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Disney: 4 Million iTunes Movies Sold

I do own an Apple TV, but here are my thoughts.

Digital Media is going to happen, but it will take some time. If you compare what you can do with CDs and DVDs today verse Digital Media, the CDs and DVDs still have an advantage.

CDs and DVDs Players are very cheap, almost every household owns one or multiple players. I have one for every TV in my house (4 TVs). I own roughly 500 DVDs and 300 VHS (yes, I know old school). But the beauty about these discs is the ability to play them on every TV I own, on my laptop, in my car with a portable DVD Player regardless of what brand the Player is, or Laptop. They all play the same disc. However the real beauty is the ability to share your movie with a family or friends. They borrow my movies all the time. And if you ever didn't want them anymore you could sell them on ebay or yardsale. However the down fall is that they do get damaged, lost and take up to much physical space. ( I have a ten foot wall with nothing but DVDs sitting on shelves)

Let's compare.

TV Player: DVD Player ($50) vs. Apple TV ($229)

Media: DVD ($5 - $15) vs Download ($10 - $15 plus Hard Drive Space)

Portable Player: DVD ($99) vs iPod Touch ($299)

Play on all players: DVD=Yes vs Download = NO

Sharable: DVD = Yes vs Download = NO ( yes I know you can stream content to Apple TV from your laptop, but really who is going to let their friends borrow their laptop)

Resale Value: DVD = Yes vs Download = NO

Damage: DVD = Yes vs Download = NO

Physical Space : DVD = Yes vs Download = NO

Also, since there is no legal way to covert your existing DVDs into Digital Media (Yes I know about Handbrake). What are you going to do about everything you already own? Buy it again? I don't think so.

The reason Digital Music is so great , was the fact that I could take all the CDs I owned and convert them into MP3 or AAC files to play on my iPod, Computer, then burn a CD if I needed. You can't do this legally with Movies, which will be the downfall of Digital Movies.

If it was legal to covert your Movies into a Digital Format, then iTunes would let you import your existing DVD collection, just like CDs and then the Digital Movie era would begin. Until then... well you know what people resort to.
 
Yahgo said:
However the real beauty is the ability to share your movie with a family or friends. They borrow my movies all the time. And if you ever didn't want them anymore you could sell them on ebay or yardsale.
Click to expand...

I think that's one of the reasons why the big movie studio bigwits don't want to get rid of DRM. (Which is ridiculous)

--Erwin
 
chickenninja said:
no self respecting artist charges money for their art. anyone who gets a record deal for their music is doing it for the money, the real musicians chill out on street corners and jam. they put their music and videos online for anyone who wants them taking pleasure in the fact that other people enjoy what they have created.
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No self-respecting artist denies him or herself success garnered from their respective crafts just because others feel that they should only appreciate what they can do, not bring it out to the world to turn what they enjoy into profit. As an artist myself, I'll be damned if I'm not going to work my capabilities to my advantage.

artists shouldn't be greedy little pigs. they should bypass record labels altogether and just give their content for free on itunes and their website.
after all you can get free iphone apps from kind true blue technoenthusiests so why not music.
sorry to throw a kink in yr universal price listing steve, im sure youll straighten things out. just add a 0$ option.
Click to expand...

Perhaps you should make your own music and distribute it for free then.
 
I will never buy a movie from iTunes. To me, if a movie is worth buying, then it is worth buying it from a store and getting it in a case, with an insert, and most likely a 2nd disc of special features, even if it's an extra couple of bucks.
 
krye said:
I will never buy a movie from iTunes. To me, if a movie is worth buying, then it is worth buying it from a store and getting it in a case, with an insert, and most likely a 2nd disc of special features, even if it's an extra couple of bucks.
Click to expand...
I'd much rather buy from a company like Apple than Mal-mart, Worst Buy or Fried.
 
chickenninja said:
no self respecting artist charges money for their art. anyone who gets a record deal for their music is doing it for the money, the real musicians chill out on street corners and jam. they put their music and videos online for anyone who wants them taking pleasure in the fact that other people enjoy what they have created.
Click to expand...

I don't think any person that truly respects artists would say what you said. I think you're saying that because of your agenda.

I think that no self respecting person should allow themselves go hungry or homeless. This idea that a person shouldn't use their talents to provide for their needs is wrong. Expecting people to work jobs that don't take advantage of their talents is cruelty.

after all you can get free iphone apps from kind true blue technoenthusiests so why not music.
Click to expand...

But that's not illustrative. I don't try to say that people shouldn't be paid for their programming. If the programmer choses to give away their work, or to charge for it, that is THEIR business, NOT yours. There are those that do give away their music (their own work), but also get paid for it too. Jonathan Coulton is one such example.

Unless you work for free, I don't think it's your business to tell other people to do so.
 
Peace said:
4 million X 17.99 ( avg. cost of a movie on iTunes ) = $73 Million

40M Videos X $1.99 = $89 Million

This equals about $ 160 Million

Numbers don't add up.
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17.99 is possibly the HIGHEST cost of a movie on iTunes. 14.99 is closer to the average. Maybe you meant to say that 17.99 is a "typical" cost of a movie on iTunes, then that might be true. But typical does not mean average. The typical prices are 12.99, 14.99 and 17.99. But probably none of them are an average price.

andiwm2003 said:
umpf..isn't that stealing the movies? i mean, aren't you supposed to BUY the movies that you keep, not RENT?:confused:
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That's supposed to be the idea. Renting isn't supposed to grant ownership. But there are plenty of people that do thing this, or just don't care and make their own copy anyways.

mdntcallr said:
no way, piracy would take over.
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I don't believe that to be true at all. It's not hard to find alternative sources. Rip the DVD. Analog record from cable/satellite/PPV box. Record digitally from over the air. Once there is a single illegal copy made, it's over.

music needs drm, but it hasn't been implemented properly.
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That's not going to work. The only thing that DRM has ever really done is inconvenience the honest people. The inconvenience can be minimized, but never eliminated.
 
megfilmworks said:
I'd much rather buy from a company like Apple than Mal-mart, Worst Buy or Fried.
Click to expand...

Then it's good that there are a lot more than three companies to buy DVDs from. DVD is still the best system for standard definition. You can buy any brand of player anywhere, and you can buy the movies nearly anywhere. Apple's system where they try to limit movies to only going through them is an anachronism.
 
JeffDM said:
Then it's good that there are a lot more than three companies to buy DVDs from. DVD is still the best system for standard definition. You can buy any brand of player anywhere, and you can buy the movies nearly anywhere. Apple's system where they try to limit movies to only going through them is an anachronism.
Click to expand...
Tower is gone, Virgin megastores are closing. Mom and Pop stores can't compete. Where besides online or the big box chains can you get a good selection of DVDs?
Even at the large box chains the selection is never complete. DVDs are doomed, as are their big brother, the CD.
 
megfilmworks said:
Tower is gone, Virgin megastores are closing. Mom and Pop stores can't compete. Where besides online or the big box chains can you get a good selection of DVDs?
Even at the large box chains the selection is never complete. DVDs are doomed, as are their big brother, the CD.
Click to expand...

Most areas didn't have a Tower or Virgin anyway. Big box stores never had a complete collection, that's impossible, there were always too many titles.

CD isn't dead yet, they still account for a majority of music sales, downloads for all its shouting and hollering, still only account for about 10%. DVD isn't going to be taken over any time soon either, not only are the sales volume of downloads not going anywhere (4 million movies is trivial vs several hundred million for DVD), it's still a premie.
 
JeffDM said:
CD isn't dead yet, they still account for a majority of music sales, downloads for all its shouting and hollering, still only account for about 10%. DVD isn't going to be taken over any time soon either, not only are the sales volume of downloads not going anywhere (4 million movies is trivial vs several hundred million for DVD), it's still a premie.
Click to expand...
I think you have it backwards or you are stuck in a time warp.
"US sales of music compact discs plummeted 20 percent in the first three months of the year (2005 1Q) as downloading of songs continued to knock the underpinnings from record studio revenues."
Sales of downloadable music :288 million
Sales of CDs: 89 million
And this was three years ago!!
Wake up Rip Van Winkle the world is moving on!
 
megfilmworks said:
I think you have it backwards or you are stuck in a time warp.
"US sales of music compact discs plummeted 20 percent in the first three months of the year (2005 1Q) as downloading of songs continued to knock the underpinnings from record studio revenues."
Sales of downloadable music :288 million
Sales of CDs: 89 million
And this was three years ago!!
Wake up Rip Van Winkle the world is moving on!
Click to expand...

What is your source again?

From every legit source of information that I've seen, I'd say it is you that are in some alternate reality. Maybe those numbers you have are wildly inflated by users of subscription services that allow users to rent an unlimited number of tracks for a flat monthly fee.

If what you say is true, then why wasn't Apple the #1 seller of all music three years ago? We know Apple is by far #1 in download music sales, but Walmart is still #1, and it's almost definitely not because they sell downloads too, they hardly seem to sell downloads. Apple is only #2 overall as of last month:

http://www.appleinsider.com/article..._become_third_largest_u_s_music_retailer.html

Same article:

"According to NPD, digital music downloads during the first quarter of the year accounted for only 13.8 percent of all music purchases. The remaining 86.2 percent were sold in physical disc format."

I was off a bit, it's 14% vs what I said was 10%. Yes, sales of CDs are down, but that still doesn't mean that CDs aren't still the majority driver for music sales. 15% downloads vs. 85% CD tells me that CDs are still very much alive, even if sales are fading.
 
krye said:
I will never buy a movie from iTunes. To me, if a movie is worth buying, then it is worth buying it from a store and getting it in a case, with an insert, and most likely a 2nd disc of special features, even if it's an extra couple of bucks.
Click to expand...
Sounds like my parents a few years back, "I'll never buy a movie on DVD and watch it at home. If it's good enough to see, it's good enough to go to a movie theatre and see it there!"
History just keeps on repeating itself.
 
megfilmworks said:
Breitbart for the quote:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070322121539.enwwmbqh&show_article=1
The confusion comes from the count of 10 per album. It's rigged in the record labels favor to support the fallacy that the cd is still a viable format for pop music. If you use that factor then your quotes make more sense.
Click to expand...

I don't get what you're saying. From you link:
"Music industry statistics show that CD sales have declined steadily for more than five years but still account for 90 percent of album purchases."

I don't see it as a rigging, because a track sold is not equivalent to a CD.
 
JeffDM said:
I don't get what you're saying. From you link:
"Music industry statistics show that CD sales have declined steadily for more than five years but still account for 90 percent of album purchases."

I don't see it as a rigging, because a track sold is not equivalent to a CD.
Click to expand...

I think it means that only 10% of music sales are brought by track only?
And for what its worth, it seems like that would be rigged, because not once on iTunes have I bought a whole album. The number should seem bigger, but who really knows. :rolleyes:
 
OnlyMarcusCannn said:
I think it means that only 10% of music sales are brought by track only?
And for what its worth, it seems like that would be rigged, because not once on iTunes have I bought a whole album. The number should seem bigger, but who really knows. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

It doesn't mean that at all. It's a conversion factor, not an exclusion factor. What it means is that 10 downloaded single tracks is considered equivalent to 1 CD.
 
The issue is that many buyers are forced to buy an entire CD album to get one or two songs.
When the record business started in the 50s it was driven by single sales.
Albums represent a forced "bundling". This skews the true customer demand.
With a digital download only the song the buyer wants is purchased.
 
megfilmworks said:
The issue is that many buyers are forced to buy an entire CD album to get one or two songs.
When the record business started in the 50s it was driven by single sales.
Albums represent a forced "bundling". This skews the true customer demand.
With a digital download only the song the buyer wants is purchased.
Click to expand...

That's definitely true, but for purposes of revenue, a CD is about 10x that of a single track download. The additional cost of buying the whole CD changes demand too, because of the higher price.
 
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