Film premieres online
This is not a love song (requires Flash), the new film from the director of The Full Monty, has premiered online; you can go to the website and download it after a small payment. Ooh, I thought, that’s a good idea, I like the sound of that.So off I toddle, ready to pay a couple of quid; even if I didn’t like the film, I would like the concept to be a success — this is what I’ve been talking about for years, the power of the net to cut out the middle man — but, nope, it’s only watchable with Windows Media Player on Windows. There goes that idea, then. They seem to have set it up so that the film’s only watchable on the machine you download it on, and that sort of control isn’t available if you just offer an AVI for download, I suppose…so I won’t be contributing, because I don’t have Windows Media Player and will continue to not have it. They’re conceptually doing the right thing here, just they’ve got in the way of it by wrapping it up in DRM things. A shame.
Is “real world” sharing (as opposed to online sharing) really a problem, though? I mean, people can do that with double-deck video recorders now. And people taped CDs for their mates for ages and the RIAA barely said a word; it’s mass online downloading that they’re worried about.
I’m not convinced that my solution can’t work with music. I am convinced that the recording industry won’t try, which is not the same thing…
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‘Contrariwise, people who think that downloading films from Kazaa is bad will happily pony up their couple of quid and then pay attention to your note which says “please do not give this film to all your mates“.’
What about those mates who don’t have broadband, or don’t want to watch films on their PC? There are plenty of DVD players that can play DivXs, and in that case I can see plenty of people lending a CD-R around. They won’t be downloading it from KaZaA, but they will be ‘sharing’ it with their friends.
(I am, of course, playing Devil’s Advocate here: I would far prefer your solution. It’s just that if this can’t work for music yet, with far smaller file sizes, then it’s not likely to work with films.)
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Sean,
The relevance of illegal downloads is this. If you tell people “pay two quid on your credit card and we’ll give you a download link“, then people who will be prepared to grab the download for free and give it to their mates will also be quite happy downloading a film via Kazaa, so you wouldn’t have got their business anyway. Contrariwise, people who think that downloading films from Kazaa is bad will happily pony up their couple of quid and then pay attention to your note which says “please do not give this film to all your mates“. So you’re not actually losing anything.
I entirely take your point about the Street Performer only working on new stuff. However, at the moment, that’s not the problem that the Love Song people are trying to solve; they’re trying to sell a new film online. Perhaps there’s a completely different marketing method and sales method for old films, I agree, but I wasn’t particularly thinking of that.
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‘Firstly, in a world where you can go and download real films as much as you like’
Illegally? If so, I’m not really seeing the relevance.
‘Secondly, why not use something like the Rational Street Performer Protocol to get the money?’
That’s a good idea, but—and I apologise if I’m reading this wrong—it’ll only work for new or popular films. I also want to watch old films.
Oh, and for a premiere, you’d have to whip up enough pre-release hype so that those that contributed wouldn’t be left hanging. At the moment, I’m guessing that’s not likely to happen too often.
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I agree with here, and believe that the concept is good, but the implementation is bad. They are fundamentally limiting the film to Windows users, and as a Linux/Windows and Mac owner, this means I can only watch the film on one machine. This is stupid, and it kind of detracts from the point of the Internet. I don’t think this is so much anti windows media, but anti non windows.
If there was a windows media client that worked well for Linux and Mac I would not be as adverse, but would still prefer something such as Realmedia.
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Sean,
Well, a couple of thoughts. Firstly, in a world where you can go and download real films as much as you like, why not just release an AVI and get people to pay for a download? Most will probably do so. Secondly, why not use something like the Rational Street Performer Protocol to get the money? My objection is not DRM per se, but that it’s MS Windows only and so I (and people with Macs) can’t watch it, even though I’d like to support their experiment.
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So if they don’t DRM it then how do they even attempt to make people pay for it?
For the non-DRM averse Transmission Films offer some real classics like Plan 9 From Outer Space and Temptation of a Monk.
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It’s written by the chap that wrote The Full Monty, Simon Beaufoy, not directed by Monty‘’s director.
(_This is not a love song_ was directed by Billie Eltringham. Monty was directed by Peter Cattaneo.)
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iwant this film to watch
19 weeks later
what the fuck is this place
51 weeks later
i dont get it i wanted pics of film premieres where are they? this place sucks!!
59 weeks later
Gemz:
You are the weakest link. Goodbye.
59 weeks later
Aq: yet more idiots misunderstanding your site!
59 weeks later