Thank goodness the movie studio plumbers union are there to examin the books.
Is there anything a Hollywood plumber can't do?
Posted on 09/08/2009 2:07:50 PM PDT by wrrock
The $1 movie rentals available through DVD kiosks like Redbox could spell "disaster" for the film and video industries—or at least, that's the argument of representatives for video stores and Hollywood unions, who want movie lovers to dump Redbox and return to their corner "mom-and-pop" DVD rental outlets.
Video Business reports that the Video Buyers Group, a trade organization for some 1,700 independent brick-and-mortar video stores, is prepping an ad campaign that'll paint Redbox as a threat to the film industry as we know it. Why? Because its $1-a-night rental rate is "generating less revenue" for Hollywood studios than the $3-$5/night prices charged by the average video store, according to Video Business.
Indeed, the New York Times quotes Video Buyers Group president Ted Engen as saying that "those machines"—think Redbox and its ilk—"are to the video industry what the Internet was to the music business—disaster."
Also on the attack against DVD kiosks: Gary Cook of UA Local 87, the union that represents movie studio plumbers: "It's going to kill the industry," Cook warned the Times.
(Excerpt) Read more at tech.yahoo.com ...
That would be fair, for at the beginning of each and every DVD is the FBI claim stating that this is for private viewing only. You pay an additional fee if you charge others to watch the movie - which is exactly what RedBox is doing. However, I believe that this has had to have been addressed long before RedBox became as large as it has. Is Hollywood now deciding that the original fee was too small?
There should be some generic fee that all rental companies pay (Blockbuster, Hollywood, 7-11, RedBox, Netflix et. al). To be fair, the fee would be the same, and based upon the number of disks (or tapes) involved. If Redbox automates their system, so they can drive prices down; that is not Hollywood's problem.
“What you are doing is highly illegal (and immoral).”
Illegal? Yes.
Immoral? Arguable.
Back in the 80s I worked for a supermarket, and was a member of the UFCW as a result.
In the union magazine, the big issue the union railed against was scanners, and how the machines were going to destroy millions of jobs for people who marked the prices on merchandise in stores.
Unions have always had problems with technological progress, its just part of the character of the beast.
You mean the rich degenerate anti-American leftists in Hollywood might be hurt? Where do I sign up?? A goal of conservatives should be to defund these hollywood traitors by any means necessary.
Typical of unions and big hollywood to fight for limiting consumers’ choices.
I don’t know that there are many mom and pop video stores left. I know in my city there aren’t any and even the chains are now few and far between.
I use Netflix and if I like it and think I will watch the movie more than once I’ll go buy a copy.
No, Blockbuster is one of the "mom and pop" rental outlets that big hollywood is fighting to protect.
It is a great service, $1 a day as opposed to $5 - $6 at Blockbuster.
The only thing I wish for is that Red Box would rent Blu Ray disks as well in our area (Southern New Hampshire).
Not exactly. In copyright law, there is something called the First Sale Doctrine, which means that copyright holders rights extend only to the first sale--the buyer can do with the copyrighted work as he chooses. This is how libraries and used book stores and, yes, video rental stores operate.
Where this gets interesting is that most of the big-time video rental stores enter into agreements to buy movies at wholesale prices. Hollywood has refused to enter the same agreements with Redbox, so Redbox is stuck paying retail prices for the videos before it rents them.
Thank you, that’s informative.
So, if RedBox is paying full retail price .... (let’s not kid ourselves, they are likely owners of a whole-sale company that they buy through) ... then Hollywood is getting their full due on the sales of each unit sold.
So, when this ‘too successful for their own good’ company gets out of line, they go after them. Reminds me of when they decided to show Apple how to run iTunes. I believe they still have poo on their breath after they got done kissing Steve Job’s posterior. Looks like they might be in for another serving. Hard to feel sorry for them, isn’t it?
If Redbox goes away, I’ll still have the same amount of disposable income that I’ll spend on renting a DVD. Instead of renting 5 DVD’s at RedBox, I’ll rent 1 at my local video store. Will a 80% drop in movie rentals help, or hurt Hollywood? I’ll wager they are being pretty darn foolish.
Thank goodness the movie studio plumbers union are there to examin the books.
Is there anything a Hollywood plumber can't do?
The interesting part to your assumption is that you can legally DVR a pay-per-movie under Fair Use and create a copy of something you rented but it is illegal to make a personal copy of a rented DVD. See a problem with that?
This is absolutely true. This will all get hashed out in court, I expect. If I recall correctly, Redbox has sued a couple of the major studios for antitrust violations.
Redbox can’t even pay retail. A license to rent a video is about is anywhere from 3 to 9 times that of the retail price, per copy.
For what it’s worth, here’s some more on the backstory between the studios and Redbox:
http://www.buffalonews.com/411/story/757851.html
I’ve looked but never found anything at a Redbox that I wanted to rent. I go to the video store from time to time and buy the used videos for $5 each or less. If I missed the movie release I don’t buy at full price but am patient and wait for the deal. Redbox has been a disappointment each of the 3 times I have checked. It’s not a factor in my video watching.
DVDs are going to go the way of the 8 track cassette. I go to pre-played stores to check out the video games, and it’s lined up with dvds from tv shows. I don’t even buy dvds anymore, I just use on-demand from Time Warner.
However, with this Hollyweird protest, maybe I need to give them a try. The best film stars are people no longer with us like John Wayne, Ronald Reagan and Charlton Heston and are so much better than the stuffed shirts collecting royalties today.
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