Red Box Stands Up to Warner 56 Day New Release Delay

Wow, so the studios don't want Redbox and others buying DVDs retail, just consumers? What idiocy.

A sale is a sale is a sale. Who cares who buys it as long as it gets bought and the studios make the money?

Sure Redbox then rents that DVD out, but consumers aren't likely to buy movies they haven't seen in the theaters or via rental so even if the consumer goes to Redbox first, it might promote a sale if the movie is worth it (or the consumer is interested in the extras that don't typically come on teh rental discs).

If monkeys ran our government and our corporations I think we'd be better off. When will Planet of the Apes occur again?

The studios won't make as much money.

Basically, NF bends over for TW and the studios because in the streaming world, the studios have 100% control. Unlike the physical world, there is no First Sale law for streaming or even downloads.

NF wants to get rid of DVD's as soon as it can. That means it cannot do anything that will anger the studios.

That's the thinking of the studios but I think we all know that Redbox would be a new retail customer for DVDs, as most people who use Redbox and other services like these are not buying DVDs to begin with, nor would we buy DVDs simply because we could not rent them.

The rental disks don't have the extra content. So I would perfer a retail DVD/Blu-ray.

Trying to restrict purchases won't work, not really. Sure, they can try, but there are so many retailers selling DVD's that it won't matter much. RedBox will simply spread purchases out among several retailers and get all they need.

These idiots really don't understand how most people choose what to watch. I don't know of anyone who will, if they can't find a movie available to rent, run out and buy it, unless they can find it in the bargain bin for not much more than the rental price. If they don't find a title they were looking to rent, most will simply choose another one, or, if they can't find another one they like, they'll either watch something they already own or simply find something else to do.

These executives have spent so much time and money telling us that their shit is gold that they've actually started believing it themselves.

id rather rent the disc that doesnt have the extra content and download/view the extra content from the internet to watch it than buy an overpriced disc with the extra content that im only going to watch once and not again for a quite a number of years.

From what I've seen with the government, I think they already do.

No kidding. They could probably open a few Amazon accounts and buy from them and no one would be the wiser.

I am referring to the article. So I am looking forward to getting retail disks from RedBox. I do like the extras, sometimes.

Can't RedBox get into legal problems by buying retail DVD's and then renting them for profit? AFAIK, retail DVD's are for customer's own private viewing. RedBox might be thinking like the majority of us: once you paid for it, it's yours to do as you please, but according to studios, that may not be the case. Now, it's impossible to police when regular Joe Schmoes like us are lending them to our friends, but when a company like RedBox officially is rents them for profit, it's different.

Not that I am a big fan of what studios are doing with these delays, but IMO the only way to rent it the legitimate way is on their terms.

Amazon, Buy.com, Best Buy, Newegg, Walmart, GoHastings, Fry's, DeepDiscount.com, J&R, and many more that I can't even think of at the moment, not to mention all the local retailers.

If WB tries to restrict the amount of product a retailer can sell Redbox, then Redbox should sue WB. Maybe under RICO? I don't know the law, so I'm sure about that one. But one would think that WB would be violating at least one law dealing in restricting trade.

This might be an opportunity for a rogue website in another country to make a profit. Start a subscription service similar to Netflix, stream any movie and ignore the C&D's. People will think it's legal because they're paying for it. If they're in the right place (such as a third world country) they won't get shut down unless the US declares war on that country. Plus they can advertise their service as being available worldwide, which Netflix can't do. How does the Pirate Bay stay up so long despite being the target of every copyright enforcement agency in the world?

Hollywood would lose a lot of the Netflix money and would have to change their terms to allow Netflix to compete with the illegal site. Right now, every movie in the entire Netflix catalog is able to be pirated for free. But people pay for Netflix for the ease of access and integration with multiple devices, as well as the fact that it's legal and affordable. If a new website pops up that has the exact same service as Netflix, except that it has many more movies available for streaming and it's illegal (but the site claims it's legal), people will switch to it.

No.

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fi ··· einstein

The warnings against renting printed on DVDs mean nothing.

This won't drive anyone else to piracy who doesn't already know how to pirate. No one is going to spend the time waiting on a disc to arrive from Netflix or driving down to the store to go grab one out of a big red machine when they can just download it for free within minutes.

The only people who are upset about this are butthurt Netflix subscribers who are too incompetent to pirate and know they're going to have to wait or *gasp* actually pay a reasonable sum of money for their media that cost the studios millions to make!

If everyone rented and no one bought home video wouldn't exist. People who only rent leech off of buyers who actually support the studios. They make pennies from people who rent and hundreds of times more from just a single person who buys a $20 disc. When you rent you fork over your money to a middleman like Netflix, not to the people who actually made the shit you're watching.

how? WB can restrict the wholesalers with no problems. If the wholesaler does not wish to comply WB can pull their supply and contract from them as well.

Better yet, have their employees make purchases for them using their personal accounts (either on Amazon or wherever they find best deals) and then reimburse them for the cost. They should have plenty of inventory if every employee buys 2-3 copies. Plus it's next to impossible to track where each individual shopper is employed. Most reputable B&M and online retailers don't ask anyway as it's none of their business.

And as an extra-added bonus, once the popularity of any given title dies down, they sell most of the copies as used and make some money back.

if they plan on carrying the discs that have all the features and extra content without the stupid 10 minute coming attractions and "how piracy is bad" commercials, then that is a big plus since most newer home disc players wont let you skip that sh_t to begin with and youre forced to wait it out.
all the more one reason why i prefer streaming over renting, because of the annoying 10 minute coming attractions and advertisements you cant skip (on newer players) before you can even get to the dvd menu to start the movie.

Redbox can make a quiet arrangement with Walmart, for example, to buy 2x the number of copies they'd normally buy for movies that Redbox specifies. The movie studios may threaten to cancel sales to Walmart, but they won't.

Why does Walmart care if a Redbox employee buys (40) copies of the same movie for $16.99 or (40) individuals buy a single copy for $16.99. In fact, Walmart probably prefers the BULK sale !

I thought some guy tried to do this with network connected dvd players and failed. failed as in government\business said nono

LULZ! Dude, You contradict! You criticize the Netflix subscriber (the viewer is telling Hollywood, lower the price, we aren't buying the greed) then call the product shit. Netflix licenses content from the studios. The studios missed the boat (What, people want quality and reasonable price??? That can't be!!).

Why you a h8ter?. Buying movies is for collectors and ____. Cost per movie with Redbox and Netflix can be $1/movie. Show me DVDs or BluRay discs retailing for $1! Supporting the studios? Where do you get this BS? Movie studios make their money on the first run and overseas distribution, and licensing. Retail movie DVD sales makes up less than ~20% of the take.
(See »www.the-numbers.com/dvd/ ··· 2011.php)

E.g Harry Potter Deathly Hallows made close to $400M but took in ANOTHER $85M.

There is a small percentage of movie-aficionados (and they are the Limited edition/Collector's market). The average viewer will watch a movie once. Why buy? Have little ones, and want to pacify them with a DVD over and over and over (hey VHS tape wore out, DVDs don't..well not while they are little ones), you'll get a bunch at the bargain bin at WalMart for $5 for some Disney-Direct-2-DVD crap.

Would you give me $100 for my Director's Cut BluRay, limited edition BladeRunner? $200? (hmm $150 on Bluray.com...)

Glad redbox stuck a finger up. Maybe Netflix is being more sensitive as it needs to posture to get talent for it's own distribution.

BTW, Redbox is owned by Coinstar... didn't know that.

So you think it's legal for a company to put into a contract saying how many units a wholesaler can sell to a customer? Maybe your right, but that doesn't sound quite right to me.

That post is a giant mess of obnoxious and I'm not even going to bother reading it so I can formulate a response.

"LULZ!" stopped reading right there. Go back to 4chan.

Problem with buying all the time is the fact that theses studios are making $h!t ( pardon my French) movies and want to get paid top dollar for it. Really I cant think of anyone who want to pay $20 a pop for a movie ever time a new release comes out. Renting actually helps the buying practice. Simply have you ever said, "I heard that movie was good but do I really want to spend $20 on it?" Many of us have, And what happens you end up saying.. "let me rent that for $1 from that darn box and if I like it that much Ill purchase it retail with the extras afterwards". However for the sake of argument from a third party not knowing a thing about the underground piracy world ( cough,cough) Take that rented DVD and with a few clicks of a mouse and some crafty software you can purchase online Rip that Box rented movie to DIVX format!

Not to mention Blockbuster said to hell with this deal a month ago and is purchasing there dvds retail so there available day one so why would redbox wait 56 days? that would surely put them out of business!
»www.hollywoodreporter.co ··· s-280467

I can agree with warner bro. that a wait time is acceptable business practice, however there wait time is NOT Acceptable by far. DVDS get released on Tuesdays so allow for the first week/weekend to pass by to generate DVD sales then the following monday ( 6 days after retail release if your keeping track) It should be available for rental. PERIOD. Fact, After the first week a DVD is released for sale, all the promos for it are off the air anyway and people ( customers) loose interest.

I agree, this stinks of the same monopoly control Microsoft used over computer retailers in the 90s.

Good luck streaming video from another country. International bandwidth ain't that great.

You can typically get the Blu-ray of any movie for $10-15 a couple months after release on Amazon.

Of course there's a lot of junk out there but with so much top-notch content why even bother watching the junk? There's too many good movies to watch in a lifetime, or ten lifetimes... I don't understand why people complain about crap movies. No one is forcing you to watch them.

This move will force impatient people who don't care about owning but really enjoy certain franchises to have to go out and buy instead of renting like they normally do. Plus it forces rental companies to go around the studios and go buy the movies at full retail price. Typically they get a discount buying direct from the studio; not with this method. So if it's Red Box buying up the movies at retail because of the delay or an end consumer, the studio still wins all the same.

Exactly. There is absolutely no way that a studio would want to get into an arms race with a major retailer. Sure, they could withhold a popular title, but the retailer could then retaliate by pulling the studio's entire catalog from the shelves. In the end, both would lose money, but the retailer would absorb the loss better since it sells many other products and can simply reallocate that shelf space to something else. The studio, OTOH, has just lost a major distributor of the only product they make.

The movie studios, record labels, and television programmers seem to think that they can continue to maximize their profit with no repercussions and that people will pay whatever is demanded of them. I think they're in for a rude awakening.