Why did movie rental streaming prices increase?

[Haywood]

I just used the Disc-to-Digital program to buy another 18 UltraViolet movies. If Disney would get onboard, I would happily pay to convert most of my library. The studios participating in UltraViolet are being very smart. They are allowing people like me with existing collections to get in the door for a reasonable fee without having to re-purchase all of our content. Without disc to digital, I would not have bothered with UV. With it, I've spent a couple hundred dollars that I would not have otherwise spent and have even gone on to buy a couple movies that are UV-only. They are also starting to price UV copies lower than Blu-Ray discs, which is smart. If the Disney and the rest of the hold-outs get onboard, I think the movie industry can avoid the fate of the music industry (which has now begun to recover and make money again, thanks to services like iTunes). Most people are willing to pay for content if the cost is reasonable and it is in a convenient format. One of the things I love about ripping and downloading movies is that I can set them up in a beautiful interactive library accessible from a variety of devices. I'd much rather have that than a physical disc. UltraViolet makes that possible in a completely legal way. I'm a big supporter.

 

[MatthewB]

Flint I use torrents the same way Haywood does. It has introduced me to many movies that I otherwise would not watch must less buy. Sure there are hundreds of thousands who abuse the system and scoff at people like you. But as Haywood and I have been trying to convey we use torrents to introduce us to media that we will now purchase as oppossed to never even bothering with a certain movie otherwise.

Is it right to do. No it's not but it exists and I feel as long as I buy the movies I like than in some way I still have supported the movie industry. Granted there are many movies I have hated where I didn't buy the movie but I figure the money I saved in not buying that film I will use towards other "better" movies. In fact today after work I am buying three Blurays, two I saw online and one I am buying to replace my existing DVD (that I paid full retail price for). Unlike many at least Haywood and I are supporting the industry by purchasing films we like.

I know of many many other members on this forum who use torrents in the same manner as Haywood and myself who just havent seen this thread or chosen not to participate because of the backlash. You all know me I'm an open book and will speak my mind so I welcome the critism as I myself will admit I deserve for doing what I am doing. If your views of me have been hampered by this I am sorry for that but will continue to watch online as oppossed to what I did for years and blind buy movies at full cost and now am trading in for better movies (or replacing existing ones for the Bluray versions).

As mentioned the only thing I am doing is watching the movies now instead of months from now on Netflix but in my case I think the studios won't mind because by the time it gets on Netflix I by then will see no reason to purchase and if I do purchase it most likely will be on the bargain bin by then. Where as movies I see online that I like I will buy at a higher cost generating more profit to the store selling it.

Now to Zing, your math problems are irrelevant as there are too many variables you havent mentioned in your equation. Like the back room bartering that companies like Wal mart and Amazon make to buy those discs in bulk resulting in less cost for Wal Mart to buy and higher profits. The media was all over Wal Mart abot a decade ago for their practice of buying items for pennies on bulk and agreeing to sell at lower cost. If the owner of the product didn't agree to the deal then Wal mart just refused to carry the product resulting in a huge loss to the producer of the product.

At one time in my life I was a very good artist, in fact I had sold some of my artwork to companies like Sears and yes even AT&T but as I got older I realized that I wasnt going to make any real money so I gave up artwork all together. I applaud all you musical artists who pursue your dreams but you have to realize that if you got into this to make some serious money than I have a bridge to sell you in the Everglades.

 

[MatthewB]

I just used the Disc-to-Digital program to buy another 18 UltraViolet movies. If Disney would get onboard, I would happily pay to convert most of my library. The studios participating in UltraViolet are being very smart. They are allowing people like me with existing collections to get in the door for a reasonable fee without having to re-purchase all of our content. Without disc to digital, I would not have bothered with UV. With it, I've spent a couple hundred dollars that I would not have otherwise spent and have even gone on to buy a couple movies that are UV-only. They are also starting to price UV copies lower than Blu-Ray discs, which is smart. If the Disney and the rest of the hold-outs get onboard, I think the movie industry can avoid the fate of the music industry (which has now begun to recover and make money again, thanks to services like iTunes). Most people are willing to pay for content if the cost is reasonable and it is in a convenient format. One of the things I love about ripping and downloading movies is that I can set them up in a beautiful interactive library accessible from a variety of devices. I'd much rather have that than a physical disc. UltraViolet makes that possible in a completely legal way. I'm a big supporter.

Haywood I agree also. When at Bats place I actually paid for 87 Disc to Digital movies. Mainly because I don't own a bluray drive and Jeff let me borrow his so i could convert some of my blurays and some of Bats collection and I think a couple of Jeff's to my library. At a cost of 1.00 per disc it was worth it to me and the fact I share my account with my mother she was also happy about the movies I stored on the cloud.

Now if Appletv would just allow a Vudu, Flixster or CinemaNow app than I would be a happy camper because I have about 100 movies on my Apple account and 117 movies stored on the cloud using the three apps I mentioned. Would love to be able to combine all those.

 

[Lone Stranger]

Matt, those are just the cost of the discs themselves. To produce the movie or music it costs a fortune. Take music for example. There is the cost of the instruments, lessons, studio time and a whole lot more that need to be factored into the cost of producing albums. Concerts themselves may make some money but that is only a part of the income.

 

[Haywood]

My UltraViolet library on Vudu is getting to the point of being pretty serviceable. I'm not done converting movies and there are a few weird holes in this list due to bugs with certain films not working with the Disc-to-Digital at home beta (I'll have to take the discs into Wal-Mart), but I feel like I have a pretty good start on a very nice video on demand library. The only exception and frustration being the third of my library made up of titles owned by Disney.

2 Fast 2 Furious
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
Alien
Aliens
All the President's Men
Alvin and the Chipmunks
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeekquel
Apollo 13
Austin Powers: Gold Member
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Avatar
Balls of Fury
Bat Man Begins
Bigtop Scooby-Doo
Big Trouble in Little China
Blade Runner
The Bourne Identity
Braveheart
Burlesque
Chicago
The Chronicles of Riddick
Cinderella Man
Cowboys and Aliens
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Curse of the Golden Flower
The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight Rises
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Die Hard with a Vengeance
Dirty Dancing
Dodgeball
Elizabeth
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Escape from L.A.
Ever After
The Expendables
Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud
Fast and Furious
The Fast and the Furious
The Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift
Fast Five
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Finding Neverland
Frost Nixon
Get Smart
G.I. Joe: Retaliation
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Gladiator
The Godfather
The Godfather Part II
The Godfather Part III
Good Night and Good Luck
Gosford Park
Gran Torino
The Green Hornet
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Hero
House of Flying Daggers
How to Train Your Dragon
Ice Age
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinasaurs
Ice Age: Meltdown
Inception
Jack Reacher
Jaws
Juno
Kick-Ass
Kung Fu Hustle
Kung Fu Panda 2
L.A. Confidential
A League of Their Own
Live Free or Die Hard
Lust Caution
Mamma Mia!
Men in Black 3
Minority Report
Mission Impossible 2
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
The Mummy
The Mummy Returns
Music and Lyrics
My Life in Ruins
Night at the Museum
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Ninja Assassin
Ocean's Eleven
Ocean's Thirteen
Office Space
Patton
Pitch Black
The Producers
The Pursuit of Happiness
RED
Rock of Ages
School of Rock
The Scorpion King
Serenity
Shaun of the Dead
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Sideways
Skyfall
Sleepless in Seattle
Sleepy Hollow
Speed
Speed Racer
Star Trek
Starship Troopers
Super 8
There's Something About Mary
The Transporter
The Transporter 2
The Transporter 3
Twister
Unstoppable
The Untouchables
Walk the Line
We Bought a Zoo
Wedding Crashers

 

[Deleted member 133]

There is a perfectly legal side of using torrents that is getting ignored here.

I have recently just started using them to finally complete my collection of Charlie Chaplin shorts - as well as filling in my collection(s) of other such "classic" titles. The oldest of these date from 1914. All of them have long ago passed into public domain. Most, but not all, have been released by countless studios / companies over the years (again because they are public domain) and I have bought many of those collections (on VHS, LD, and DVD) - sometimes for but one or two titles that I needed from the particular collection.

But I was still missing a dozen or two.

With a whole lot of searching I found torrents that allowed me to finally obtain (legally) copies of every existing title that I needed, and a couple that I didn't even know about previously.

Several titles came from Russian sources. My guess is that some second / third run movie theatre copies from long ago were never required to be sent back to the studio after their run, and after the studio's copies had been lost / destroyed, these were found many years later. (Such "lost" copies are now the best source for movie titles that people had assumed had long ago disappeared without a trace - or in some cases with but production notes and stills left behind.)

So....

That 99.9% number mentioned elsewhere should not include a fairly sizeable population of film buffs who are helping to bring rare and previously lost / forgotten public domain film titles to light and to see that they get the wide distribution and viewing that they deserve.

"Torrent" does not (always) equate to piracy.

Jeff

 

[Haywood]

Then there is the fact that a great many more classic films would be in the public domain by now if Congress had not pissed all over the original intent of copyright and extended the term to completely ridiculous lengths at the behest of its sponsors (cause we all know that Congress no longer works for us).

 

[Flint]

Jeff - I never considered Torrents are pure evil and always illegal. Downloading copyrighted content you can purchase legally elsewhere is what I am talking about in all of my posts.

 

[Deleted member 133]

Then there is the fact that a great many more classic films would be in the public domain by now if Congress had not pissed all over the original intent of copyright and extended the term to completely ridiculous lengths at the behest of its sponsors (cause we all know that Congress no longer works for us).

I think you folks are forever destined to have your copyright laws tied directly to the date of Walt's death!

 

[Deleted member 133]

Jeff - I never considered Torrents are pure evil and always illegal. Downloading copyrighted content you can purchase legally elsewhere is what I am talking about in all of my posts.

Understood. I apologize if what I said implied so - not my intention. I was really just pointing out their very legal use, and that I think there is probably a pretty sizeable community out there that is so engaged.

 

[Towen7]

I was really just pointing out their very legal use, and that I think there is probably a pretty sizeable community out there that is so engaged.

I wish that there were stats to quantify how sizable the community of people that use torrents for legal use. I'd bet a paycheck that its less than 5% of torrent traffic.

 

[Haywood]

Then there is the fact that a great many more classic films would be in the public domain by now if Congress had not pissed all over the original intent of copyright and extended the term to completely ridiculous lengths at the behest of its sponsors (cause we all know that Congress no longer works for us).

I think you folks are forever destined to have your copyright laws tied directly to the date of Walt's death!

Exactly, and I'm expected to respect that as some kind of measure of ethics?

 

[Flint]

I was really just pointing out their very legal use, and that I think there is probably a pretty sizeable community out there that is so engaged.

I wish that there were stats to quantify how sizable the community of people that use torrents for legal use. I'd bet a paycheck that its less than 5% of torrent traffic.

I've seen the data on Torrent streams, and it is well less than 1% using it for obviously legal purposes. More than 70% of Torrent streams are for porn - illegal downloads of full porn movies.

 

[Srvy]

I was really just pointing out their very legal use, and that I think there is probably a pretty sizeable community out there that is so engaged.

I wish that there were stats to quantify how sizable the community of people that use torrents for legal use. I'd bet a paycheck that its less than 5% of torrent traffic.

I've seen the data on Torrent streams, and it is well less than 1% using it for obviously legal purposes. More than 70% of Torrent streams are for porn - illegal downloads of full porn movies.

Destroying that Industry might be a good thing.

 

[MatthewB]

Shush Srvy porn is the greatest invention since sliced bread.

 

[Haywood]

I think the porn industry is just spanky.

 

[Srvy]

As for torrents sites how do you keep virus free i wouldn't touch then with a 100' pole.

That is a lot less of a problem than you might think, especially if you keep your machine properly secured with up-to-date virus protection. All inbound files get scanned.

Not to rehash this again but I am going to. Today at work was slow so got to talking to some the young kids at work and brought up the subject of torrents.
Well most said they didn't spend a dime on music or video games in so long they couldn't remember. They use a torrents site called pirate bay.
One of the guys chimed in said better stop that he had gotten an e-mail from his ISP that the FCC had made an inquiry regarding his IP address unlawfully downloading either record,tv,movie etc. industry copyrighted materials. And that they had required info from his provider as to who it was . This was ATT he said and that Att stated they never give out IP address info to anyone. Well you and I from recent events know that is not true.

So tell me is this worth the risk? Have you received anything like this from your ISP?

 

[MatthewB]

I work with a guy whose grandson downloads tons of stuff and he used my coworkers computer and he got a cease letter. He put a stop to his grandsons downloading that exact moment. He was the only one I know who got one. I've read of publicly made ones like the lady who fined liked 100,000 dollars for downloading 14 songs. Which to me was insane. I felt she at most should've been fined the cost of the songs on iTunes at most the cost of 14 CD's

 

[Botch]

I felt she at most should've been fined the cost of the songs on iTunes at most the cost of 14 CD's

But you can't pay a guy with both a computer science and a law degree with that amount... :angelic-green:

 

[Haywood]

I work with a guy whose grandson downloads tons of stuff and he used my coworkers computer and he got a cease letter. He put a stop to his grandsons downloading that exact moment. He was the only one I know who got one. I've read of publicly made ones like the lady who fined liked 100,000 dollars for downloading 14 songs. Which to me was insane. I felt she at most should've been fined the cost of the songs on iTunes at most the cost of 14 CD's

It wasn't a fine. It was a lawsuit award and the only reason it was that high was because she refused to settle. The plaintiff offered to settle for a trivial amount many times, but she refused.