Warner Bros movies at $2.75
p2p news / p2pnet: The fact that, thanks to the Net and p2p communications, ‘consumers’ are becoming customers with free choice, again, is starting to have a marked impact on outmoded corporate business models, still locked tight into the physical 1970s and ’80s although the companies are now in the digital 21st century.
Outrageous Hollywood prices have been forced down in one country at least.
Warner Bros is now selling “selected” movies for a mere $2.75 in major Chinese cities, “aiming to carve out a market for relatively affordable but high-quality, legitimate versions of movies in a sea of counterfeit products selling for less than a dollar,” says Associated Press.
“The reason why piracy’s come along is that there weren’t enough products at the right price soon enough,” the story has Tony Vaughan, managing director of CAV Warner Home Entertainment Co, Warner Bros’ joint venture distribution company in China, in a marvel of convoluted comment.
And there’s been another innovation.
“Companies that once relied on lawsuits and police raids are diversifying their strategies, turning to competitive pricing and trying out new technologies to even up seemingly overwhelming odds,” says the story.
Competitive pricing? New technologies? Wash your mouth out!
It seems the movie industry is discovering a truth its brethren over in Corporate Music Land are slowly learning, at their customers’ expense, of course, namely:
You can’t sue people into buying shoddily produced, formulaic, over-priced product.
“Warner is also experimenting with releases in China’s provincial cities of cheaper, simply packaged DVDs that sell for under $1.85,” continues AP.
Software and media companies, meanwhile, “are running into other hurdles as they develop new encryption and so-called digital rights management technologies meant to prevent excessive copying on personal computers,” says the story, adding:
“Sony BMG Music Entertainment faced lawsuits over flawed CD copy protection software that opened a potential security vulnerability when it was automatically installed on computers. Sony settled a number of lawsuits and offered a one-click ‘uninstall’ application to remove the copy protection program.”
Digg this.
Also See:
Associated Press – Companies fight back against China piracy, July 2, 2006
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July 10th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
You know, when I started to write a response to this I thought the MPAA was messing up again. Now that I’ve done the math, I’m more concerned they read p2pnet and used my idea lol! I’m normally ‘very’ anti-MPAA/RIAA on and offline so for anyone that knows me, this post will be a surprise.
I’d gone over what I believe to be a decent comparison of Russian income vs American and the price differences (http://p2pnet.net/story/9287). Now I believe, based on income information from China Daily (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-02/22/content_418101.htm) which shows the richest Chinese are making $3,600/yr and the poorest are maknig $890/yr, that the MPAA is using the same kind of pricing structure I suggested (scarry thought).
The average American makes 24k/yr which is $2000/mo, a $20 movie is 1% of the monthly income. For the Chinese, if I take the highest income plus the lowest income divided by 2 that’s $2245/yr or $187/mo. Now if I look at the $2.75 movie, that’s 1.5% of their income. Honestly, I’m surprised they’re trying this – because it’s logical…. income based pricing makes too much sense so, what’s the catch? I notice they’re hand picking the movies that get this pricing which if all they’re doing is putting the 40’s tv shows that nobody wants to buy over at Walmart for the $1.88 they charge then they’re not going to get anywhere. But if they’re pricing newer (within the last 2 years) movies, they might be on the right track.
Oh God, someone slap me….. but I said it. If they’re going to make an effort and do fair pricing and then do the same globally… it could help pull them out of their current downward spiral.
The only thing better than a pricing change they could do would be to now stop sueing their customers – as pricing levels out globally their inflated problems with pirate copies of movies being sold would disappear.
Just my 10 cents.
_-Jile-_
July 10th, 2006 at 9:05 pm
Well, granted… 1.5% vs 1% is a lot. But its a big step in the downward pricing direction.
July 11th, 2006 at 12:37 am
The music industry doesnt produce music shodily,they have far more taleted people than indie labels because they can afford it.
July 11th, 2006 at 3:27 am
One of the big reasons the cartels use for the cost is that everything around them costs more. What they fail to mention is that many use loopholes in government to assist in cutting the costs. In Germany, not long ago it was exposed that through legal shinaginans, the government was funding part of it. Of course this info was never disclosed by the industry itself. They continued to point to the expense of making the film while neglecting to mention the assist they were getting.
On the whole it demonstrates that much of what the industry is doing is crying wolf. While they can get the governments to listen, almost no one else believes the spin and hype produced. Inflated figures and creative accounting ensure that no one on the outside will ever crack their true costs.
Maybe when the cease the sue’em all and get the prices reasonable without the protection schemes they will see me as a customer again. For the now, I’m on boycott. I won’t be casting a shadow over the store steps anytime soon I don’t think.
As always there is someone out there that’s been told the story often enough to believe the industries claims. But then, Barnum and Bailey had a saying that fit the situation didn’t they?
July 11th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
hmmm, why don’t they test this in the US market? why? because we americans love to throw money at things like it isn’t worth anything and big companies love that.
July 11th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
Dude I thought nothing was going to cheer me up today and then I read your comment…
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The music industry doesnt produce music shodily,they have far more taleted people than indie labels because they can afford it.
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The Industry can afford AIR TIME for the crap they produce and therefor they shove it down the throats of people like yourself who think it is “good”.
July 11th, 2006 at 8:25 pm
cool graphic