Rants

More Demonstrations of the Movie Industry’s Incompetence

Jeromey Balderrama

(From the “Better Late Than Never”) file: On the heels of the MPAA’s Indoctrination Piece on movie piracy, the movie industry again demonstrated their complete lack of competence in adapting to changing business models by screwing their customers.  Last week, a story came out in The Consumerist where the movie industry wants to stimulate purchases of new release by having rental companies like Netflix delay renting of new releases for a month.

I love their thinking here: “People don’t want to pay an arm & a leg to see the movie in a theater, so let’s see if they’ll pay an arm & a leg to buy that movie they’ve never seen before.”  I can only speak from experience, but I have never bought a new release movie if I haven’t seen it before in the theaters.

What makes things worse is that Netflix looks like it’s going tog with this.  Mashable quoted their CEO, “if we can agree on low enough pricing for delayed rental, it could potentially increase profits for everyone”.

Look, I know they think they’re hemorrhaging  money, but punishing your customers for wanting to see a new release is not the answer.  You need to think outside of the box on this one.  Make no mistake, pleasing customers is that last thing the movie industry is interested in. Nice business model. Then they wonder why people resort to piracy to view their content.

MPAA: Those Evil Movie Pirates

Jeromey Balderrama

Watch this, and feel your blood boil.  Watch as 60 Minutes, a supposed beacon of broadcast journalistic integrity, is spoon-fed propaganda from the MPAA, and eats it right up.

Let me make one thing clear: I don’t support movie piracy. At the same time, I can’t sit here and let the MPAA spread misinformation and scare tactics, painting everyone with a broad brush of evil.

I love how Leslie Stahl eats up all of the information – my favorite part is the look of disgust at 2:50 when she repeats “In the diaper bag” – without offering any kind of challenge or exploration in the truth of their claims.  Instead, she just lets them go on and equate people who film movies in theaters to drug cartels, human traffickers and child prostitution.

I understand that there is a valid point in damage being done the counterfeit DVD circles, but 60 MInutes let the MPAA completely blur the line between them and the kids who download bit-torrented movies on the Internet.  Furthermore, Stahl allows the MPAA to tarnish the US citizens with their broad brush, yet conveniently forgetting about the rampant piracy that is going on in Asia – specifically China – where they’re making money hand-over-fist from piracy.  It makes sense that DVD counterfeits may cost them money, but where’s the direct linkage with bit-torrent? Still, the MPAA goes for their low-hanging fruit – the “gee-whiz computer technology”.

In the piece the MPAA allege that their industry is robbed of $6 billion annually by piracy – yet they base this on the false pretense that everyone that downloaded their movie had the original intention of seeing it in the theater, or purchasing the $25 DVD.  That’s simply not true. According to the MPAA, the people downloading these movies must be doing it because they’re evil jerks who want to rob the “little people” of the movie industry blind.  There can’t possibly be another side to this: the fact that people want to consume this media in different ways – that some people actually don’t want to go sit in a crowded theater with the talking and crying babies and $5 soda.  In the piece they showed people being wanded and searched, as well as forced to turn in their cell phones, just so they can see a movie.  Wow, when you treat your customers like criminals and give them cavity searches, who wouldn’t want to go to a theater?  No way in hell am I going to give you my money, just so I can be treated like that.

It’s one thing if you’re providing a good alternative – like a same day digital release that I can watch in the comfort of my home theater with a cold beer in my hand – but the fact is that you’re blatantly ignoring the changing market conditions and instead just whine about the Internet.  Where was Mark Cuban to talk about his same-day release and digital distribution ideas?  60 Minutes had no interest in providing any other views in this complex issue.  Apparently movie downloading equates to drowning puppies: no one can have a differing view.

I love how they parade out Steven Soderbergh to say that he wishes the Internet was never invented.  I’m sure you do Steven, because now people can warn other movie-goers about some of the crap that people call “movies” and expect people to shell out $8-12 to go see.  Surely the fact studios green-light these sure-fire bombs (soon-to-be Avatar, anyone?) can’t be the reason no one sees these movies. no it’s all based on piracy.

Soderbergh says they’re losing money at an alarming rates, yet I think someone forgot to tell him that 2007 was a record-breaking year when it came to movie theater revenue.  If I’m not mistaken, 2008 was an even better year for them.  Apparently he still thinks they’re not being paid.  Someone should tell him that the revenue you bring in, over the cost/budget for the picture (which I believe includes the salaries for “the little guys”) = profit for the studios.

Again, I’m not advocating piracy or making excuses for those who download movies – however is it too much to ask 60 Minutes to at least do some research before they parrot the MPAA’s talking points?

“Unrelated” news

Jeromey Balderrama

Just thought that my friends in Fort Collins would be interested in knowing that the City Council will be reviewing their controversial Occupancy Ordinance, that limits the amount of unrelated adults that can live in a rental home in the city.  What makes this so controversial is that this law seems to target college student housing.

There was a really article in the Coloradoan that came out a few days ago, talking about a ‘lodge’ owned by a fraternity that was set up to house six members of the frat, as well as provide meeting space and non-alcoholic dinners.  The house is located on Shields, right off of Laurel (which is right across the street from campus). The frat members attempted to be good neighbors by fixing up the yard, and attempted to work with city regulators to make the house fit within the zoning regulations. Yet neighbors still complained and now the city has threatened to fine the occupants $1000 per day members don’t move out.

This ordinance really frustrates me.  While I sympathize with issues that single-family homeowners can face living next to inconsiderate students, what do people seriously expect when they buy a house that’s right next to campus?  People can’t tout the benefits of living in a college town without having to accept that students are going to live in your town.  It’s no different than complaining about an ethnic group living in your town but saying that you love the authentic <insert ethnic group> food.

Fort Collins is a big city, and if you want to live in a neighborhood with many families and few college students, there are plenty of great neighborhoods on the south side of town – away from campus.  CSU is only going to continue to expand, which will only increase housing needs by the students.  I realize that resident Michelle Haefele in the article doesn’t want her neighborhood “turned into a student ghetto”, but the last time I checked the CSU campus was there before she moved in.  What did you expect when you bought a place in the neighborhood next to campus?

What bothers me most is that residents are so eager to blame college students for their declining property value.  The behavior of some students is unacceptable, but what is also unacceptable is painting students with this broad brush by enforcing this ordinance.  Let me ask you this, if you replaced the word “students” with an ethnic group or poverty class in the complaints, wouldn’t people have a problem with that?

Let’s see what City Council does Tuesday. I for one hope that people realize that they live in a college town, yet Fort Collins should be a big enough city to be able to accept everyone.

Looks like Hulu’s free ride is over

Jeromey Balderrama

dogchasingtail Just when you thought the content providers were started to get media distribution in an internet world, they’ve gone ahead and proven that they still have no idea what they’re doing.  Yesterday at the B&C OnScreen Summit, News Corp’s Chase Carey alluded to the fact that Hulu is going to start charging viewers to watch their content starting in 2010.

Said Carey (via Broadcasting Cable):

“I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value,” Carey said. “Hulu concurs with that, it needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business.”

So never mind the consumers that visit the site to check out a new show – and use Hulu to catch up and go back to consuming their viewing through their traditional means.  Never mind that Hulu does show pre-roll and regularly-placed ads that (anecdotally) get more of the viewers attention than a DVR’d show or a commercially-scheduled bathroom break when viewing on regular TV.

Never mind all that, I guess we don’t appreciate the value, as if it’s some great honor to view all of their shows.  Look, last time I checked, we were the ones doing you a favor by watching your shows and viewing your ads.  If you really want to generate more revenue, try throwing some more ads during the show and see if people will cry foul.  My prediction is people would much rather take in an extra ad or two rather than fish for their credit card to watch last week’s episode of Family Guy.

I may be off base here, but I don’t really know anyone who uses Hulu as their primary viewing experience.  Hulu is handy if you’re looking to catch up on back episodes, or something you missed, as well as viewing a classic clip from a show.  I’m always going to prefer sitting on my comfortable couch and watching the flat screen over hunching over in my chair to look at my small laptop.  If Hulu were to evolve to stream straight to TV’s (either through X-box or other set-top players) then maybe they could get away with charging.  However, if Hulu starts charging with what they have today then they’re only going to regress their digital strategy further back.

Oh but don’t fear, Carey said they won’t put all of their content behind the walled garden:

Carey says that while throwing up a pay-wall around all content is not the answer, it doesn’t mean there wont be fees for some specially-created content and TV previews. Windows are just around the corner. [Broadcasting Cable]

Oh so you mean the crap I wouldn’t dream of wasting my time with will still be free?  Sign me up!  Thanks for continuing to prove that no matter how much the public connects the dots for you, you still manage to to completely screw up the picture.

Digsby, doing more evil

Jeromey Balderrama

Digsby is one of my essential apps that I virtually have running all the time.  It’s really my window to the social world, through their Twitter & Facebook integration, as well as using it to manage my IM’s and emails.  I want to say it’s my favorite program, but with their latest actions I feel like I did a little inside every time I fire up this program.

Digsby has always had one of the most evil installers, which sneakily offers your crapware that you don’t want, making it pretty hard to escape unscathed .  Back in August they released a new version that stepped up the amount of crapware, but to make things worse they used your computer to “search the web” and do processing for other commercial companies.  As if that wasn’t unbelievable enough, it was originally opt-out.

Lifehacker did a great job of chronicling the ordeal and rightfully ripping Digsby for their misdeeds. It’s worth a read.  After enduring a PR firestorm, Digsby finally reneged on these restrictions, crying “mea culpa, mea maxima culpa” [see LifeHacker reaction].  In their blog post apologizing for (and defending) their actions Digsby proclaimed:

“We are still a young company that is trying to figure out our long term revenue models.  At the end of the day, we need to keep the lights on and pay salaries so we can keep making Digsby even better ..  The reason we decided to test these two revenue models is because they would allow us to accomplish this while keeping Digsby free and ad-free.” [Digsby Blog]

So I gave Digsby the benefit of the doubt, until I saw their Twitter post from last night:

Text DIGSBY to 41411 to be the first to know when there are updates and new releases!

So now they’re resorting to collecting cell phone numbers.  I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I think that a social media & communication tool – rather than using said social media & communication methods to send their updates – is now going into left field and sending them through cell phones.  How does this make sense?  It only makes sense if you’re looking to graft ads at the end of these messages or perhaps even build them up for more sinister purposes (like renting them to another company).

I’m surprised there hasn’t been a backlash about this, but maybe it’s building up somewhere.  I hope people see this as another one of their shady tactics and don’t buy into this crap.  If there is a backlash I’m sure Digsby will apologize on their blog, saying they need to keep the lights on and will go doing good until they get their next “Pinky & the Brain” evil scheme to take over the world.

This is a disturbing and recurring pattern that is being displayed in some of these cutting edge Web 2.0 companies.  Many deploy these slimy tactics and don’t see the problem with them until there is a backlash from their users.  What this tells me is that their ethical compass isn’t pointing north and there doesn’t seem to be a pressing need to correct it.

I hate this because I think Digsby is a great app and I want them to succeed.  I wish they simply would just go ad-supported and offer a modest price for a professional version.  This has become an essential app every day and would gladly pay the price. but not like this.