Movie Studios Seeking Usage Right Restrictions?
The studios want to avoid the experience of the music industry, which has yet to recover from years of illegal digital piracy. Apple must introduce a new model for feature film content delivery, said one studio executive involved in the talks. With the average cost of a blockbuster film approaching $100m, movie studios had more to lose than music companies, he added. Were very willing to do a deal but were keen to get some concessions from Apple that will account for the differences between the value of music and television content and feature film content.
Currently, Apple's usage rights allow downloadable content to be played on an unlimited number of iPods as well as up to 5 computers, although DVD burning is limited to archiving purposes only (DVD-Video burning is not supported).
Disney sold 125,000 movies in its first week of operation on the iTunes store. While still small in comparison to DVD sales, Disney expects digital sales to add $50 million in revenue to its bottom line in the first year on the iTunes Store. The continued success of movie sales may make arguments for restricted usage rights fall on deaf ears to Apple executives, who would view such arguments as nit-picking a successful program.
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(View all)On the other hand, if Apple makes a concession now, that could be viewed as Apple "weakness" or "desperation", and may cause movie and music executives to demand additional restrictions or concessions by Apple.
What they do is prevent unwitting individuals to participate easily in large scale piracy, but allow local piracy.
This tends to INCREASE sales, not DECREASE sales. Local piracy creates obligation and requires work. Both of these create demand for legal product interestingly enough. (Large scale piracy does nothing for demand, but DRM does not affect large scale piracy).
At anyrate, the apple system is well done, the movie folks should just take thier money, and I suppose complain loudly, but just take the money
I don't like the idea. The moment they start chipping away at devices, it'll set a bad precedent for future negotiations. It'll be hard to get back those rights. Apple, hold strong!! :)
Like I said in the post... I don't see them getting to far in negotiations, since the Disney/iTunes partnership has already shown some positive results. They are nit-picking, and if they are wise, they aren't going to shy away from $50+ million just because of nitpicking issues.
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