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terça-feira, julho 05, 2005
Forget the Bootleg, Just Download the Movie Legally ?
...
The movie industry has in years past made half-hearted attempts to let people rent a small number of movies online, but the rapidly growing use of Internet video, both legal and pirated, is prompting it to create more robust download options and to consider online business models it dismissed as recently as a year ago.
The studios have been working for months to confront the technological and business challenges of digital sales. Those initiatives gained new urgency on June 27 when the Supreme Court ruled that companies distributing software that allows users to trade pirated copies of audio and video files are liable for copyright infringement only if they induce users to break the law.
...
The studios have strong incentive to make sure they offer consumers legal options: the rapid adoption of high-speed Internet connections is making the trading of pirated copies online easier and more widespread.
"It just will be easier and easier to be a legitimate consumer and harder and harder to be a pirate," said James Ramo, the chief executive of Movielink, a movie downloading service established by five major studios three years ago.
Of course, nobody argues that legal video downloads are going to take off quickly. It still takes half an hour or longer to download a movie, more than it takes some people to drive to a video store. The picture quality on a computer screen is not as good as a television with a good cable hookup. And there are not easy ways to move movies downloaded onto a PC to a television set.
Still, there is already a growing group of technology-savvy video buffs who are using free file-sharing software like BitTorrent to download pirated programs, especially movies that have not yet been released to DVD and new episodes of TV shows.
Not surprisingly, the videos that people most want to download are those that Hollywood is most shy about making available online.
Studios do not want to undercut box office receipts and DVD sales for hit movies, and TV networks do not want to put popular shows online, which might allow more viewers to skip the commercials. Nor do they want to rush into new technology that itself could be perverted.
...
Hollywood is now betting that consumers will want to own digital copies of movies, much as they have embraced collecting DVD's. The final business deals are still being negotiated, and movies are not expected to be available for sale until this fall, but the outlines of how the business will work is clear.
The studios will most likely make downloads available to a wide range of online distributors. Those that are preparing to offer the movies include Movielink, MSN, Sony's Connect service, the Target Corporation's Target.com, and CinemaNow, an online movie rental store. Prices, to be set by the retailers, are expected to be similar to prices for DVD's, generally between $10 and $20.
The studios have decided that this model could well be at least as profitable as DVD sales.
Without the cost of distribution and the traditional retail markup, said Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chairman of Time Warner's entertainment and networks group, a downloaded copy of the fourth Harry Potter movie, for example, could be sold "for the same price as wholesale." The wholesale price of a DVD is around $12.
Mr. Ramo, from Movielink, said downloads would appeal to people who travel because the movies can be viewed on laptop computers. And many more titles can be made available online than in a typical retail store.
...
Still, there are some pesky technical issues that may limit the appeal of buying movie downloads. At first, the movies will be restricted to playing on a single computer with a television hookup. Some studio executives think this is far too narrow and consumers will want the ability to transfer movies to several computers, to portable devices and possibly to burn them to their own DVD's.
"The consumer experience is not good enough yet," said Yair Landau, vice chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is trying to work with other studios and electronics companies to define new legal structures for downloaded movies.
"If I sell you something that doesn't allow you to do what you want, it's not worth it," he said.
Other studios worry that more permissive schemes would invite piracy because the technology hasn't been commercially deployed that would allow people to make a limited number of copies of films without duplicating them for millions of their closest friends.
Kevin Tsujihara, an executive vice president of Warner Brothers Entertainment, argues that Hollywood must overcome those fears if it is to give consumers what they want. After all, the record labels were so cautious about not cannibalizing their existing business that they allowed piracy to flourish.
"If we are protecting a business, while at the same time not giving consumers what they ultimately want, it's not a sustainable model," Mr. Tsujihara said. "The music industry did a great job of not harming their ecosystem, but by doing that they killed their ecosystem."
The New York Times > Technology > Forget the Bootleg, Just Download the Movie Legally
The movie industry has in years past made half-hearted attempts to let people rent a small number of movies online, but the rapidly growing use of Internet video, both legal and pirated, is prompting it to create more robust download options and to consider online business models it dismissed as recently as a year ago.
The studios have been working for months to confront the technological and business challenges of digital sales. Those initiatives gained new urgency on June 27 when the Supreme Court ruled that companies distributing software that allows users to trade pirated copies of audio and video files are liable for copyright infringement only if they induce users to break the law.
...
The studios have strong incentive to make sure they offer consumers legal options: the rapid adoption of high-speed Internet connections is making the trading of pirated copies online easier and more widespread.
"It just will be easier and easier to be a legitimate consumer and harder and harder to be a pirate," said James Ramo, the chief executive of Movielink, a movie downloading service established by five major studios three years ago.
Of course, nobody argues that legal video downloads are going to take off quickly. It still takes half an hour or longer to download a movie, more than it takes some people to drive to a video store. The picture quality on a computer screen is not as good as a television with a good cable hookup. And there are not easy ways to move movies downloaded onto a PC to a television set.
Still, there is already a growing group of technology-savvy video buffs who are using free file-sharing software like BitTorrent to download pirated programs, especially movies that have not yet been released to DVD and new episodes of TV shows.
Not surprisingly, the videos that people most want to download are those that Hollywood is most shy about making available online.
Studios do not want to undercut box office receipts and DVD sales for hit movies, and TV networks do not want to put popular shows online, which might allow more viewers to skip the commercials. Nor do they want to rush into new technology that itself could be perverted.
...
Hollywood is now betting that consumers will want to own digital copies of movies, much as they have embraced collecting DVD's. The final business deals are still being negotiated, and movies are not expected to be available for sale until this fall, but the outlines of how the business will work is clear.
The studios will most likely make downloads available to a wide range of online distributors. Those that are preparing to offer the movies include Movielink, MSN, Sony's Connect service, the Target Corporation's Target.com, and CinemaNow, an online movie rental store. Prices, to be set by the retailers, are expected to be similar to prices for DVD's, generally between $10 and $20.
The studios have decided that this model could well be at least as profitable as DVD sales.
Without the cost of distribution and the traditional retail markup, said Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chairman of Time Warner's entertainment and networks group, a downloaded copy of the fourth Harry Potter movie, for example, could be sold "for the same price as wholesale." The wholesale price of a DVD is around $12.
Mr. Ramo, from Movielink, said downloads would appeal to people who travel because the movies can be viewed on laptop computers. And many more titles can be made available online than in a typical retail store.
...
Still, there are some pesky technical issues that may limit the appeal of buying movie downloads. At first, the movies will be restricted to playing on a single computer with a television hookup. Some studio executives think this is far too narrow and consumers will want the ability to transfer movies to several computers, to portable devices and possibly to burn them to their own DVD's.
"The consumer experience is not good enough yet," said Yair Landau, vice chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which is trying to work with other studios and electronics companies to define new legal structures for downloaded movies.
"If I sell you something that doesn't allow you to do what you want, it's not worth it," he said.
Other studios worry that more permissive schemes would invite piracy because the technology hasn't been commercially deployed that would allow people to make a limited number of copies of films without duplicating them for millions of their closest friends.
Kevin Tsujihara, an executive vice president of Warner Brothers Entertainment, argues that Hollywood must overcome those fears if it is to give consumers what they want. After all, the record labels were so cautious about not cannibalizing their existing business that they allowed piracy to flourish.
"If we are protecting a business, while at the same time not giving consumers what they ultimately want, it's not a sustainable model," Mr. Tsujihara said. "The music industry did a great job of not harming their ecosystem, but by doing that they killed their ecosystem."
The New York Times > Technology > Forget the Bootleg, Just Download the Movie Legally
posted by CMT, 6:00 da tarde
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and I thought you might be interested.
Our system is AUTOMATED so you don't have to worry about personal rejection. And, when you do find someone who's really serious about improving their finances, our automated system presents yourbusiness opportunity to them, one step at a time.
People that have read this same email just 1-2 months ago,
are now making the kind of income they knew they were
worth! If youhave 10-15 hours a week, you can do this too.
What would you do, and whom would you spend your time with when you're earning the kind of profits you'd like?
If you're interested to get a FREE tour,
please send an email to:> obed_edom@gawab.com
with the subject:> "Ok,let me know".
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of your email.I will then send you an email that contains
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