My idea for the movie industry's piracy "problem"

There's always been a premium on getting things early though. The only difference with that system is the excessive pricing.
 
Caged said:
If we take this thread to represent wider opinions then it's not really surprising that this problem hasn't been solved - we've gone from people saying that movies need a Spotify-like model on page 1 to suggesting that all music should be free, games are worth a maximum of £5, and new cinema releases should be available to stream at home for £20 a month by page 3. If you keep telling yourself that you will give up pirating content when it can meet those sorts of price / convenience points then you're going to be justifying it forever.

In reality the argument for why a large number of people pirate content is "because if I can get it for free, I will". And that's a totally valid argument, just don't pretend that you wouldn't find a reason to carry on doing it even if Netflix/Prime etc. started to meet the demands that you've laid out here.
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I think you've misrepresented what people have said to suit your own argument.

Let's take games. Since the advent of Steam and competing services, this is what happens:

* Game is released at full RRP - typically these days £30 to £40. Early adopters buy immediately.
* Over the course of the next few months, the game decreases in cost to roughly half price.
* Roughly 18 months after release, the game is regularly found on special offer, often for as little as £5 (sometimes less!) This price point attracts a lot of "impulse buys" and interest from people who might not consider the game normally.

I, personally, do not buy games full price. So I wait for often over a year before buying. However every game I play I must buy, and the creator gets paid his cut.

Now the film model...

* Film released in cinema for £10 a seat. Runs for ??? months.
* After cinema run ends, film is for a time completely unavailable anywhere.
* Gets DVD/BluRay release. Prices normally start at £10 for DVD or ??? for BluRay (sorry I don't own one!).
* Limited online PPV rental window begins. Priced at £5 per viewing. Window open for ??? months.
* Film becomes unavailable to rent online.
* You can now only rent this film on disc, which means you must be signed up to Lovefilm By Post or similar service. Let's not forget that Blockbuster and most local brick/mortar outlets have long since closed.
* May or may not be added to subscription services like Netflix. If so, availability is limited to ??? months. Will likely be "exclusive" to one service, so good luck getting to see it unless you sub to them all.
* Several years later (depending on film) it gets a TV release. Free at the point of viewing, but obviously the channel has to pay to air it. Can be recorded and viewed as often as you like, for absolutely no charge whatsoever.

So there you have it.

With a game, you can trade getting it early with getting it cheap. The more you wait, the less you pay. You'll always have to pay something, however. You normally get 5+ hours of entertainment from any title. You can't re-sell online purchases, whether you intend to replay them or not (I don't).

With a film, the prices are set in stone (across all providers) and waiting will do nothing for you - unless you can wait *years*. You either pay £10 to see it in the cinema, or you pay £5 to watch it online. Or you pay £10+ to buy it. Or, years later, £0 to watch it on TV (and record it!).

So, I ask... Why should there be a limited availability for online rental? Why should an older film only be available online to buy? Why can I only rent older films on disc?

Why shouldn't I be able to wait X months and rent a film online, for a bit less than I would have paid on release? Maybe I'd give a few more films a chance that I wouldn't for £5, if a few months later I could rent them for £3.

Why are they still peddling SD rentals for £3.50? Madness!

As said, I currently don't rent any films. I certainly don't buy any on disc, and wouldn't at any price, because I don't want the clutter.

The question was asked: "how much would you buy a film for?" The answer is, I don't collect movies. I watch a film once. I read a book once. I do not want to build up a collection. It does not interest me. So the answer is nothing.
 
I agree that availability is an issue, but your posts throughout this thread just point at an idea of a 'reasonable' price that is just not going to happen. The streaming services do not have great catalogues in the UK at least, and yes there is a ~5 month lag between a cinema release and the film becoming available on formats you'd watch at home, but my point was that even if you solved all of those, you'd still be claiming that £4.50 to rent a movie in HD was too much money. So what incentive is there for the studios to do anything other than what they currently are?

Incidentally, you're cherry-picking your games example somewhat. There are plenty of titles on Steam approaching their 1-year anniversary that are still in the £30-40 range.
 
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Caged said:
Incidentally, you're cherry-picking your games example somewhat. There are plenty of titles on Steam approaching their 1-year anniversary that are still in the £30-40 range.
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They would be the exception rather than the rule.

Listen, as long as nobody is forced me to rent movies they can charge what they want.

All I'm saying is that if I could rent an older movie - say, Guardians of the Galaxy which has now been out >1 year - for £3 for HD, I would.

Currently I have no plans to watch this movie (and numerous others) until they hit the small screen, if they ever do.

And if I never see them - it's no big deal. But they could be making extra money if they cut the rental price after X time.

As it is, the current model doesn't allow that. After X time the film is unavailable to rent full stop.

Question: do you believe a >1 year old film should still be £5 to rent in HD? Even in the days of Blockbuster the new releases commanded more than the older releases.

At least you seem to agree that not being able to rent a >1 year old film at all (digitally) is a failing of the current model.
 
I don't think that films are worth less as they age, no. I don't consider a year to be a point when a film is 'old' either, really. Films don't age anywhere nearly as quickly as games do.

If you currently only watch movies when they are free then you shouldn't be surprised that none of the rental services see you as a customer worth winning over. I don't see the £4.49 iTunes rental cost as extreme - it's barely more than a pint. My only criticism of these services is content availability.
 
Last time I watched a genuine DVD I was forced to watch a bunch of stuff like you won't steal a car, you wouldn't steal a handbag etc etc and you couldn't skip it.
 
pepsilol said:
Last time I watched a genuine DVD I was forced to watch a bunch of stuff like you won't steal a car, you wouldn't steal a handbag etc etc and you couldn't skip it.
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Haha, God that brings back memories now! Think the last time I saw all that was renting when DVDs just became popular.
 
Moses said:
You don't know that :o. Unless you can prove, for example, that if they halve the price they'll more than double sales..? Oh wait, you can't!
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You would have to be very, very blinkered to think that if they cut the price they wouldn't get extra customers.

I made no claims that sales would double.

I know plenty of people in my own life who I've discussed this with, for whom £4.50 is just more than they are willing to spend on a film rental.

I suspect that being from a working class background, and not some self made millionaire like everyone on this forum (:p), myself and the people I talk to value £5 more than you.
 
Moses said:
If you sell 100 copies of a photo you took for £2 each, that brings in £200. If you cut the price thinking you'll get more customers (you probably will)... and you then sell them for £1... you need to sell 100% more copies just to be in exactly the same revenue position. You'd need to more than double your sales to make any more money.

Reducing prices would probably increase sales... but you need to show that they'd increase sales enough to make more money. Do you not understand that simple concept? Perhaps I could draw a picture for you to help?

Congratulations from being from a working class background, and thus knowing the score more than the rest of us. Where do I sit on the 'knowing the score' scale, given I was raised on a council estate?
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Yet again, over-simplifying.

How about modelling the situation whereby you sell for the higher rate for 1 year, then the lower rate after one year.

People who absolutely must see a film ASAP will pay the higher rate. People who can wait a year will pay the lower rate. People who wouldn't participate at all may do so at the lower rate.

Question: How many of you insisting that £4.50 is the best possible price for a movie rental work in the industry?

I don't know anyone who would say "I don't want to pay less for my gas/electric/fuel." It seems odd that some people don't want prices to come down for certain things...?

Perhaps I don't "get it"?
 
OldCoals said:
Nail, head.
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Totally agree also. Those leaks at Sony et al about the "project to take down Google" as they thought it would help piracy... it's crazy!?

People just want ease and convenience. I'd pay for films if, like has been said, I can get a top quality copy, with good sound, for a decent price (happy for it to be the cost of a cinema ticket etc.) on release day. I can't be chored going to the cinema, it's a bind.
I just want ease. If one place had all the films, you clicked buy and got it easy, best quality and not miles after release, I'd do it. But you can't.
 
Or just pirate, it's not 1995, we all have fibre (well, most of us). Navigating safely through the net is much easier these days with some common sense and freeware to stop nasty bugs...

Or, just join a private site, it's MUCH better in terms of connection, files left right and center...

Not that I would ever do that of course.
 
Pirating is just too easy as of late. Find common website (add "proxy", etc. at the end of your search if your ISP has blocked it for obvious reasons), search for film, find torrent with most seeders/quality, download said torrent, and enjoy.

You feel like you actually "own" the film (well, it's downloaded locally, not streamed from some server), highly unlikely to get viruses anymore (a common stigma associated with download content illegal), and if you do get "caught", there are literally no implications either, at most they'll send you a letter telling you not to pirate (as far as I know).

Tons of people who can't sign up to and pay for these subscriptions (for whatever reasons), can easily just watch most of the content online anyway, without any real hassle.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
The business model of the film industries need to be updated to how consumers want to use their content. They are extremely slow and resistant to this change at their own peril.
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Totally agree.

The movie industry still things we all need/want to have giant towers of dvd/blu ray racks to put all of our optical media in.

Optical media, though still useful for some, is quickly becoming obsolete.

Renting movies is still too expensive. Provide a flexible-cost effective service and people will jump ship. It's that easy. But exactly as you've said - they're resistant to change. The people making the decisions are not in touch with modern technology.

It's illegal to make digital copies of content on DVD/Blu ray, even for personal reasons/backup. I mean, come on.
 
Hindsight edit: NowTV is awful. Atm, there is barely anything on their movies service apart from films from the 80s and early 90s. The number of "new releases" is shockingly poor. And even the films they do have are 3 star or worse, for the most part. There are no "must see" movies on NowTV and if you want to see the blockbusters, look elsewhere.

I'll leave the crap I posted here earlier for posterity.

/edit

So I finally get to see Guardians of the Galaxy, Edge of Tomorrow, and countless others. Legally and totally free*.

And it all started after giving up on the legal route, and doing a Google search for an alternative source. The first results on Google are legal places to get the film. Google's way of saying "tut tut". The top result was Amazon - yes Google, I know I can buy the film from lots of places, starting at £10 for glorious SD (they really should discontinue SD).

The 2nd was was more interesting. Now TV - free trial. I'd heard of Now TV ages ago, but for some reason forgot all about it.

Anyway, for the grand sum of £0, nada, squat, I signed up to the 30 day trial. Viola, all those films I'd missed and now cannot rent are (from what I've seen) mostly all available. In fact I've just watched Edge of Tomorrow.

The only downside is that it's not HD, and I've had to watch on my PC, due to my TV being incompatible (I need the £10 set top box).

In fact a 30 day trial is hugely generous, because in that time I will be able to watch every single movie that I've been been meaning to see for ages. Without paying a penny, and totally legally.

I might let even let them bill me once so as not to be a total cheapskate :p

As said, the lack of HD is a real bummer, and might be a deal breaker for some. For me I just want to watch the movies. Wish I'd cottoned on to this sooner.

I must admit, it did seem absolutely ridiculous that a film only 1-2 years old would only be available to buy. And thankfully it isn't the case.

Yeah, yeah. I'm sure everyone here already knew about Now TV. In fact I'm probably the last person on Earth to find out about it!
 
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Now TV works with Chromecast, if you have one.

Edge of Tomorrow was one of my favourite films of 2014, as was Guardians.

Tell me about NowTV though, teetering on getting it, but with Netflix and loads of others competing, it's difficult to choose :confused:
 
Well, if people would stop buying / paying for film content the industry would rapidly restructure and offer business models people 'are' willing to pay for.

It's really that simple. The music industry showed how quickly it can react and offer much better pricing models to accommodate changing trends.

And I guarantee you, studios will still be making just as many movies a year if they were making $100 million in profit as they would if they were making a billion. People still need to eat.
 
Long thread but I believe that the problem lies mostly in distribution. Steam has got it bang on, making it easy to get and store your collection, without much hassle.

Movies? DRM, messages in your face constantly - when its less hassle to pirate there's a problem. Steam solved that so PC game piracy isn't a big thing at all now.
 
Diddums said:
Now TV works with Chromecast, if you have one.

Edge of Tomorrow was one of my favourite films of 2014, as was Guardians.

Tell me about NowTV though, teetering on getting it, but with Netflix and loads of others competing, it's difficult to choose :confused:
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Not much to say. Offers up to 720p (depending on device - eg Win 8.1 PC can get 720p, but Win7 PC and others can only get SD).

Is a streaming service like Netflix. But Now TV gets movies in the first streaming "window" - ie, some years before Netflix, Amazon Prime, et al. Sky pays a lot for this (info from techradar).

These windows come *after* the PPV rental windows - ie, your Blinkbox £4.49 24 hour rental.

The set top box does 720p and is £10 from Sky directly.

You buy a 1 month movie pass and can watch whatever is on the service. You can find out what's on in advance on their website. The 1 month pass is £10, but there's no contract and you can do it as little or often as you like. Then binge for a month on movies before cancelling it again for 6 months... Seems to be the best way to go.
 
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