“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…