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Movie studios fear Apple TV

12 June 2007 18:20 by Dave "Davedough" Horvath | 8 comments

Several big name movie studios have announced that they are fearful of the future of their film industry should the Cupertino, California based company Apple succeed with its Apple TV offering.

Released earlier this Spring, Apple TV seemed poised to take on the movie industry by offering select downloads from their iTunes service featuring a robust catalog of movies. With Disney already on board with Apple offering new releases and several other smaller studios offering titles from their older collection, Apple already offers some 500 movies. This new wave of film availability has sent the bigger movie moguls reeling.

The likes of Sony, Universal and 20th Century Fox will be missing from the iTunes list until they can see Apple implement a more viable plan for battling internet piracy. Additionally, these studios, along with a few others, believe that offering the convenience of downloading movies for a discounted rate through Apple's service will inevitably drive the price of DVDs down. With DVD sales being the industry's bread and butter, and with many poised to make their money from the next generation disks, this poses a huge business threat for future productivity.

Apple has already proven with the music industry that it could single handedly force the price of CD sales down. For years, the average price for a CD was $13. Since the release of iTunes, research shows a significant reduction in pricing. This move was achieved by a sweet talking Steve Jobs who had convinced the music industry at the time that his 99 cent downloads would battle the rampant internet piracy that the industry was facing. Most of the record labels jumped on board and touted Jobs as their savior.

The movie studios are fearful that a similar thing can happen with movies. By offering a lower price for new releases and with Apple TV's ability to stream content to the consumer's television, this could severely impact the DVD market in both cost and amount of units sold.

Another major concern is the fact that Apple's vulnerable iPod can play any mp3 music that is loaded into it, regardless of whether or not it was purchased by legitimate means or not. The movie industry says they are waiting for something along the lines of a digital watermark to be implemented so that the media will not play on Apple TV unless the watermark is present.

The big name labels are still in talks with Apple to negotiate how to handle the next wave of digital convenience. No word yet on whether or not the way you view your movies will change in the near future.

Source:
LA Times

Permalink to this article

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Discuss this article!
limelight (Member) 12 June 2007 18:45
I can see it coming: The onslought of "Special Edition" Dvd's with a bunch of worthless extras (that should have been in the first printing) for a substantially higher price. [ + quote]
21Q (Senior Member) 13 June 2007 3:22
I think that theaters will always stay. There will always be a demand for a big screen. Now if the actual big screen was affordable enough for everyone to have then there's a problem. But the born within 1990 - 2010 will probably still go to theater since they did. But as for kids born after that, it may just become something their parents did. [ + quote]
maryjayne (Junior Member) 13 June 2007 4:51
Movie studios should have expected this for quite some time now. With the introduction of legal mp3 downloads, it is only logical that the next biggest entertainment seller, movies, would be next. The movie industry should have people on their staff to predict such a change and make adjustments to work with it to their advantage. Instead they will sit back until an uneffective watermark system is implemented and then start sueing everyone for illegal usage of their material. Personally I already think that the price for DVDs is too high and will continue to stick with blockbuster and netflix. [ + quote]
SGSeries2 (Junior Member) 13 June 2007 6:13
That apple remote looks like a wii-mote! ... Does Nintendo know about this? ;) [ + quote]
spydah (Junior Member) 13 June 2007 7:37
They are so shallow. They need to move forward with technology. Also the price of CD's & Dvd's should go down they are very over priced and have been before mp3's have taken over as the header in music format. I like the fact that Apple is bold enough to tell them its always other ways to have the same effect without copying what your doing. Streaming videos and music should be cool. Currently people do the same things with their Tivo so it really doesnt change that much. [ + quote]
Cinnjerm (Junior Member) 14 June 2007 12:12
Why is this supposed to be some big break through. There's been pay-per-view forever and comcast has just started offering movies(new movies) on demand as soon as they come out. To me, there's nothing revolutionary about what's being done here. Even Microsoft has been making media center PCs which do the same thing. LOL over-reacting! [ + quote]
Gidgid (Newbie) 15 June 2007 16:19
Quote: Another major concern is the fact that Apple's vulnerable iPod can play any mp3 music that is loaded into it, regardless of whether or not it was purchased by legitimate means or not. The movie industry says they are waiting for something along the lines of a digital watermark to be implemented so that the media will not play on Apple TV unless the watermark is present. Wait, so you're saying it's vulnerable because it plays music that we bought and later ripped? So you want my appleTV, which I payed for mind you, to restrict me from playing movies that I made on my camcorder? Yep, that sounds about right... PS. "whether or not...legitimate means or not." Now that's just poor grammar. [ + quote]
Unfocused (Member) 31 July 2007 0:48
Do they not see that people paying for digital downloads offsets the loss of a purchase from physical media? Why the hell would I buy the physical and a digital? All of these studio execs need a serious lesson in common sense. Just because they can afford to piss away their money doesn't mean that the common man can do the same. [ + quote]