Rita Cosby had a great article a while back about all the ways the porn industry has actually been the main force behind new technologies being embraced and developed by the overall video market… including mainstream movie outlets. It looks like the porn industry is once again going to be pushing things in the direction they SHOULD go. The following is from the IMDB:
While the major film studios have been reluctant to allow their movies to be downloaded online and burned onto a DVD that can be played on TV sets, the porn industry appears ready to make that leap at once, according to USA Today. The newspaper reported that Vivid Entertainment plans to offer its films via the online CinemaNow movie service beginning Monday. The article pointed out that the studios’ reluctance to do the same thing is largely based on their unwillingness to risk the wrath of big-box retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy who currently are the largest sellers of DVDs. But Vivid’s Bill Asher told USA Today that his company doesn’t have to be concerned about any of its retailers. “We sell in smaller stores, mainstream chains, but no one dominant component where we’re going to get that phone call,” he said.
This is obvious, but sad nonetheless. Why don’t we have what we all want (the ability to legally download a high quality DVD movie with the ability to burn it to disc)? Because big corporate monsters don’t want us to change the status quo. It’s an old story… but one that we should be repeating or else nothing changes.
I’ve said for 2 years now that 4 things will prevent online movie distribution from REALLY taking off are
1) Prince point – they’re too expensive for what you’re getting
2) Bandwidth – this is changing
3) Extras – this is also changing
4) Digital Rights Management that doesn’t allow you to burn the movies to disc. THIS MUST CHANGE. And I think the change is coming.
I’ve been told that there are indeed studios looking at testing this concept as early as this year (much to the chagrin of Walmart). Let’s all hope they recognize the upside of side stepping the chain store giants.
Does anyone else find it ironic that the porn industry has to be the ones to show us the right way to do things?
