July 12, 2006 5:56 AM PDT
Hollywood recasts its download allies
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For years now, Hollywood has watched the two top suppliers of movie downloads take a beating in the press.
Media critics have blasted CinemaNow and Movielink for selling films that take too long to download, are frequently fuzzy and can cost as much as DVDs. That's why few industry observers are surprised to see Hollywood begin seeking new partners.
The latest studio distribution deal came Tuesday, when Wurld Media, creator of peer-to-peer service Peer Impact, announced that it has begun selling select titles from Twentieth Century Fox Film and Warner Bros. Entertainment.
On the same day, movies from Sony Pictures Entertainment went on sale at video-sharing site Guba. Warner Bros., during the past two months, has struck similar deals with Guba and Wurld Media competitor BitTorrent.
Meanwhile, BusinessWeek has reported that five of the studios that bankrolled Movielink, including Paramount Pictures, Sony and Universal Studios, have begun looking for a buyer of the video-on-demand service.
"The studios aren't going to abandon (Movielink and CinemaNow) completely," said Josh Martin, a digital-media analyst. "But they realize those sites have limited appeal to say the least."
The masses are clamoring for Internet video. Fans of hit TV shows such as "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" are flocking to Apple Computer's iTunes to download episodes on their iPods. Teenagers and young adults are flooding video-sharing site YouTube, which allows the public to share homemade movies with Internet users from all over the world. Conspicuously missing from the hoopla is feature films.
In theory, movies should be a natural for the Internet. Downloading a movie could save a trip to the video store and be easier to store and transport. But so far, nobody has come up with a business model that appeals to the public, safeguards the studios' content, and surmounts the sizable technological hurdles, analysts say. Representatives of Movielink and CinemaNow were not available for comment.
"The technology isn't there yet to enjoy long-format content," Martin said.
Hollywood executives could wait around until someone figures it out and partner with whoever gets it right. But it appears that they have chosen a different tack. Some of the studios are casting about for different business models and technologies. Consider that Guba is a little known, 20-employee video-sharing company, and BitTorrent was once considered by many in the film industry to be a threat after developing a technology that makes it easy to produce unauthorized movie copies.
"Guba is two things in my mind," said Jim Wuthrich, senior vice president of digital distribution at Warner Bros. Entertainment. "They are an extension of Warner's aggressive approach in this space. We're committed to embracing change and seeing what consumers are interested in, and (understanding) what makes this a compelling product for consumers...Guba and a number of these sites also have very good audiences that are comfortable with Internet video. It's logical for us to go where people are already downloading video."
The size and tech savvy of Guba and BitTorrent's audiences are not lost on either of the companies' CEOs.
"We (have) almost 79 million users," said Ashwin Navin, BitTorrent's president and co-founder. "That's going to be a huge competitive advantage for this business."
Said Guba's CEO, Thomas McInerney: "Guba has more traffic than Movielink and CinemaNow combined. We're already bigger than those players, and it's only the beginning."
See more CNET content tagged:
MovieLink,
CinemaNow,
BitTorrent,
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.,
Hollywood
- braincell activated
- I think hollywood finally figured out that people don't want to pay dvd pricing for a movie they download, especially when the quality of the download is horrible.
- Reply to this comment View reply
- braincell activated
- I think hollywood finally figured out that people don't want to pay dvd pricing for a movie they download, especially when the quality of the download is horrible.
- Reply to this comment View reply
- Downloading movies to DVD
- One company is doing this right: EZTakes (www.eztakes.com). They make it easy for you to download movies to DVDs that will play in almost any DVD player. It's all legal and it works.
- Reply to this comment
- Downloading movies to DVD
- One company is doing this right: EZTakes (www.eztakes.com). They make it easy for you to download movies to DVDs that will play in almost any DVD player. It's all legal and it works.
- Reply to this comment
- Downloads of movies won't work
- until we get fat pipes.
- Reply to this comment View reply
- Downloads of movies won't work
- until we get fat pipes.
- Reply to this comment View reply
