Downloads Disturb Me

At Appleworld 2008 today, Steve Jobs announced that iTunes was taking what I would consider a BAD route. Temporary downloads of movies from every major studio.

My problem with finite ownership is that it only fills the stopgap of storage. What perturbs me is that you have only 24 hours to rewatch something once you watched it. Even the hated Blockbuster is more generous with the length of time you can watch a new release in.

So are we trading rental time periods for perceived ease? I’m of the opinion that this is very unfriendly to the consumer. iTunes is successful when the product is given perceived ownership of a song in its replayability. Looking at the first incarnation of Zune, which dabbled in temporary song downloads, the idea was a veritable and embarrassing flop.

And this is where movies are headed? Say what you will about Blu Rays, confusing formats, or the problems in discs. The storage issues of downloads will be a scapegoat for the continuous revenue streams via short-term viewing windows long after terabyte drives are the standard.

Regarding region locks and my previous post:

-There are 3 region locks. America is actually in the same region as Japan. Thusly, the anime quandary is answered in this generation like never before.

-The thing that I always tell people in regards to business decisions is to follow the money and all the answers are clear. In the case of region locks, this is no different. Currencies cost different things, and the map for Blu Ray’s locks are fairly clear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc#Region_codes

The first zone contains major markets (such as Japan and the United States) where most movies are very profitable. These are also markets that are fairly strong despite the depreciation of all the currencies.

The second zone contains countries of burgeoning markets (such as the European Union) where the currency is growing at a fairly rapid rate.

The last zone contains all the areas where copyright e protections are largely unenforceable. It also contains the dirt poor. You couldn’t sell them a Spiderman 3 DVD for 14 dollars American. You could sell it for 2, and make 2 dollars over 0 dollars.

If you follow the money, Blu Ray region locks make perfect financial sense. If you had a product for several distinct markets with marked currency trends, it would be financially irresponsible to let the market devalue your product prematurely. No investor would touch you, which leads to less content. As frustrating as this is, it will get worse with downloads. Look at the disparate prices and availability of games on the Wii, which is a reasonable system, and imagine what kind of approach large Hollywood studios will take.