“Apple Computer is coming under pressure from some of Hollywood’s biggest movie studios to change the operating environment of its popular iTunes platform, amid growing concern about digital piracy,” Matthew Garrahan and Jonathan Birchall report for The Financial Times.
“The studios – Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and Warner Bros – are in talks with Apple about making their films available for digital download on iTunes,” Garrahan and Birchall report.
Garrahan and Birchall report, “After months of discussion, a sticking point has emerged over the studios’ demand that Apple limit the number of devices that can use a film downloaded from iTunes.”
“‘We’re very willing to do a deal but we’re keen to get some concessions from Apple that will account for the differences between the value of music and television content and feature film content,’ …said one studio executive involved in the talks,” Garrahan and Birchall report.
Full article here.
Why don’t they just put visible and hidden markings on the files like they do for Oscar voters’ screeners? A big “PROPERTY OF UNIVERSAL” across every frame of the film would be nice. And a little audio voice-over stating, “PROPERTY OF UNIVERSAL!” every 30 seconds would be good, too. Along with mandatory upfront signed forms from each customer promising not to circulate the files or face prosecution and/or fines, of course. Aw, heck, why not just sell 90 minutes of black soundless content for $9.99-$14.99. That would work the best.
Related articles:
Disney sells nearly 500,000 movies via Apple’s iTunes Store in less than two months – November 09, 2006
Disney sells 125,000 movie downloads via Apple’s iTunes Store in first week – September 19, 2006
Aren’t executives hired to be executives because they understand their consumers?
These guys (in a lot of industries, spanning a lot of companies) just don’t get it…
This is a riot… because we all know how “secure” DVDs are….
Give me a break! People will use the iTunes store because they WANT to purchase the content – not because they want to pirate it!!!
Unfortunately, many executives are hired because they are the best at “managing up,” even as they undermine other executive competitors within the company. Too often, those doing the hiring are easily fooled. Sounds harsh, but it’s true.
What prevents someone from buying a DVD and ripping it a 1,000 times?
Studio logic makes no sense. I mean, it’s not like Steve Jobs doesn’t have a vested interest in a Hollywood Studio or something…Like Disney…like billions…
Yeah… but try to rip a HD DVD or a BLU-RAY disc
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> I guess they want same level of security…
Do these characters have any idea how piracy works? It’s not like the pirates wait for Apple to provide a digital version of the video/audio for them to steal it…
I know this “guy” who belongs to Blockbuster Online and the local Blockbuster video store nearby. Every week he runs to his mailbox to collect three vintage movies at a time, and then to the BB store to check out as many as five brand new titles . . . which he then rips (using MTR) and distributes to a few close friends at a local marina.
No matter how DRM-manic the studios get (SONY is the worst), there is absolutely nothing they can do to stop the above kind of behavior. NOTHING. All they are doing is pissing off legitimate customers who want to play by a set of fair and easily understood rules. They’re not affecting the aforementioned “guy” one iota. (According to him, “Superman Returns” was copied this morning in a little less than 10 minutes.)
When will they ever learn?
I’ll never own a HD DVD or Blu_Ray disc so I guess I won’t get the chance.
now lets seriously think about this for a second.
if i wanted to pirate a movie. what would i do?
1. go down to the local video store, and hire the movie for 5 bucks.
or
2. download the movie of itunes for 10-15 bucks. (up to 3 times more)
now anyone with some sense would hire the movie.
Hollywoos movie studios are just being fussy.
It is important to remember that it took the music industry years of piracy to allow Apple to distribute their products.
It could take a few years of plummeting DVD sales before the movie industry fully accepts a new way of thinking.
As yet the number of people ripping DVDs is small because of the time it takes and the size of the resulting files. But computers are getting faster, include DVD burners as standard and software better. Soon it will be a cinch to do and ever tom, dick and harry will be getting movies off netflix and rip to their hearts content.
As for executives being good at their job, the main aim of an executive is to make as much money for themselves as possible. In a lot of cases that makes money for the company and the shareholders.
Someone will crack HD DVD and Blu-ray sooner or later. However since the files will be larger and the media and burners more expensive in the short term, it will be a while before it becomes mainstream.
I rip all my Netflix films to iPod format. Fuck the Studios.
Studios are idiots. I’ll just RIP my DVDs instead. Besides, that way I can edit out the crap hollyweird puts into some of their movies.
Why? People watch a movie once or twice in their lives, with few exceptions. Why would one want to pay such ludicrous amounts of money for movies as they would for music?
Greed is typical in American businesses, and why America will in the long run keep falling farthr and farther behind technologically thant he rest of the developed world.
Bozos
Hehe… those shtupid executives. I can just go to one of the mall in Southeast Asia and bought any dvds, even movies that hasn’t even came out in the market yet for US$2.15. Rip ’em using “one of those” free software from the internet and synced them with my iPod with video. Take that…
Seriously, who are they trying to kid. Are they gonna make Apple put in a software on the iPod to phone home (like Windows XP) and disable it until you call the help line and paid extra money since the video is in more than one iPod? Oh yeah… they did that with the Zune thingy “social” three days or three plays
Most of these executives just trying to keep busy to show their shareholders that they are doing something to justify the big bucks they are being paid. If not, their title is just gonna be ex of something (which should be anyway considering how many billions of dollars they are missing out by not offering movies on iTunes hehe…)
If these rumors of demands by the movie studios are true, then Apple should just say F*ck it, and go the other way.
Make iTunes and iTV and iPods compatible with divx, xvid and all that. They’ll certainly sell a lot more hardware that way.
Personally I cannot see why they are bending over backwards trying to negotiate with the studios. If the studios listened to Apple, it would be mutually beneficial. Instead, the studios want to create the kind of prohibitive video store that only a Zune would like.
MDN, You’ve got exactly the type of pirate mentality that Hollywood hates. I can’t believe you would advocate people buying “…90 minutes of black soundless content for $9.99-$14.99”.
Buying??? You, and your family should go to jail for publishing such thoughts.
It should be $9.99-$14.99 per person, per view.
Plus, I think you’re violating copyright law by describing an extended version of a John Cale video.
> differences between the value of music and television content and feature film content
Frankly, I find the value of great TV shows like Battlestar Galactica and Lost to of much higher value than most feature films.
Right now, Disney is the only studio benefitting from Apple. It’s only a matter of time. One by one, they will all deal with Apple WITHOUT Apple making any concessions. Apple is in a better positon to wait than the studios.
How is limiting the number of devices going to stop piracy? I don’t give my allocation of devices to my friends because I don’t want them to have access to my account. I can only watch in one place at a time and if a member of my household wanted to watch the same thing in a different room, do they really think I would have bought a second dvd? On terms of cracking the encryption and redistributing it, well if I’ve done that there limitations are meaningless anyway. Idiots.
You can tell that none of these people have ever or will ever need to pay for a download and live with this crap they’re tying to impose on everyone else.
Steve Jobs must be wondering how it is these guys haven’t learnt anything yet.
His principle, of making it simple, easy and cheap -really cheap, so we all buy it without thinking twice- has been lost on them.
They still, despite all the evidence of iTunes and its music sales, have not seen that they have to go a different route entirely and pile ’em high and sell ’em cheap – AND SELL THEM IN VAST QUANTITIES.
iTunes selling every film for $5 would make it too much hassle for anyone to bother ripping or stealing them. Hell they might sell a copy of every film to every household IN THE WORLD.
They would make vastly more money because their distribution costs would come to all but ZERO.
Doug Morris and his ilk are going to be seen as the most short sighted generation of management that ever existed.
If they continue as they are now, they are going to lose big time, even I will resort to ripping and downloading torrents, just to make sure they see their mistake sooner!
These movie studio execs are nuts.
At least two of the music majors have been seriously contemplating selling DRM-free music (probably in MP3 format) for quite some time now. They’ll almost certainly put a watermark in the files, and initially at least it’s most likely to be from smaller labels (more “independent” operations) owned by the majors.
Why would they do this? Well, they rightly believe that iTunes isn’t necessarily the best venue for breaking acts, and see digital sales as being a good thing.
Music companies move very slowly on these things though, so don’t expect this to happen any time soon.
The days of DRM protected music may be numbered.
It is a good sign that Apple seems to want to transfer over to movies the ability to copy content on to more than one home computer (hopefully 5, like music) within the DRM.
The customer is always right. Studios need to either find a way to make money helping the customer remain honest, or you will turn customers dishonest by having to try a free work around to get what they need.
In the end, the customer always wins.
If the Hollywood majors hold out, the smaller, independent studios will make a killing with the publicity and limited choice when signing up with the iTMS e.g. who had heard of Lion Studios before the CEO told us they were signing with Apple!
> now lets seriously think about this for a second.
> if i wanted to pirate a movie. what would i do?
> 1. go down to the local video store, and hire the movie for 5 bucks.
> . . . . or. . . .
> 2. download the movie of itunes for 10-15 bucks. (up to 3 times more)
. . . . or. . . .
3. buy pirate dvds from asia at $2 a pop;
. . . . or. . . .
4. download it off <…any number of p2p networks…> and pay zip plus avoid the rip;
5. or all of the above in no particular order.
So, Hollywood studios have a choice: make content easily and cheaply available in iTunes and take the easy money or leave it on the table.
If film studios want to sell films on DVD and online, it is their responsibility to provide uncrackable DRM not Apple’s. This only proves that these people are either too damn lazy or too stupid to distribute their product with the necessary protection.
Many good points mentioned here. Congrats to all
i’m getting iAdware diverts form MDN as well. What is going on MDN???????????
These studios fail to realise that SJ is in the movie business too (Pixar, Disney), and he is not about to do anything that will damage those interests…
This isn’t really about logic. This is the studios trying to prove that they have a bigger dong than Apple. They feel threatened by Apple’s influence and want to show that they can exert power over Apple. Okay, there may be a logic to the studio’s position though. If they can get Apple to capitulate on stupid ineffective points now that gives them more power in the next round of negotiations.
The film studios appear to be the using same unconvincing argument that was made when VHS became popular.
The Hollywood studios are moving to piss in their own — and Apple’s — soup. This is a real threat to Apple. These entertainment Nazis do not seem to get it that Apple’s model is based on giving the consumer enough fair use that paying for movies is less painful than illegally ripping them. If those bozos pull out their peckers and squirt, Zune like, into the broth, consumers will throw up their hands and rip DVDs with abandon on a large scale.
But make no mistake, the threat to Apple and AAPL is real. The studio heads are stupid enough to squirt through their Zunes and destroy a money stream with a toxic spray.
Jeff, you are right on the mark. I can rent a flick for $2.00 and rip it or purchase the same film from Apple for $9.99 to $14.99. The economics of buying from iTunes seems to be more favorable to the studios than someone renting the same film and ripping it. I don’t see where the studios have the upper hand except to extract a greater share of the profits from iTunes by withholding their product from sale on iTunes. It seems that the studios already know that DRM is dead and their power is waning.
Still, once the technology develops to permit viewing rented films at home in HD online in real time, DRM will finally be buried. If I were a member of the film studios, I would finance and partner with those people who are working to deliver HD online before these same people beat the studios to the punch and reap the profits for themselves.
If hollywood doesn’t get their sh*t together, we’ll just start stealing everything. I don’t think they get it. Make the content worth what they charge or people will just go around the DRM du jour.
Why don’t we just let Apple and Universal work it out. We don’t a bunch of second guessing, second rate journalists panting about what may happen before it happens.
Easiest job in the world is that of the critic. Saftey from the sidelines.
If the major studios want to sell their products online, let them build their own distribution system. The days of the movie moguls are over, the major studios need to get used to it.
Dave, are you a passive, unassertive, pliable, submissive type?
I thought so.
MPAA to charge $50 licensing fee for home theatre set-ups
well, we’ll see who is bigger, hollywood or apple. once one of the studios caves in, the rest will collapse like dominoes….
“Jeff, you are right on the mark. I can rent a flick for $2.00 and rip it or purchase the same film from Apple for $9.99 to $14.99.”
Exactly and it gets worse. McDonald’s has been test marketing a video rental kiosk in Denver, St Louis and other areas where the rentals are only $1.00.
Probably the best protection the studios have is that every digital purchase from Apple, NetFlix, etc requires a credit card. The studios could thus put a digital marker on each downloaded film. This way, they can perhaps track down the person illegally distributing the film.
On an aside, I sat in on some of the IEEE meetings (8 years ago) where the digital film standards where being discussed. As always, the primary issue was piracy and at that time, every one realized that at some point in the distribution channel, a copyable, useable stream would have to exist in order for the film to be shown. There didn’t seem to be anyway to avoid it.
MBguy and others have clicked onto the idea that myself and many of my friends have been doing. We go down to the video store and do the rent and rip. So why do we do this?
1. We all grew up in a time when we taped movies onto VHS tapes and watched them when we wanted to. And contrary to what the movie studios want us to think, we added these movies to OUR collection.
2. Making copies of dvds is just an extension of point one.
3. We all don’t give a fudge about DRM. DRM is a challenge that we want to bust through.
4. We all grew up in a time where we made cassette copies of vinyl and our friends made copies of their own vinyl collectionand gave it to us. We swapped music. Nowadays we make copies of OUR music and rip them onto cds or dvds. So what is the difference?
5. I get music and movies where and when I choose.
6. All of my friends still go to the movies and we still go and see bands (although some of my friends see themselves as being too old to see a bands…boring old farts!!)
7. Do you know that when you rent a dvd that a small percentage goes to the copyright holder? What do they want us to do, have us paying left, right and center?
I know this might sound a bit radical but I can see one way around all of this. Put a small surcharge on all dvd players, mp3 players, computers etc and give the money from the surcharge to the copyright holders, with the proviso that ALL DRM is banned. I know it sounds like big government but at least it would stop most of the piracy because everyone would be getting a cut of the action.
P.S. I’m now going to rip those dvds that I rented from the video store so I can add them to MY movie collection.
i advocate pirating every DVD from these studios. hell, most of the movies the studios put out these days are crap. i can’t remember the last time i really wanted to see a movie – they just aren’t good enough anymore. sure, every once in a while a good one comes along, but hey, peter jackson can only do so many films at a time.
they are nothing but greedy bastards. they obviously do not understand the consumer and are only concerned with their bottom line. well then, i say let’s affect their bottom line and cut off their revenue stream. buy all your dvd’s from china!
we will see how long their shareholders will like a massive loss of piracy over petty device restrictions that mean squat.
mike k.
ever here of satire? i hope you don’t think that is a serious new link. if so, you should check out the onion for real news.
Anti DRM
I like your idea for the surcharge and no DRM. I think it goes without saying that surcharge will be added to the cost of media also, i.e. blank DVDs, CDs, Tapes, etc…
The exception to that should be profession specific uses. Example: A video production company needing to make a copy of something they produced to show a client.
What it comes down to is that media companies, studios or record labels etc., need to change their business model to fit into the reality of today’s technology. They’re trying to make laws and technology to fit their business model and we all know that doesn’t work.
Well, looks like Apple will have to make the studios fall one at a time.
I think it will be more like a dam slowly bursting.
The only thing they hate worse than a dud, losing money to piracy, or having to answer to anyone is to see another studio having success that they are not a part of.
They have a shockingly crappy business outlook.
This is precisely why I don’t watch TV or movies any more. The slime balls that run things are so extremely annoying that there is no way I’m going to spend my money on their products. Also the quality of the material they put out is horrible. It’s more fun to live life any way than stare like a zombie at the TV or movie screen. To top it all off Hollyood is spilling over with liberal, commie, terrorist lovers.
bruce,
I totally agree. Tax blank media and exempt professional users. You could have problems with many business who use blank media for backups. And perhaps these businesses pay the surcharge anyway, or get a rebate from their income tax payments. However video companies, photographers etc, would most definitely be exempt.
It’s just a crazy situation where ordinary users are having to pay huge payouts for copyright breaches. And in Australia they’re criminalising breaches of DRM. That’s nuts. Likewise, the mere possession of dvd ripping s/ware is a federal offence in that country. Crazy stuff.
If governments don’t intervene soon the whole system will become a joke because eveyone will be breaching copyright (like when you give some music to a friend).
How about some more feedback on this MDN readers.
This is pathetic. It’s just excuses and bargaining tools to squeeze more money out of Apple and us.
Any even semi-popular American movie is on the street in China. I’ve seen it first hand numerous times. Never bought one or tested the quality, but it was cheap. I saw Spider Man in China on their TV broadcast with Chinese overdubs the same month it came out on DVD here in America.
Why does apple just have a five second scren on each movie of the name and address of the owner of the movie and use the same digital rights as iTunes.
Then you would have to strip off the rights to remove the 5 second intro.
No one would want to give the movie out. Marry the movie to the machine and be done with it.
webbyswim: ever here of satire?
…
It is amazing how much money the studios will lose this holiday season on lost revenues to the IPod. What are they thinking?
Everyone is getting an IPod. Don’t the studios want to benefit from this Holiday season with people buying movies? along with their new video IPods. I would be willing to bet December 26th and 25th would be the most movies sold in the history of home movie sales……
What bumble heads.
This is fine. Let the independent studios along with Disney’s studios rake in the money. The DRM is restrictive enough, don’t overdo it. Stick to your guns Apple.
I echo the sentiments of some of the posters. Why would a pirate pay $10+ for a “lower quality” digital file when they can join Netflix and rip them at DVD resolution? I know _someone_ who has nearly 3TB (that’s right, terabytes) of Netflix rips. iTunes definitely isn’t the problem to the studios.
Hey Someone Else,
How is your friend hurting the movie studios? So what if he has ripped 3TB of movies from the rentals from Netflix. Whats the difference if he has a copy of these movies or if he doesn’t? Nothing. He paid for the rentals. The studios got their cut. How many of these movies is he actually ever going to watch again? He’s just wasting space if you ask me.
“‘We’re very willing to do a deal but we’re keen to get some concessions from Apple that will account for the differences between the value of music and television content and feature film content,’ …said one studio executive involved in the talks,…”
They want to realize the differences between the value of tunes, TV and movies? Can’t these idiots count? They’re already realizing the difference between 99cts, $1.99, and $9.99-14.99 … and the latter is highway robbery as it is!
There’s no limit to human greed – none.
This is why we need to be vigilant regarding these DRM schemes. The only way Apple could ‘strengthen’ it’s Fairplay DRM software is if they integrated it with the TPM chips that are now on every Macintel. And if they do that, the floodgates are open. eventually nothing on your computer will truely be yours anymore.
I think Jobs flirted with just that scheme way back when he made the switch – that placating the studios & recording industry in order to get their content was actually the primary reason for it. But by now it should be clear that there is no pleasing them, beyond total privacy invasion and ‘rent control’ of every tune or video you posess. Things have been going so good for Apple lately, I’ve been hoping Jobs recognizes that he doesn’t need their edits – that the public will bye a fair product at a fair price, and plenty of it. A good value for the money is the best anti-piracy measure there is.
So in that vein, if these suits are going to press the issue, Apple should just drop the nuke: Add to the iTV a high quality over the air HDtuner, another connection for cable and satellite, run it all through a DVR with a massive HDD and be done with it. They should also take a page out of the 3G TiVo & make every iTV a P2P node that allows people to swap their video to people who forgot to set their own recorder for favorite shows.
Missed “A Chef’s Kitchen”? No problem – some dude in Butte Monatana has it, and now you do too! Put your wallet away, cause you already paid for your $500 iTV box, $300 iPod, and occasional iTS purchase. You’re good.
Apple needs to get some balls and finally say to these studios “Enough of the bitching, already! You don’t want to provide us content that we can sell to our customers for you? Fine. Then we’ll help them get content in any way possible – even ways that ensure you won’t make a dime.” Apple makes the lion’s share of it’s iTS/iPod money on hardware sales. If they make an easy-to-use video recording device of the same caliber as the iPod, they’ll rake even more in, and these studios will find out exactly where their stupidity leads but quick. They’ll come crawling to Jobs just to avoid being left out in the cold altogether, just as the record company holdouts eventually did.
As for the rest of us – in the immortal words of Ben Grimm, “It’s rippin time!!!”
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MDN Magic Word: common
As in, “Do it for the common good.”
I want everybody to get their money, really, I do. Even when the overly protective people protecting their property make thousands of times more than I do. I even agree that, in principle and in practice, there should be some content value difference between tv and feature length movies. But I also think that Apple has already addressed all of these issues pretty well if you actually go to iTunes and look.
What I’m really disappointed in is the tone of the Hollywood movie studios. And ultimately, whatever everybody decides, I WANT TO BE ABLE TO BURN A [ONE] DVD OF MY MOVIE PURCHASES DAMMIT! I really really don’t want to be forced to buy yet more network hardware just so I can play my iTunes movie and tv purchases on another tv in my house. Give me a freaking break…
Ok I feel a little better – Now, when do I get my way. (And I don’t think I’m, in any way, being unreasonable – Really.)
There greedy fricken bastards! I won’t buy another DVD until they stop there fricken whining! And I hope Steve Jobs tells them to go to hell! Ever since this stupid DRM has been in effect the studios do nothing but complain, complain, complain about nothing! There making Billions of dollars and they still complain!
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“I’ve been hoping Jobs recognizes that he doesn’t need their edits – that the public will bye a fair product at a fair price…” should read:
“I’ve been hoping Jobs recognizes that he doesn’t need their editcs – that the public will buy a fair product at a fair price…”
Sorry
To Bruce,
“This isn’t really about logic.” YEP your right. Since when have music, TV, or Movie execs ever done anything for the artist or the public??
Its always about their money and their pockets and power.
They constantly bicker about BS then ignore important stuff. So what can we do? Hmmm, lets equate them to lawyers and Puns as the lowest form of humor and life form. ??? LOL
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N.
I’d much rather rent a movie that can be played on a limited number of players for a limited number of times for a limited number of days (not hours) than purchase.
And I’ll only do so if I can get HD quality.
It has to be a better deal than NetFlix or why bother.
I agree with Rent Movies.
It has to be better than NutFlix.
For those advocating taxing DVD players and media, and if you weren’t being sarcastic, well… that is really not a realistic solution. Who will decide where our tax money goes? Will it go to small indy titles and companies who’s titles are getting ripped? Or will it go to the majors only? What will get skimmed off by administrators, orgs, and who will decide, etc.? It’s a nightmare. Could only work as one small piece of a larger puzzle, at best.
For those who say the studios need Apple more than Apple needs them… Uhhh, not so fast. Disney is selling WAY MORE on their own download site than on iTunes right now.
Yes, Apple has a very fair and positive model which the studios are stupid to pass up… but right doesn’t always win.
My hunch is the studios are playing power games and there is more to it than this article bespoke. For example, the pressure from Target and Wall-Fart on the studios to not sign to iTunes because it will hurt their DVD retail sales. (And their own plans for download sales in competition to iTunes.)
I’m sure these retailers and the studios are also playing for time while they come up with their own and other download sales solutions to compete with iTunes…
It is painfully obvious that in order for a song to be listenable, or a movie to be watchable, at SOME point you have to convert it into sound and light. At that point, it is always capturable.
I can only anticipate that the movie and record execs will eventually get technology advanced enough to propose:
The ULTIMATE DRM Scheme!
The studios will implant a tiny device in every newborn’s brain. The device will determine when a song is being played or a movie or TV show is being watched, will link up wirelessly to your global entertainment account, and ask you to pay up.
If you don’t, the DRM device will intercept all audio and visual signals for the duration of the performance.
Hey, it could work! I think we got a solution for the greedy bastards!
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Set your countdown calendars people: DOOMSDAY is April 7, 2009. You’ll be lucky if you can even record a TV show shortly after that. All it takes is a simple digital broadcast flag and your “compliant” equipment will obey and betray your wishes to record.
Money is our God. Entertainment is the prophet.
re: Garrahan and Birchall report, “After months of discussion, a sticking point has emerged over the studios’ demand that Apple limit the number of devices that can use a film downloaded from iTunes.”
—
This is already in place – You can only have your itunes library ‘authorised’ on 5 devices anyway.
Sounds like movie industry bollocks to me.
Well, if the studios are not gonna put their movies on iTunes then im gonna just pirate them.
So you movie industry guys have a choice – provide the content on itunes and make shit loads of money OR don’t do that and watch evryone pirate your movies…
…the choice is yours…