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The Internet Media

Universal to Offer its Movies Online 308

Posted by samzenpus from the download-them-all dept.
JoseAugusto writes "From IMDB: 'Universal expects to be able to offer movies online by the end of the year or early next year, company chairman and CEO Bob Wright said Tuesday. Speaking at a conference on piracy in London, Wright described the studio's entry into online movie services as 'something we have to do.' However, he cautioned, the studio's entry into the Internet sphere must be accompanied by fail-safe methods to prevent the films from being copied and redistributed. 'These movies are so expensive, we have to be careful,' he said.'"
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Universal to Offer its Movies Online More

Universal to Offer its Movies Online

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  • not much info given (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yagu ( 721525 ) * <{yayagu} {at} {gmail.com}> on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:37PM (#13727276) Journal

    Wow, the post is the entire article! So, this isn't much to go on. Sounds mostly like PR with a shot across the bow they intend to make it as consumer unfriendly as possible. (Consider "These movies are so expensive, we have to be careful" -- doesn't sound like ability to take advantage of inexpensive delivery cuts the consumer any slack.)

    I still wonder:

    • what is the "security"?
    • what is on-line?
    • any idea at all of pricing?
    • what movies? (recent release available on dvd?)
    • HD?

    This is spin. Whatever it is, I'm not looking forward to it.

    • Re:not much info given (Score:4, Interesting)

      by fgl ( 792403 ) <daniel@notforsale.co.nz> on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:43PM (#13727306) Homepage Journal
      This sounds like a PR statement, sort of testing the waters of consumerism so to speak. Finding out what the consumer collective thinks about the idea of a legit central movie store online.

      I Doubt even they know how it will all work yet. But at least they are admitting it needs to be done if they are to stay "Alive" in the market.

      Fingers crossed someone in management realizes we don't owe the studios anything...
      • I think it is a brilliant idea though.
        For example DRM'd WMA10 or whatever, using bit torrent, $5.00 per movie unlimited viewings, $.99 per movie, one viewing. That would take off like wildfire (and likely displace a good measure of piracy).
        If they want to host all the bandwith then make it $10/$3. For super DRM'd, can't watch it on TV without a "special decoder ring" media I think the sweet spot (for unlimited viewing) is in the $5-7 range. much more than that and people will complain, because they can b

    • Re:not much info given (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06, 2005 @12:23AM (#13727505)
      I'll bet your left nut that they intend to use Windows Vista and High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection.

      On-Line means that the MPAA is on a line of coke that makes them paranoid and unable to trust their *paying* customers.

      Pricing will no doubt include charges for securing the new and unexplainably expensive delivery methods that P2P pirates have offered for free which will justify charging $20 for a DRM download when you can buy the same thing on disc at Wally-World for $12.

      All movies will eventually be available. It only makes sense that they would rerelease all content under this new scheme since it will no doubt be illegal to copy your old movies in a way that lets you view them with new and incompatible hardware (just like you cannot legally copy many tapes that include Macrovision to DVD now). Of course when the older movies that we've all bought on tape and then on DVD are rereleased in a digital DRM format they will be just as vulnerable to piracy as a brand new movie so they will need just as much DRM to protect consumers from pirates!

      And yes, HD will be available to people who pay an extra anti-piracy tariff designed to cover the loss of revenue caused by consumers allowing their friends and family to watch their movies at their homes without actually purchasing the movie themself. You dirty pirates.

    • Information Hard to Find (Score:5, Informative)

      by yintercept ( 517362 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @01:04AM (#13727649) Homepage Journal
      Yeah, I hate this world where there are one or two mega players with enough clout to define the market. Apparently Universal was part of the Vivendi idiocy [vivendiuniversal.com] and was recently sold to NBC (a Division of GE [ge.com] now called NBC Uni [nbcuni.com]).

      Anyway, I decided to look up Universal Studios to see if they had a beefier press release. Here is a slightly longer article on Reuters [reuters.com]. It sounds like NBCUni and Microsoft are siting in a back room brewing up some sort of concoction that the rest of the world will regret. This efforts appears to be part of something called BASCAP [iccwbo.org] (Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy).

      I wish these people would just realize that the way to beat piracy is simply to establish channels for distributing the movies that are neither too costly nor too burdensome to the public. Instead, we have monopolies working in backrooms with monopolies making something that is both expensive and restrictive to the point that piracy will continue to prevail.

      • Re:Information Hard to Find (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @08:14AM (#13728800)
        I wish these people would just realize that the way to beat piracy is simply to establish channels for distributing the movies that are neither too costly nor too burdensome to the public.

        What makes you think that they don't realise that?

        What makes you think that this is really about beating piracy?
    • Does it run on Linux?

  • Um...I have something for you (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:38PM (#13727282)
    It a cat. I also have this bag. Notice that the cat is not inside the bag.
    • I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter
    • The thing is, they know about the cat and the bag. I thought for a second that they may not know about the horse and the barn, but I see from another reply that they possibly do. Watch out though, I think they have a pig in a poke (nudge nudge, wink wink, etc.) and they are trying to sell it to us. I know this guy from Nigeria who is interested in buying all of their pigs if they will only send him their particulars.

      Now if the cat was in a box, together with a radioactive atom, a geiger-counter, a hammer, a
    • "These movies are so expensive, we have to be careful,' he said.'" He speaks as though movies aren't available online already. I think he needs to come from this perspective to retain the image of being strong and in control. I can understand why, but it'd still be refreshing if he could just say "look, we've lost control of this situation. Here's what we're going to do to get it back."

  • worried about cost? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by flakier ( 177415 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:39PM (#13727285) Homepage
    Well then, maybe they should make more films that rely on plot and qualities other than expensive special effects.

  • Failsafe way... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jmcmunn ( 307798 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:40PM (#13727290)

    A failsafe way to prevent piracy? Try never putting it on any form of media readable on a PC then. Or better yet, never put it on any media. Spoken word, live performances for a naked audience (so they can't smuggle in audio recorders of course). And still...not even close.

    Come on, they just need to embrace the internet and trust that most of us will pay for it when it is easy to get. I know I will. Same with tv, when I miss my favorite show, rather than download it, I would pay a few bucks to get the commercial free version online...

    • Foolsafe way... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "A failsafe way to prevent piracy? Try never putting it on any form of media readable on a PC then. Or better yet, never put it on any media. Spoken word, live performances for a naked audience (so they can't smuggle in audio recorders of course). And still...not even close."

      It doesn't need to be failsafe, any more than computer security needs to be fool-proof.

      "Come on, they just need to embrace the internet and trust that most of us will pay for it when it is easy to get. I know I will."

      Considering all the

      • "the studio's entry into the Internet sphere must be accompanied by fail-safe methods to prevent the films from being copied"

        That is where I got failsafe...did you not even read the summary?

      • Take My God Damn Money! (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Shihar ( 153932 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @12:33AM (#13727547)
        I personally think that the parent makes a good point. I liked both Enterprise and Firefly. My problem what that I just can't live by the damn TVs schedule. I am far too busy to be tied to a certain hour each week. Further, I really only want to see the show in order. This is exactly who I was more then happy to shell over money to Netflixs to see Enterprise and Firefly. Yes, I could have easily pirated both of those shows, but if you give me an easy way to pay for them, I am will happily take it.

        Now, take Battle Star Galactica (BSG). I love the show. It is the first show in a very long time that I have tried to sit down and watch every single show. The biggest problem is that some times I miss a show. Once I miss a show I can either

        A) Wait for rerun and watch the shows out of order
        B) Wait for the DvD to come out.
        C) Just go download it so that I can watch the next show in order.

        Guess which one I pick?

        I would be MORE then happy to shell out $5 to simply not go through the bother of getting it via bit-torrent and all the irritation that finding a decent connection can bring. Hell, I would pay them $5 to get tracker from their website and get the double satisfaction of gettin the show easily AND contributing more money then they make on commercials per person. They could even kill me access to the video after a week or two and I wouldn't be upset.

        They don't though. If I miss an episode, the only option I have is to go pirate it. If some stupid bastard would simply let me give them my money, I would.

        These businesses vastly underestimate how much people will pay for convince. iTunes is a perfect example. You can get anything you can get on iTunes via pirating. Yet iTunes some how manages to do AMAZING business. Why? If given the choice between shelling out a few dollars or pirating, most people will shell out a few bucks. Will there be people who pirate anyways? Sure. Who cares about them? Think of all the other dumb bastards that are aching to give you money if you would just FSUCKING take it.

      • Re:Foolsafe way... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06, 2005 @03:00AM (#13727943)
        Now can we get Grey Ninja and Jmcmunn to both agree on what constitutes an agreeable price, and if one of them disagrees? Will he turn into a pirate? Extrapolate to the public at large and now you see why the "price it right, or I will fight" argument fails. The only acceptable way to fight is to not buy nor possess, and buy from those you deem OK.

        I don't know where you're from, but where I'm from when you can't afford something, you usually don't have to do without it. Instead you can almost always buy an inferior version at an affordable price.

        Can't afford an armani suit? Your local salvation army will sell you a suit for a price anyone can afford. It might not be exactly what you want but, hey, it's close.

        When someone is pirating music they're doing it as an alternative, the same way the person who didn't buy the armani suit, but did buy the used suit did. The problem is that the alternative isn't legal in the case of music.

        Unfortunately, unlike that suit, you can't get a "lower grade" version of the music for a price that suits. So people who want that music but have no way of affording it turn to alternatives and find themselves without any. All people, when faced with a decision like that, will consider breaking the law if it doesn't conflict with their morals. Yes, not breaking the law for the sake of not wanting to be a criminal of any sort *is* a moral (whether it is bad or good is an exercise left up to the reader). So those who both find that violating copyright is not immoral and where the basic moral of not breaking the law for the sake of not being a crminal is not present pirate the music.

        So we are left with an out of balance market. Prices on the music can be artificially inflated since those who want it but refuse to pirate it will pay them. Those who are willing to purchase a lower grade version cannot, and so there is no pressure to lower the prices apart from a lack of profit. In most markets a lack of sales is a motivator to adjust prices, and sales of higher and lower grade units by your competitors can be compared to yours to influence your decision.

        Since the music companies do not consider piracy a competitor, they are not willing to compare sales to piracy in a way that leads them to reprice the goods for maximum profit (which involves meeting maximum sales along with maximum margin). Once they re-evaluate their stance on piracy they will make money.

        Until then, sayonara to buying music for me. 3 miuntes of happiness isn't worth $1 to me. Not when the average wage hovers around $12 - $18 an hour, pricing the maximum affordable cost of one's happiness at (formula below) 7.3 cents per minute. Properly priced music would be based on the same formula. But it isn't. At present prices every song must be listened to as many as 5 times to gain proper value.

        In contrast a rental video tape must only be watched for 1 hour to provide a net positive. That's not even 1 full viewing! Many outright movie purchases can be justified with only 2 viewings, or 1 viewing along with watching special features.

        $15/hour * 7 hours working daily = $105
        $105 / 24 hours a day = $4.375 / hour
        $4.375 / 60 minutes = $0.0729 / minute
    • I would pay a few bucks to get the commercial free version online

      And what makes you think it will be commercial free? This is the industry doing this best to kill commerical skipping.

    • ...live performances for a naked audience (so they can't smuggle in audio recorders of course)...

      Don't forget to give them dental exams [slashdot.org], too.

      Honestly, I'd really love to see these people fully embrace the internet. Unfortunately, it seems like all the execs have their heads stuck in an outmoded paradigm of distribution and complete control. I'd hope they'd be replaced by people who "get it," but by the time that happens, broadband will probably be a lot more common and it will be just as easy for a per

    • Re:Failsafe way... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Lorkki ( 863577 )

      A failsafe way to prevent piracy? Try never putting it on any form of media readable on a PC then.

      Indeed, what's been stunning to me all this time (I live in Finland, btw) is the whole underlying logic in this:

      We do not want people to (illegally) copy our trademarked works. Thus we enforce technical copy-protection schemes. But since most of these schemes are trivially broken due to their nature, we want to make breaking them illegal.

      Can anyone at all explain to me why we need this extra middle step

  • Maybe (Score:3, Funny)

    by Yocto Yotta ( 840665 ) * <<moc.liamg> <ta> <cisum.stlupatac>> on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:40PM (#13727291)
    "the studio's entry into the Internet sphere must be accompanied by fail-safe methods to prevent the films from being copied and redistributed."

    Apple DRM'd .mp4s?

  • I, for one, welcome our new gossiping overloards.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Petey_Alchemist ( 711672 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:40PM (#13727293)
    ...as further pieces of the viPod puzzle fall into place, perhaps?

    Interesting.

    --Petey

  • "Something we have to do" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Max Nugget ( 581772 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:41PM (#13727295)
    Speaking at a conference on piracy in London, Wright described the studio's entry into online movie services as "something we have to do."

    Wow, way to be enthusiastic about it. What were we talking about, getting a root canal?

  • Who will be their distributor? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ReformedExCon ( 897248 ) <reformed.excon@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:42PM (#13727300)
    How will they handle overseas distribution? How will they handle inter-state taxes?

    They say they will be online by the end of the year, but that is less than 3 months away. There are so many problems with actually distributing original content online that I highly doubt any movie company will be able to successfully make the jump.

    I'd love to be proved wrong, but then again, I'd love to have a 60 inch monitor. I don't see either one happening in the next 3 months.
    • And now the speculators will tie this annoucement into the "one More Thing" annoucement that apple will host on oct 12th aren't they, just because of the red curtains on the invite. iTMS will no longer mean just iTunes Music store, but also movie (or more encompassing,) Media store

  • Alternatively, (Score:4, Interesting)

    by QuantumG ( 50515 ) <qg@biodome.org> on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:43PM (#13727305) Homepage Journal
    You could start hiring people with talent.

    Like this movie [primermovie.com]. I've watched it 5 times. One of the most enjoyable independant films I've ever seen. It cost $7000 to make. And, of course, it's geeky to the max.

    • Re:Alternatively, (Score:2, Interesting)

      by utuk99 ( 656026 )
      Primer is one of the best movies I have seen in years. I actually bought the DVD after downloading it and watching it a few times. I added it to my must have movie collection. If you have not seen it, go buy or download it. You will not be dissapointed either way.
      • dude, primer is really good. i also bought the DVD. i first rented it on netflix, then bought it and still watch it occasionally. Good film. Very good film and very well done.

        When the Sci Fi channel first got their movie budgets - I thought this was the kind of film they'd do. But they're doing really shitty B-flicks.

        the $7000 figure is a bit misleading though. Carruth got the transfer for free - he shot on film - and edited digitally on his home computer. The transfer is expensive; but he got a film to HD
        • Abe was obsessed with protecting the people affected by their experiment. He felt guilty for screwing up Aaron's life and hated Aaron for not caring. If you had to give up being with your wife you'd be pretty upset wouldn't you? Notice how Aaron wasn't?

          As for the writing and the ear bleeds.. everything has side-effects. Those were just two.
      • Seriously, Primer is a great movie. The director/creator Shane Carruth has a BA in Mathematics and worked for a software company after graduation. He was dissatisfied with his job and left to make movies. He taught himself everything and came up with a great product on the cheap. Hopefully someone will give him an appropriate budget so his talent will be recognized by all.
        • he signed with the william morris agency. In tech terms, that like signing with the microsoft of agencies. they're the lumbering giant; CAA or Endeavor or somebody like that might be considered Google.

          all of which is to say is that somebody will put money behind him now. hopefully he won't be handcuffed and told to dumb down by the system.

          but shit man, Primer is such a good movie.

          The other thing about Primer is that it was so open ended. You leave with more questions than you arrive with - and you realize t
    • I had to watch it twice an then flip thought the scenes over and over. I never did figure all of it out so I had to cruise some web discussions. Some pretty interesting physical interpretations of the movie. My favorite thing about it is that the time travel scheme actually would work without paradoxes. This is because this same scheme happens in reality, albeit on microsopic quantum scales. Then a photon splits into matter and antimatter and then recombine to form a photon again one can think of the a
      • Well I think the real message for time travel in the film was that paradoxes matter more to the people involved than it does to reality. For a straight line time theory that's pretty insightful. The idea that reality could magically change around you because you've violated causality is just obsurd. To be fair though, it is hard to maintain any sense of realism when you're talking about time travel.

  • fail-safe methods (Score:4, Interesting)

    by quintesson ( 118019 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:43PM (#13727307)
    it's kinda weird how people in these positions still don't realize that's not going to happen.

  • Better Articles (Score:5, Informative)

    by Brent Spiner ( 919505 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:44PM (#13727322) Homepage
    Here [computerworld.com] are some better articles [afterdawn.com].

    • "It's something we have to do, but it has to be done well," Wright said "These movies are so expensive we have to be careful ..."

      Rough translation:

      Every time you pirate, Bob DRMs a movie.

      Please, think of the movies!

      But seriously, it does sound a bit more lax than the SUE50rz!!1!onetwothree method that another group [riaa.com] likes to use. (*sigh* they still call CI "theft"...)

  • About time. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Grey Ninja ( 739021 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:45PM (#13727324) Homepage Journal
    I actually might consider buying some downloadable movies if the price was right. If they are thinking about charging $10 or more for them, I will just download them for free if they aren't anything special (and if they are, I would buy the pressed DVD). If the price point was around $5, it would make a whole lot more sense than renting the DVD, and would likely be quicker to acquire. Throw in the cost of a DVD-R, and you have the movie for a fairly good price. The movie studios do not have to go through a middleman (video store), and neither do we, and we get the movie for about the same price. Everyone wins.

    I've never been that interested in paying for songs, as downloading the music is about the same price, or more than actually buying the CD. And you have to be out of your mind if you think I am paying $20 for a music CD. So I just download all the music I want for free (I'm Canadian). I would rather spend the money on going to see a live concert.

    • Re:About time. (Score:2, Informative)

      by llZENll ( 545605 )
      $5 is _assuming_ the studios actually want to offer the consumer a fair price. But as you know they want to get the best ROI possible, which means charging the most consumers will pay, and since everyone on /. isn't a normal consumer, it will be too much for us. They will probably charge the same if not more than a DVD price, much like music CDs as you mention. _If_ they were smart they would hire a 100k/year webguy and setup their own online shop in a matter of weeks, but hey this is the studio we are t

  • the movie is already on torrent sites.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:45PM (#13727327) Homepage Journal
    ..anyways, so what is the point of having strong drm that the user will just dislike on the product? it's not like you could protect it.

    to compete they would need to provide a better "product" than the torrent sites... if they just offer something that is worse, in quality or conviency, and charge for it, would they get any of those users "back"?

    • The point is FUD (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SIGBUS ( 8236 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:57PM (#13727382) Homepage
      Make it consumer-unfriendly, then, when it flops, they can wave some cash under the nose of selected members of the Politburo, er, Congress, and whine more about "piracy." If they wave enough cash, they can buy all sorts of nice laws that basically insure that you don't really own the things that you buy.

  • Not worth it, unless they offer the back catalog. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RexRhino ( 769423 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:49PM (#13727343)
    If they are just going to put their new releases online, then there is no point really. I am not going to watch the next big blockbuster online, I am going to see it in the movie (or perhaps rent the DVD).

    What will make online movie rental or purchase worth something is if they can put a huge catalog of every movie ever made available for download. There are a lot of pretty obscure films out there, that I wouldn't buy the DVD, and the video store will never have, that could be made available.

    It is like iTunes... half the music I want just isn't available on iTunes. If iTunes had more than your standard HMV fare, then maybe it would be worth it.

  • Sigh... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by PyroGx1133 ( 542222 )
    Why do they care sooooooooo much about anti-piracy when you can already download any movie from most of the popular p2p networks?

    Its too late! All your movies have already been pirated!

    Just forget about anti-piracy and start selling those movies. You'll make much more money this way. (And its not like your gonna lose anymore than you already have from p2p networks.)
  • The "news/stories" get printed on /. first, and then the said company of the story either tries to figure out what where the story came from or they then get the idea from /. and start working on it immeediately.

  • how they can stop piracy... use markers in the (Score:3, Informative)

    by Serveert ( 102805 ) on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:57PM (#13727381)
    video.

    You download the video with a credit car, it embeds a tag that will ID you. It will be sprinkled about in the movie so that if you put it on bit torrent they can track you down and lock you up. That sounds like it might work, eh? For kicks they can require that you give blood or something in order to positively ID you.
    • Redirect screen output to video capture card, redirect audio output to audio capture software... hit play, come back two hours later, upload to pirate gang in China. There, that wasn't too hard.

      If it can be displayed, it can be captured, and if it can be captured you have no control over the format any more.

    • Yeah, that'll work briliantly. Because the pirates would never think of instead sharing a dvd rip, now would they?

      The point is, any copyright method they try will only work against normal people. Crackers will find a way around them. Said crackers then upload the uncracked version to a torrent network, average people download it. They would have to make it absolutely impossible for anybody to get a undrmed copy of it, which is impossible, in order for any type of copy protection scheme to work.

      Plus, I i

      • I just don't see this as being cracked so easily. How will it be cracked, seriously? Let's say we put random colors here and there to encode information, how will crackers know when it's cracked? They will not be able to tell is the answer, unless they had a huge pool of movies to work with. The cost could be so prohibitive that piracy won't be a problem.

        And who cares if a few geeks share a few movies, the real problem is when people start putting it on bit torrent.

        As for the CPU load? Where is that, we pla
  • Obviously online distribution and/or On Demand is going to be the rule in 5 years, not the exception. But I keep buying DVDs for the commentaries and extra material.

    Is there going to be the economic incentive to provide all this extra material with online distribution?

    What's going to happen to Criterion?

  • Gotta be careful (Score:3, Funny)

    by dtfinch ( 661405 ) * on Wednesday October 05, 2005 @11:58PM (#13727387) Journal
    If one of those movies were to make its way onto a P2P network, God forbid, the results would be disasterous...

  • This system is already doomed for failure... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fallen Kell ( 165468 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @12:01AM (#13727396)
    The movie industry still doesn't get "it". People won't buy something that is crippled. They will probably invest millions of dollars into this project, money that could be better spent on cutting the price of their products by $1-2, which would probably get them more sales and thus more profit. Really, anything over the production cost of the medium is pure profit on the better movies (that is, anything that wasn't a flop, because the theatrical release would normally already cover the cost of production of the movie itself). So, knowing that, a medium like the internet where the costs of the content itself is litterally the cost of the bandwidth used to download/stream, just about any price is greedy. Now having said that I know that is not how things work... The reason this is doomed is because people are not going to be able to use it how they want to. First off, there are too few households that do not have the capability to download a movie or even watch a video stream over the internet because no broadband access is availble. Add to that fact that people don't want to watch movies on their 17-19" 4:3 computer display if they have a 27" or larger TV, let alone a front projector or HDTV. Any DRM that is placed on the content will ensure that watching it on those displays will be very difficult unless they own a "Home Theater Personal Computer" (HTPC). Even assuming that there is a HTPC, with broadband access and everything else required, why would someone want to use your product over the more conventional methods like purchasing the DVD, or renting the DVD? With the restrictions that will be put in place to give a "secure" method, what usage will be lost to the consumer? At this point we are already well beyond the technical compitency of the average movie consumer, which means that the customer base is extremely limted, both do to technical requirements and technical know-how. You are now looking at a customer market that DO know what they are doing, and know how things work. So if your product is not as good in quality at the rental DVD that is avalible, they will simply use the higher quality product, because they actually know better then to take the PR department's word on it.

  • "Failsafe Security" (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nova Express ( 100383 ) <lawrenceperson@@@gmail...com> on Thursday October 06, 2005 @12:09AM (#13727426) Homepage Journal
    By "Failsafe Security" they mean the 1950s meaning of the word. Each copy of the movie comes with a nuclear warhead. If your copy of the movie every ends up on the Internet, Universal detonates the warhead, killing you, your family, and everyone else in a quarter-mile radius.

    This will be known as Mutual Assured DRM.

  • I'm thinking. . . (Score:4, Insightful)

    by evilmrhenry ( 542138 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @12:16AM (#13727473)
    Looking at the article, I'm thinking Windows-only, WMP or propriatary program-only, low quality, only offering renting options, at a higher price than Blockbuster.

    It will be used to show that online distribution of movies does not work, in preparation for pushing another anti-P2P law through congress.

  • Why bother... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Pollux ( 102520 ) <speter AT tedata DOT net DOT eg> on Thursday October 06, 2005 @12:17AM (#13727479) Journal
    If this deal ends up to be anything like Steve Jobs' bout with the music industry, the movie industry will price their movie downloads as much as it costs to rent one at the video store ($3 to $4) for a single download. May as well spend the money to go rent the DVD for the extra features...AND THEN RIP IT TO MY COMPUTER ANYWAYS! ...

    Oops...I said the loud part soft and the soft part loud...ugh.

  • must be accompanied by fail-safe methods... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @12:23AM (#13727507) Homepage
    Er, No, not necessary.

    Here's how it works, Bob: you make it possible for me to very easily pay you a price I like and I won't pirate it. Because, you see, it's to my advantage to pay for it.

    Basically, Bob, you're a hooker: you got something I want, I got something you want, and we gotta agree on a price.

    Indeed, you're one of three hookers on this block. You lucked out: the only parking spot was around the corner, so you're the first hooker that's got something to offer. There's another hooker half-way down the block: she's the "reparatory" hooker. The one at the end of the block is the "blockbusters" hooker. And past the end and across the tracks is the "torrent" hooker. All the hookers on this block are looking pretty much the same, but within that range, you're definately the tops, Bob.

    Now, Bob, you seem to think you're worth about twenty-five bucks. Because by the time I pay for my ticket and my wife's, we're getting into that range.

    I want you to know the reparatory hooker only wants twelve bucks. I just have to walk down to her; not long, 'cause I'm not so overwhelming horny that I just gotta get blown right this second, Bob. And the blockbusters whore, why she's just four bucks -- but she'll blow me twice and I don't have to leave my house!

    The torrent whore gives free blowjobs, but she's got ragged teeth and is pretty de-rezzed. I'm not such a cheap sumbitch that I'll go to her, Bob. I do pay for my movie entertainment.

    Anyway, Bob, my point is this: you're an overpriced whore. I almost always rent the DVD; when I don't, I almost always end up at the reparatory. The last mainstream cinema showing I attended was Lord of the Rings. Exceptionally few films justify the first-print, top-rate quality, IMO.

    So anyway, my point is this: so long as the free whore is skanky-looking, I'm not going to pirate: I'll take whatever reasonable cheap alternative provides me a home-system-quality experience. That experience is not going to be worth more than a DVD rental.

  • 'These movies are so expensive, we have to be careful,' he said.'"

    Why are they so expensive? Is it the ridiculous salaries demanded by the "stars", insane amount of money spent on promotion, CG run amok because it's "cool", exorbitant salaries paid to executives, legal fees?

    What it's all about is an industry that is feeling the squeeze lately. It's an industry that has been fat & happy for about 50 years and now has to come to terms with reality.

    I foresee "star" salaries coming down quite a bit a

  • Free movies! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by almound ( 552970 )
    Having trouble getting excellent films that report real issues in a truthful manner? Can't get through to www.infowars.com or www.prisonplanet.com? Well, guess what, it is Time-Warner and AOL ISPs filtering the DNS. Fancy that. (Traceroute is great.)

    Just go to infowars.net. They overlooked that one.

    Go there and get your free movies and info-links about real issues as reported in major news media.
  • NBC/Universal programming. now all we have to do is wait a week to find out whether this will be two-tier off iTunes (rent cheap, buy pricey) or what.
  • Universal, among other major motion picture companies, have had their movies online for years! I'm suprised people are just finding out about this now, I've been watching movies online since the dawn of the internet...

    Why hello Mr. Nice MPAA Representitive... what are you doing to my compu...

    +++NO_CARRIER

  • Another option... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ErikZ ( 55491 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @01:42AM (#13727763)
    'These movies are so expensive, we have to be careful,' he said.'"


    Or you can make them so affordable that it's not worth the time to pirate.

  • it's a no brainer (Score:3, Insightful)

    by timmarhy ( 659436 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @02:03AM (#13727816)
    if a movie studio offered all their titles for $5 usd a piece, with drm that say allows 5 copies to be made and it lets you download from a massive pipe so you get full speed with no queues, and the supply HD to boot, they would destroy piracy over night. sure some cheap bastards would still download bootlegged stuff. but it will be that shit quality stuff, and they will still have to wait forever to get it via p2p, which is lets face it crap compared to a well managed download service. in they would not have made a sale on people like that anyway. the key essence here is

    price,speed,quality.

    it's well within studio's power, they WILL make money off it, the only thing stopping them is their own stupidity.

  • Next year? (Score:4, Funny)

    by HungSquirrel ( 790165 ) on Thursday October 06, 2005 @02:36AM (#13727898) Homepage
    Dear God, why wait so long? I want Serenity now.

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