Monthly Archives: January 2010

For 'Avatar,' three-strikes means a quick out

January 17, 2010
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From the be careful what you wish for file: Twentieth Century-Fox’s Avatar, which is rapidly approaching the top spot among all-time global box-office grosses, and would likely be the biggest selling Blu-ray title to date when released at Christmas time, will actually be released on June 1st, at least in most of the world. Amazon France is already taking pre-orders, for 28.99 euros.

Why not wait until the most propitious time of year to release such a monster title in order to maximize sales? Because it would be against the law in France to wait beyond June 1. And if you release it in France, under EU rules, you’ve effectively released it throughout the EU. And if you release it in the EU, you’ve effectively released it throughout Blu-ray’s Region B, which includes Africa and the Middle East as well as Australia and New Zealand, where they speak a version of English. And if you’re going to release a movie with an English soundtrack in Region B, you might as well release it in Region A, which includes the United States, because it’s going to end up on the Internet sooner or later, probably sooner.

Welcome to life under France’s new three-strikes regime.   Read more »

RealNetworks' real mistake

January 15, 2010
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One week  after Judge Marilyn Hall Patel decisively threw out its antitrust claims against the studios and DVD CCA in the RealDVD case, RealNetworks appears to be imploding. On Wednesday COO John Giamatteo abruptly left the company, and on Thursday founder Rob Glaser stepped down as CEO (he’ll remain chairman). Although Glaser’s move had apparently been planned for some time, it came sooner than he expected and appears not to have been voluntary.

While it’s possible the timing of the events is just a coincidence I wouldn’t bet on it. Investors cheered the news of the Glaser move, sending the stock soaring 17 percent in its wake (ouch!), presumably in anticipation of a new strategic direction for the company–one not quite as provocative and confrontational with respect to the content owners.

The whole RealDVD saga, in fact, has been a disaster for Real. Not only has it been unable to distribute the product, thanks to a restraining order and temporary injunction by the court, but the litigation with the studios over the DVD copying software has produced an unending series of legal setbacks for Real, of which last week’s ruling is merely the latest. Read more »

TV vs. Cable

January 13, 2010
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The Media Wonk spent last week in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show where, everybody said, 3DTV would be the big story. And sure enough, nearly everywhere you went on the show floor folks were sporting either polarized shades or the full Geordi La Forge wraparounds and squinting at the new 3D displays tucked into carefully light-controlled alcoves of the display booths, like so many bug-eyed NFL refs going under the hood.

Yet for all the hoopla over 3D, the really important TV story out of CES was the explosion of embedded applications on Internet-capable HDTVs and Blu-ray players for bringing over-the-top (i.e. Internet-delivered) video into the living room. A year ago at CES there were only a few such TV sets on display, from a handful of manufacturers, and about all you could do with them was run a few Yahoo widgets and stream Netflix movies. At this year’s show, it was hard to find a home entertainment device that wasn’t Internet-ready, and if it didn’t come with its own app store it came embedded with one of the growing number of online content platforms from the likes of Vudu, DivX, Rovi and Boxee, among others.

Far more than 3D, set-makers’ growing commitment to enabling over-the-top video delivery to HDTV screens holds the potential to shake up the future evolution of the TV business. Read more »

Getting nowhere on TV Everywhere

January 6, 2010
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The Media Wonk is en route to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show as this is being written, where I expect to be inundated with all things 3D. Between taking off from Washington, DC and a stopover in Minneapolis, however (there’s a reason Delta Airlines went bankrupt awhile back, by the way), my BlackBerry was bombarded with “urgent” communiqués from all sides of what looks to be shaping up as a nasty policy fight over TV Everywhere.

The hoo-hah appears to have started with an item in the Washington Post Monday about calls on federal antitrust regulators by various public interest groups spearheaded by Free Press to begin immediately to investigate TV Everywhere. The calls were ostensibly prompted by a “study” paid for by Free Press, which purportedly discovered that TV Everywhere is actually a plot by “giant cable, satellite and phone companies,” along with Time Warner, to “eliminate the threat of online competition,” so they can continue to gouge consumers.

“This is a textbook antitrust violation,” thundered University of Nebraska law professor Marvin Ammori, the study’s author. “The old media giants are working together to kill off innovative online competitors and carve up the market for themselves…The antitrust authorities should not stand by and let the cable cartel crush Internet TV before it gets off the ground.” Read more »