The accidental truth revealed by DVD "rentals"

The idea was to sell DVDs that have been treated with a chemical that causes them to go bad after 5 days. You buy the DVD, for less than the cost of the purchase of the non-treated DVD, watch it all you want for 5 days, and toss it when it goes bad.

Interesting idea for renting dvds right? No worrying about late fees, or that 11:52pm trip to the video store.

Except for one thing.

It now costs the manufacturer more to make the DVD.

Once more;

It now costs MORE to process and make the DVD.

And yet, they can somehow afford the cost of this extra treatment process, and can charge less than $5 for it.

So your choices are to purchase the official copy of the DVD and get all it's digital clarity and special features for $18.99 or, to buy the exact same DVD with all the same amenities, for $3.50 but you can only view it for 5 days because it underwent an extra form of treatment.

How much do you really think it costs to stamp out DVDs? Not even knowing what you just guessed, I'd bet $18.99 that you guessed way too high.

Why do they charge as much as they do?

because they can
By owning rights to sell a particular DVD movie, they have a monopoly on the sale of that movie. If you want to see it again, you have to buy the movie, and if you have to buy the movie, you can only buy it from them, and if you can only buy it from them, they are free to charge whatever they want for it. Of course, we're also free to choose not to buy it. And we have.
*click* *download* *watch* *piss off the MPAA*

(this isn't exactly true though, because if they charged $100 for a DVD almost no one would buy it) (although the MPAA claims that almost no one is buying DVDs for $18.99 anyways, so there are two solutions, stop selling movies, or charge less so people will pay for the movie.)

You wouldn't steal a purse, why would you steal a movie?

This is part of the MPAA's Oversimplification Campaign. They'd like you to think that theft is theft. The fact that downloading movies is a "victimless crime" makes it so a small group of people will do it. The fact that DVDs are ludicrously overpriced makes it so another small group of people will do it. And the fact that a huge national comglomerate likes to bully and extort $2000 apologies from 8 year old inner city girls makes a larger group of people hate the MPAA and download out of spite. (this is their end of the oversimplification campaign, breaking the law is breaking the law, and if you're 8 years old and weren't aware that your computer was allowing other people to upload other movies so more people could download them, tough luck. Now fork over $2000 for every movie someone downloaded off your computer (estimated more than 10,000) or write how sorry you are in an essay, and we'll only charge you $2000) Add all those small groups of pissed off people together and you have a sizable number of people who would download movies. But of them probably about 20% actually do (which is a shame). If everyone actually did, maybe those other ludicrous numbers (IE their estimated profit losses**) could start to become a reality. We can only hope.

MPAA, first let me say this, "Chill the fuck out!" You have the incredible fortune of being in an industry that will ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS be in demand! (only one other group has this; the RIAA =) You have little to no competition (there's not Other Motion Picture Association of America) and you will always make money as long as you make good investments. Hell, even if you don't you'll make ungodly amounts of money! If you do little to nothing, you will STILL make money. So Chill.

Movie industry, buy a clue. The MPAA really just a large group of lawyers sitting around bored out of thier skulls looking for something to sue! I mean "do"... No wait... Fuck the MPAA, and let your fans dictate how they want to see movies. I garantee you, you'll still make your tens of millions. You'll just do it without seeming like cold, heartless, schoolyard bullies.

GROW UP


** Estimated profit loss due to movies is a number that cannot technically be figured due to the nature of P2P downloads. Therefore it can only be determined by how much they estimated a movie to make. So when they hyped the FUCK out of that train wreck John Travolta movie where he's an alien or some shit (I was able to find it by googling "worst movie ever travolta" (no quotes). The movie was Battlefield Earth) and when if bombs like... like... hmmm. Nothing to compair it to, because nothing bombed more than "Battlefield Earth"! They blame it on "those damn filesharers!" It has nothing to do with the fact that Hollywood is mostly out of touch with most of America. Nooooo... Nor that it costs $35 to take my girlfriend to the movies. Noooo... It must be those damn filesharers.