YouTube To Allow Video Rentals 215
poopdeville writes "Starting Friday, Google and YouTube will allow movie rentals. The first five films available to rent through YouTube will cost $3.99 for a 48-hour viewing period. Movie studios will be able to set their own prices, with rental viewing windows ranging from one to 90 days. YouTube will get an unspecified commission from each rental. Barclays Capital analyst Douglas Anmuch expects YouTube to generate about $700 million in revenue this year, an estimated 55 percent increase from 2009. If YouTube hits that target, it likely will turn profitable, helping to justify the $1.76 billion in stock that Google paid for the site more than three years ago."
No thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No thanks (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:No thanks (Score:2, Insightful)
In this case he is also paying the moped and the fuel so I guess he has a point in there.
Preemptive response (Score:1, Insightful)
Before some one brings up the ending of the article, DVDs and Blu-Rays are very profitable, remember this, a large number of films loose money in their theatrical release. DVDs are often the profits to a film but at times they are counted on to return principal. I was involved in a film last summer and it was hoped with distribution costs that it would break even in the theater but we couldn't count on that and similar films had only gone into profits towards the end of the initial DVD sales. It's not always about greed it's often just trying to get the investment returned. The goal is really to break even on most films and hope some are breakaways that do big numbers to make up for the ones that loose money. Sure everyone would love each film to be a hit but most actually do loose money. If they had to count strictly on theatrical and rentals then easily half the films wouldn't get made in the first place. Take away theatrical and go all rentals and most of the hit films wouldn't get made because they'd never have a hope of breaking even. This is the panic Hollywood is in over their future. Theatrical numbers may drop like a rock, ticket sales have been eroding for years it's only increased prices that have kept the numbers up. Without theatrical and DVD sales the average studio film would be effectively the same quality as a TV movie. That may be the future no matter what they do.
Re:No thanks (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
It costs them less to provide the service online. Each buyer provides part of the infrastructure. They avoid the expense of disks not returned, disks damaged, paying staff and maintaing kiosks. Fewer employees are needed per transaction to sell the product.
If it costs less to provide the price should be fall accordingly.
Pizza on the other hand costs more to deliver.
Re:Indie films. (Score:1, Insightful)
Hopefully, it won't be stifled by the big studios.
If wishes were ponies, I'd make salami.
In other words: yea, right.
Re:Piracy, the better choice (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the sad truth. I said it before a million times (even to the IFPI and other organisations, but they refuse to listen): Legal merchandise has to have a higher customer value than counterfeit or stolen goods.
It works for real goods and thus there's a thriving market for it. If you buy the "real deal" brand item, you get more than what you would get if you bought the knockoff. If I buy a genuine intel CPU, I get warranty. If I buy a genuine nVidia video card, I get support and downloads. Essentially, if I buy "honestly", I get more out of it than what I'd get from something that fell off a truck.
With content you not only do not get more from a legit purchase than you get from a copyright infringing copy, it's even worse. You get less from the legal copy than you get from the illegal one. When I download content from P2P networks, I can freely choose how to use it. I can put it on my server and stream it to the TV. I can extract soundbits or video snippets without loss. With music, I can convert it in any format I please and put it on any arbitrary MP3 player, play it in my car stereo or, again, put it on my server and stream it anywhere. In theory, even the net if I so choose. Technically, there are very few limits of what I could do with the content. This is not true for legally bought content. I cannot (easily) transfer the movie to my server for streaming, I have to use specialized software to do that rather "simple" task. I might have to go through a lot of hassle to create a copy of the audio CD to put it in my MP3 player and, unless I plan to use possibly illegal software to do so, I could end up with a loss of quality in the process.
The key problem is that legal content often has less value to me, as the consumer, than content ackquired through illegal means. That is the core problem today with content. And unless that's solved, more and more people will reach for the illegal channels. People enjoy having convenience. They want their stuff to "just work". And if the only way to get "just working" stuff is by P2Ping it, they will do that instead of buying. They would buy, no doubt. Because it's easier and more convenient. But they're learning that buying does not give them "just working" stuff.
Re:No thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
If they were deliverying DVDs to your front doorstep, you might have a point. Delivery pizzas has a cost to the business - assuming its their own car - car itself, car insurance (more expensive for businesses than personal use), gas, wages. Convenience costs there because they have costs providing it to you.
Here, the costs are minimal. Convenience itself shouldn't add to the cost of a product, it should be a way to get people to a) consume more of it or b) outdo your competitor. Cost of "convenience" is at play with food/drinks at ballparks, airports, movie theaters, and convention centers where they gouge you for every little thing. It may not be the vendors themselves since they have high costs operating there but then it's the venue itself. It doesn't make me want to go there all that much. In fact, I avoid those spots.
Now, $3.99 for 5 movies should be nothing to bitch about for 5 movies. I assume your OP didn't read the summary correctly, that's cheaper than redbox. Of course, I assume Avatar and the like won't be included...
Re:No thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
It is refreshing to see alternative business models being marketed to the movive/music industry, but these schemes really need to involve the ISP if they are to suceed, especially since as internet usuage increases, availible bandwidth decreases - and they aren't going to upgrade the networks any time soon.
Oh yeah, and if I pay to download a duplicate that only costs the supplier a fraction of wholesale fibre-time, I better be able to keep the copy.
Re:International Viewing? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think he meant state as in 'Nation State', not in the US sense.
His point about the EU is likely valid, though. There are rules that imply "all for one" when it comes to certain things like border crossings, prices, etc. I could see where licensing agreements should/would/could span the whole EU instead of being issued to individual member countries.
Re:On "creativity needs funding" (Score:5, Insightful)
I certainly do agree about shortening the duration of copyrights. The US constitution requires copyrights to have a finite length, but lobbyists for media companies simply convince congress to extend that duration by 20 years ever 20 years. We no longer see copyrighted work enter the public domain during the same generation it was created; it now skips three generations, and the copyright lobbyists are still not satisfied (I think they hate the constitution, since it limits copyrights and fails to mention profits).
YouTube sails away from the people... (Score:5, Insightful)
...as it becomes a part of the movie industry.
YouTube is headed for Commercialization hell (which is a very real place!) and that usually means:
- More restrictions
- More censorship
- More forced Ads
- Less fun
- Less freedom
- Less randomness
The same reason GOOGLE was COOL - applies to services like YouTube, a place where you can search for - and find ANYTHING, as it becomes more and more commercialized, we'll see the increased restrictions on EVERYTHING, and YouTube will eventually just be another X-Factor/Americal-Idol & movie rental service, and ADVERTISING / Viral-videos outlet than the peoples no#1 info-video channel.
Oh well - it was fun as long as it lasted.
Re:Piracy, the better choice (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Piracy, the better choice (Score:4, Insightful)
The industry has been lying transparently about piracy for at least 20 years.
In the 80s, the news frequently trotted out the claim that profits from selling pirate videos were used to fund drug dealers. It only takes a tiny bit of analysis to realise that drug dealing is a profitable activity in itself.
Just like the war on drugs, the war on piracy might be a bit more successful if it refrained from telling lies.
Re:Piracy, the better choice (Score:1, Insightful)
I came to the conclusion about a year or two ago that it doesn't matter what the movie industry or music industry does now, I just can't bring myself to pay for their content.
I can probably afford to spend more on entertainment than most people, but money I have available for that is still finite, and as such I have to pick and choose who gets my money. The software industry hasn't been perfect, but it's been far less horrible this past decade than the music and movie industry so I've decided simply that they will no longer get a penny off me no matter what they do.
If I download their content then I'll hear arguments about how that's hypocritical, how that makes me a pirate, but frankly, so fucking what? It's not like I'm going to pretend I don't like some of the music and movies they produce, I just can't support the fact that they're willing to go as far as bribing/threatening foreign governments and courts, lobbying governments for removal of fundamental human rights and so forth. I'm not going to make myself suffer for going without the content I enjoy, frankly I'll just download it, and if that makes me a pirate so be it, I really don't care, piracy should really be seen as a badge of honour for the most part.
When the movie and music industry stop acting so morally corrupt they can start having a share of my pool of entertainment money again, until then yes, I'm a pirate, but like many pirates I imagine, still a pirate with cash- you just have to be the morally better company with the better product if you want to earn your share of it.
Re:No thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
50G would get you ONE full bitrate high definition movie.
50G isn't squat once you start talking about video.
Even if you make extreme compromises with compression, you going to eat up 50G quick.
Re:Piracy, the better choice (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:$2-$5 ? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's backwards in that the money you will be giving the people will be going towards the NEXT film, which could be worthless trash you don't want to pay for. The money that you want to give for producing a great movie has already been payed to the actors, directors, and producers, etc, the opening weekend the movie is shown.