There is a war going on in this country. No, not the war on poverty. Or drugs.
Or terrorism. Or Christmas. Or the designated hitter. I mean the War on Piracy, and I don’t mean the
kind depicted in Captain Phillips. The
entertainment industry has decided that the reason for lousy profits isn’t
creative bankruptcy, multi-million dollar production deals with talentless
stars, or everybody hopping on the latest perceived trend until it is milked
drier than Justin Bieber after rehab (not my best metaphor). It’s those darned kids using computers to
steal content instead of buying it like they should.
Hollywood has tried a number of tactics in this war, from
stern warning from Humphrey Bogart about the immorality of intellectual
property theft (showing a clip from Casablanca, where Bogart’s character sleeps
with another man’s wife, kills a man trying to alert the authorities that a
wanted man is escaping, then stiffs his friend on a bet they made by saying it’s
for “expenses”) to developing anti-theft technology that takes the average
teenager about 30 seconds to circumvent.
But now they mean business.
Now when you rent a DVD from Netflix or Redbox, odds are
that when you click on “special features” you’ll get a screen saying that the
disc is intended for rental only and to access the special features you will
need to purchase the DVD. That’ll teach
those punks to copy movies for free, they won’t get access to the director’s
commentary!
This shows a complete lack of understanding about why people
buy movies as oppose to rent them. You
don’t buy a movie to hear the director’s commentary or watch the “making of” video
about how they blew stuff up so realistically.
You buy the DVD because you love the film and want to watch it over and
over, and watch it with the commentary over and over, and watch the making of
videos over and over. You buy the DVD
because you are obsessive about wanting to own the film.
If you don’t want to own the film, not gaining access to the
director’s commentary is not going to make you shell out the bucks needed to
obtain the DVD. However, if you are on
the fence, a good Special Features collection might tip the balance. But since rental DVDs don’t let you see the
special features, then you will remain on the side of the fence where you are
happy being able to get the DVD from Netflix in a couple of days, or from
Redbox as long as they carry it.
Netflix has significantly reduced my impetus to buy DVDs. But if I know the disc has quality commentaries
by the director, the actor, the cinematographer, and the caterer, then just
maybe I’ll want to own it rather than spend the two days it will take to get it
from Netflix. Hollywood’s anti-piracy
policy makes me less likely, not more likely, to buy a DVD.
Hollywood’s lack of profitability has more to do with the
endless stream of remakes, reboots, and sequels (Paranormal Activity 9: There’s
Something Behind the Couch! Boo!) than
piracy. Studio executives who are out of
touch with what audiences want (if they were ever in touch) find it easier to
blame piracy than to take a chances on new creative people who have wacky ideas
about what audiences want. So they can
pat themselves on the back by creating “rental use only” DVDs, but it won’t
result in any increase in sales or reduce the number of illegal downloads.
A girlfriend once told me that her mother told her that a
man doesn’t buy a cow if he can get the milk for free; I replied that the best
way to sell a high quality product is to give out free samples. Okay, that encounter didn't end the way I’d
hoped. But I stand by the idea that if
you want people to buy a product, they need to know how good the product is,
and telling people that they can only access Special Features by buying a DVD
doesn't do the trick.
No comments:
Post a Comment