Here is, yet again, another perfect example of the dinosaur Hollywood studios screwing their *potential* customers and fans of their films.
Quote:
Earlier this month, Warner Brothers decided to delay all new DVD movie releases from becoming available through video rental services, like Blockbuster and Netflix. This means the rental services must wait 56 days after a new Warner Brothers DVD hits retail store shelves before it’s able to begin renting it out to customers. Of course, the video rental companies do have the option of buying the new DVD releases at full retail price, but this would raise over all operating costs for the rental service and ultimately dip into its profits.
As if that wasn’t enough, Warner Brothers is now imposing additional stipulations for its DVD movie new releases. Starting Feb. 1, the company has decided to restrict Netflix users from adding any new DVD releases to their queue until 28 days after the DVD goes on sale in retail stores, according to an LA Times report. Source: http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/26/wa...netflix-queue/
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The point of this obviously, is to try corralling people to buy the DVDs rather than rent them off the bat. And the studios will make more money. But this is backwards thinking. Most people don't want to purchase and own a DVD. How many times are the going to watch it before they sell it off, give it away or it starts collecting dust? People want to rent a movie and watch it once, and if they are big fan they may end up purchasing the movie for their collection, or renting it again.
Essentially, these studios are shooting themselves in the foot. How? The 56-day period of "retail only" availability is probably when people start looking for it on file-sharing and torrent sites to pirate. I am willing to bet, if it were available immediately for retail AND rental, we could see some drop in illegal download attempts.
Thoughts?