that I blame the studios for not wanting their distribution solely in the hands of one company, although I’m sure they would prefer if they themselves controlled it as the lone source.
If Warner (and Uni, and Sony, etc) approach this with their existing business mindset (and it is impossible to imagine why they would suddenly change the mindset), it will have massive, onerous DRM shackles, it will cost way too much and it will present myriad of confusing choices to the consumers. Either one of these three alone would be more than enough to make it a complete non-starter; all three together….
That’s silly- why on Earth would Apple allow another iTunes onto their iPad? Good luck with that Warner Bros. When will these dinosaurs get it: the meteor has already hit them and they’re already extinct??
“They are driven only by GREED, GREED, GREED…”
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
It just so happens that Warner’s plan here is only MOSTLY dead.
Uhm, Boorstin has talked about this before, a while back, on CNBC. Nothing new here.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend….”
Two VERY BIG things remain to be seen:
1) Can Warner Brothers develop compelling software?
2) How long can Warner hold together an “alliance” of their competitors?
And a DVD I can get for $9.99 at WalMart will be for sale from them for $19.99. Nope.
Make it $2.99 for a movie and I will bite.
I don’t like to buy movies, I like to rent them. Music now, that’s another story.
Exactly. And you’re not alone. Warner Brothers can’t encourage people to do something they’re just not interested in doing just with a piece of software.
And forgive me if I’m not too hopeful about a piece of software from a movie company being anything short of a piece of crap.
——RM
no one wants to own a movie. Or pay a premium to own one.
Speak for yourself. I like to buy movies that I love as do many people. DVD & BR sales prove you wrong.
But of course no onw wants to pay a “premium”.
iTunes succeeded because it was fair to the Labels and fair to the customers. An additional plus factor was that it was very easy to use.
I have yet to see any evidence that the movie industry understands the concept of fairness to customers.
If they do not offer a product with a compelling price, then this will prove to be a complete waste of time for them.
iTunes managed to be a more attractive option that acquiring music for free. The movie industry needs to do the same thing because they are also competing against free downloads.
Too little, too late. We already have “digital everywhere” with content that’s efficiently organized and beutifully presented on the best devices of our times. Significantly, the system we already have even organizes the digitsl content we produce ourselves — and not just the stuff we buy. We even have secure credit card transactions with a single, trusted supplier. All this is provided under a unified interface that is easy to use and maintain.
Brothers Warner, meet Mr. Steve Jobs of Apple, Inc., the visionary father of “digital everywhere.”
If these doughheads would only go to school on the Apple strategy they might get some traction. Hardly anyone wants to buy a movie, it’s the money stupid! Lower your rental costs below what iTunes can charge, say $2.99 or $3.99 at most, and get out of the way. People will flock to it and you’ll end up making more money than hopelessly gouging people for content they only use a few times, unlike music. people could rent a movie a couple of times if they really like it and not feel cheated, and you charge for each time. But they just can’t break away from caveman thinking, so this initiative is guaranteed to flop. How’s Hulu working for ya these days?
this WB biz model only works if they delay rentals via Netflix, iTunes, on-demand, etc. for several months after the DVD release AND set a decent price, like $5-$10, for the digital purchase. not $20 like now.
the delay, sure, but you know they won’t cut prices that much.
So it is *no* retailer, but how are they going to make money? Silly Warner
Digital Everywhere: Like Windows Everywhere, but with Movies! ™
A push to BUY rather than RENT is unlikely to succeed. 95% of American movies are not worth watching once, let alone repeatedly…