Hollywood is finally starting to make good on its promise to allow consumers to buy a movie once and watch it anywhere. But in my latest piece on GigaOM Pro, I argue that UltraViolet does little to combat a visible shift in consumer behavior. Read More »
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UltraViolet is Hollywood’s first real effort at breaking the Apple stranglehold. The idea is that by implementing a digital rights locker, the studios involved will enable viewers to purchase a piece of content once and watch it on any device. And it’s finally available now. Read More »
Now there’s even more evidence that movie viewers are turning to a rental, rather than a purchase, model for their home entertainment needs. Subscription services like Netflix and kiosk rentals from Redbox were bright spots in an otherwise dismal second quarter for the big Hollywood studios. Read More »
A federal court has issued a preliminary injunction against Zediva, essentially ordering a shutdown of its streaming-DVD-rental service. The decision comes less than six months after the launch of the service, which aimed to avoid licensing fees by renting and streaming DVDs over the Internet. Read More »
Netflix has no plans to slow down its international expansion. In addition to its expansion to 43 countries in Latin America later this year, Variety reports the company could also launch services in Spain and the U.K. in early 2012. Read More »
Zediva launched a service to stream DVDs to users’ web browsers. That raised the ire of Hollywood studios, which sued it for copyright infringement. Now Zediva has filed its response, claiming that it is no different than other DVD rental services from Netflix or Blockbuster. Read More »
Consumers are becoming less interested in owning content, and are moving to more convenient, on-demand, video solutions. Now, when trying to make home entertainment decisions, consumers are turning to Netflix instead of DVD, Redbox and even pirated copies of films online, according to Google search data. Read More »
Thanks to an ambitious multi-city road trip in which Kevin Smith traveled to screenings of his latest film and spoke with audiences afterward, satirical horror film Red State has already made back the $4 million budget production company SMODcast Pictures invested in the film. Read More »
Netflix is moving ahead with plans to ween users off its DVD-by-mail service, announcing it would do away with the “Add to DVD Queue” feature on streaming devices. But an overwhelmingly negative response could mean that Netflix has underestimated the importance of DVD to its users. Read More »
Now there’s even more evidence that Hollywood studios need to embrace alternative business models before they cannibalize their existing business: In-Stat forecasts DVD sales are expected to decline by $4.6 billion over the next five years. Meanwhile, streaming revenues are expected to triple in that time. Read More »
On Disney’s earnings call yesterday, CEO Bob Iger said the decline in DVD sales is not necessarily due to a down economy, but a shift in how users consume content and entertainment choices available to them. That’s particularly true for titles like Toy Story 3. Read More »
The time lag between DVD release dates and the availability of films on cable video-on-demand services has been drastically reduced over the past year, falling from an average of 21 days in 2009 down to just five days in the first half of this year. Read More »
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