Warner and the Pirates
p2pnet.net News:- Having, many believe, jump-started its own diatribes against p2p file sharing by arranging for a work print of Revenge of the Sith to mysteriously appear on the p2p networks before the movie theatres, Hollywood has now released a DVD of a flic at the same time it was shown for the first time in cinemas.
“In a groundbreaking response to movie piracy, Warner Bros. Entertainment released its latest film on DVD in China the same day it debuted in U.S. theaters,” says the LA Times breathlessly.
“The goal for Warner is to battle rampant piracy in China by giving movie fans a legitimate alternative to bootlegs,” says the story.
“But the boldness of Warner’s action, which it took last week with no fanfare, was tempered by its choice of movie: ‘The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,’ a relatively low-budget film that the studio had not [originally] planned on releasing in Chinese theaters.”
Heh
"A historical way to deal with the pirate market is to put in legitimate [products] at slightly over the piracy price and hope that people will convert," Ben Feingold, president of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. Sales is quoted as saying.
Another way would be for the entertainment cartels to adopt p2p and digital technologies as a major vehicle for sales, marketing and distribution, slowly replacing the physical product so beloved by the counterfeiters.
"We produce in the best means available, which means that for the content we control, we produce in digital, we deliver in digital," said Mark Cuban recently. "In every way shape and form. What makes it all work as a business for today and in the futures, is that the best in digital distribution is yet to come."
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See:-
LA Times – Warner Gets a Jump on Film Pirates in China, June 9, 2005
produce in digital – Mark Cuban joins p2p firms, p2pnet, March 28, 2005
June 9th, 2005 at 3:20 pm
Seems like this will be the example they will now trot out in court when a judge berates them for not giving the consumer viable choices…jeesh there is always a sinister spin to be considered when dealing with these urchins…
TT
June 9th, 2005 at 7:38 pm
Woah! “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”. That’s the third in the Travelling Pants series. I loved the last the first two [1]. Maybe I can get it from my local unofficial import shop. Shame the *region encoding* means I can’t play it on my laptop.
[1]A joke