Netflix, Warner Agree to Delay Rentals by Four Weeks After DVD Release
Netflix, Warner Agree to Delay Rentals by Four Weeks After DVD Release
Posted 01/06/2010 at 4:56pm
| by Pulkit Chandna
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Warner Bros. had made it clear last August that it was not going to let movie rental services eat into its revenues by hurting DVD and Blu-ray sales. Now, it has concluded negotiations with Netflix, the largest movie rental service, and got its way. Netflix will only be allowed to rent out the film studio's DVD titles 28 days after they go on sale. As for the studio's end of the bargain, it has agreed to charge a reduced fee besides pledging more of its films to Netflix for its streaming service. Other studios are also expected to reach a similar understanding with Netflix.
The four-week delay is not without precedent. Universal, 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers had imposed exactly the same rider on the sale of DVDs to Redbox, prompting a lawsuit from the movie rental company against the three studios. “The 28-day window allows us to continue making our most popular films available to Netflix subscribers while supporting our sell-through product,” Warner Home Video president Ron Sanders said in a statement.
Image Credit: SlipperyBrick
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bloodgain
January 06, 2010 at 11:58pm
This, once again, proves the short-sightedness of the business and legal departments of movie and music studios and their pet lawsuit organizations.
While it is entirely plausible that the rise of Netflix had some impact on DVD end-sales, the timeframe had little to do with the impact. Only a small portion of the DVD-watching population purchases their DVDs, and an even smaller portion buys DVDs while they are still "New Releases". Most of those people wait for many more weeks until the DVD is less than $10. Also, due to a limited availability of New Releases from Netflix and retail rental outlets, most of us already wait a month to rent the DVD. In the rare case that we want to see a movie so much that we'll go buy it, we would have bought it, anyway.
All I see on the horizon is an increase in the number of people who no longer wait for Netflix to send them a movie to rip it, opting instead to download someone else's rip from BitTorrent the day after it comes out. Because, you know, a lot of casual pirates demand timeliness. In other words, this will only hurt Netflix, which, being a new revenue stream for the studios, will only hurt the studios in the long run. It's like EA and Spore's DRM: just keep shooting yourselves in the feet, folks!
RedBrain
January 07, 2010 at 2:35pm
Nail on the head, sir.
Wanna sell more movie tickets at the theaters? Delay the DVD/BR release for one year.
edorsi
January 06, 2010 at 9:32pm
Streaming / downloading movies are the future, why negotiate to delay it? I wonder how much carbon emissions could be reduced if we didn't produce, ship, and throw away dvds?
johncarey
January 07, 2010 at 9:44am
but what's holding it back is rights management, i.e. not portability but all the theft. And given the other comments here about downloading for free which we all know means torrents, you guys are the ones keeping it from happening.
DBsantos77
January 06, 2010 at 10:10pm
Do You REALLY think they care about Carbon Emissions? This is a joke, making me re-consider my netflix subs.It's bad enough that Netflix has a couple hundred movies from the Fricking 90's! -_________-
-Santos
Danthrax66
January 06, 2010 at 7:35pm
Or I could just download the movie before it hits theaters from any number of tor sites.
dugn
January 06, 2010 at 7:36pm
I called NetFlix today to confirm this, then promptly cancelled my subscription. I also vowed not to buy any DVD upon its release. But to, instead, wait at least 28 days to buy it. If I've forgotten about it in 28 days (highly likely), I just won't buy it.
Horray! This smart business decision by the movie industry saves me money at the cost of DVD sales. Makes great business sense to me.
Too bad. The movie industry was starting an upswing in sales too...
animeman59
January 06, 2010 at 6:43pm
Doesn't really matter to me anyway. I'll still rent the movie from Netflix 28 days later and just rip the damn thing to my hard drive, and play it on my media center.
And Warner Bros can't do a damn thing about it.
ArrecBarrwin
January 06, 2010 at 6:19pm
Sweet. Now I feel even better for having chosen Blockbuster Online.
aviaggio
January 06, 2010 at 5:55pm
Someone please explain to me how this is going to boost DVD and Bluray sales.
"Hey honey, I see <insert name of movie> just came out on DVD. Let's run out and spend $20 on something we'll watch once or twice and then put on our shelf to collect dust, cause y'know, we'll have to wait 28 days before we can get it from Netflix for nothing."
Seriously, who comes up with these boneheaded ideas?
Digital-Storm
January 06, 2010 at 7:42pm
Boneheaded people of course!
I think this is only a fair deal, if they let Netflix put the movie content online to stream too. I would love to see more movies on the Watch It Now.
MeTo
January 07, 2010 at 3:13am
Watch now needs more movies period. I have a felling they will use this to raise there rates again like they did for Blu-ray.
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