Why hasn't someone out there made an iTunes-like service for movies? That is, full length feature films?
Let's see, for a movie of 2 hours in length, I'm content with a 700 MB quality file. Off of a decent server and on a broadband connection, say at 200 kb/s, a 716,800 kb file will be done in 3,584 seconds, or about 2 and half hours. That's a reasonable time to wait.
In terms of cost, I can pop in to see a movie here for $4-8 dollars Canadian in a Toronto movie theatre; rentals are about the same. So, let's say that seeing a movie via current traditional means costs $5 US. Then taking out the costs associated with running a business and making profit (a theatre or a movie rental place), the industry is probably left with what, $2 US or something? Add in the cost of bandwith for internet delivery, and charge people $3/movie download (or per movie watching, I don't care personally... 99% of the time, I don't watch movies more than once).
I'd gladly pay $3 dollars for a movie that I can download off of a fast, reliable server. I think that it'd be a comparable profit for movie makers, that is, a business model that will pull in the same profits in their pockets are theatres or rentals.
And moreover, it would really cut down on piracy - MP3s are easy to obtain, but movies are an absolute pain. They're large, and anything older than a year or two is practically impossible to find. (Moreover, paying for something like Usenet access costs around $1/movie, which is close enough to my $3/movie guess to dissuade most piracy.) It's a similar story with theatres and rental places; if your movie tastes are anything out of the ordinary, you're forced to buy a $20 DVD you'll only watch once anyway. There's really a need for this type of business model. The MPAA would stifle much of the piracy it runs its silly ads against if it was only able to take advantage of technology already and stop trying to hang on to its outdated business model.
So why isn't it here yet?
Edit: Or better yet, why hasn't someone like Apple or a major consortium done it yet? A search on Google gives a few shady results for what may be emerging versions of this service.
Let's see, for a movie of 2 hours in length, I'm content with a 700 MB quality file. Off of a decent server and on a broadband connection, say at 200 kb/s, a 716,800 kb file will be done in 3,584 seconds, or about 2 and half hours. That's a reasonable time to wait.
In terms of cost, I can pop in to see a movie here for $4-8 dollars Canadian in a Toronto movie theatre; rentals are about the same. So, let's say that seeing a movie via current traditional means costs $5 US. Then taking out the costs associated with running a business and making profit (a theatre or a movie rental place), the industry is probably left with what, $2 US or something? Add in the cost of bandwith for internet delivery, and charge people $3/movie download (or per movie watching, I don't care personally... 99% of the time, I don't watch movies more than once).
I'd gladly pay $3 dollars for a movie that I can download off of a fast, reliable server. I think that it'd be a comparable profit for movie makers, that is, a business model that will pull in the same profits in their pockets are theatres or rentals.
And moreover, it would really cut down on piracy - MP3s are easy to obtain, but movies are an absolute pain. They're large, and anything older than a year or two is practically impossible to find. (Moreover, paying for something like Usenet access costs around $1/movie, which is close enough to my $3/movie guess to dissuade most piracy.) It's a similar story with theatres and rental places; if your movie tastes are anything out of the ordinary, you're forced to buy a $20 DVD you'll only watch once anyway. There's really a need for this type of business model. The MPAA would stifle much of the piracy it runs its silly ads against if it was only able to take advantage of technology already and stop trying to hang on to its outdated business model.
So why isn't it here yet?
Edit: Or better yet, why hasn't someone like Apple or a major consortium done it yet? A search on Google gives a few shady results for what may be emerging versions of this service.
