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One upon a time, movies were released in different countries at different times. This could be done because there was no easy way to copy and store away a movie. If you lived in Italy, you could wait up to two years before you saw a popular movie. Then two things happened: it became easy to copy and store movies; and everybody in the world suddenly became interconnected. The regional segregation has ended: the only ones to believe that it's still there are the dinosaurs from a past era.
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Netflix: The Crumbling Borders of Geolocation and the Thieves Who Happily Pay for What They "Steal"
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For recreational use only.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tibman on Tuesday June 09 2015, @03:01PM
Region locking has never made sense to consumers. To us it looks like they don't even want to make money. Just put the stuff on the market and let everyone buy it.
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(Score: 1) by penguinoid on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:26PM
In theory, price discrimination is a great blessing to poorer consumers. It means that a company can offer their product at a price right down to their marginal cost of production, without losing the profits from selling it at the "regular" price to people who can afford it. So price discrimination could turn out to be a very good thing -- not that I've ever seen a good implementation.
RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:13PM
I think that is a "have the cake and eat it too" situation. If they start at the high-price (like normal) and have the price slowly go down over time (like normal) then they still capture everyone who wanted to buy it. Only instead of a geographical variable they have a time variable. Pirates will pirate, no matter the price.
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(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday June 10 2015, @03:32AM
On the other hand, if the market was healthy they would be forced to sell at just above their marginal cost from day one everywhere.
(Score: 1) by penguinoid on Wednesday June 10 2015, @04:25AM
On the other hand, if the market was healthy they would be forced to sell at just above their marginal cost from day one everywhere.
No, it doesn't work that way. There is no idealized free market with infinite competition and perfectly interchangeable products. Remember also that when it comes to digital products of any kind, the marginal cost of production is basically zero, yet the development costs can be huge, and everything is covered by copyright. It's the development costs that need to be paid off -- and this can be done making fewer sales at higher prices, making more sales at lower prices, or doing both (price discrimination).
Of course, when their product is basically free to reproduce and transport, failing to release it everywhere is like begging for it to be pirated.
RIP Slashdot. Killed by greedy bastards.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday June 10 2015, @05:59AM
Keep in mind that a blockbuster recoups it's production cost in the first week. Most others do so sometime during their first run, typically before moving to the cheap second run theaters. That still leaves the DVD mastering costs, but that's not much compared to the cost to produce the movie. Basically, that is covered in the "just above".
Here's a sanity check: DVDs for a five or 10 year old movie in region 1 still cost well more than just a bit over the marginal cost.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:43PM
To us it looks like they don't even want to make money
You dont think hollywood accounting works by magic do you?
JMS: The show, all in, cost about $110 million to make. Each year of its original run, we know it showed a profit because they TOLD us so. And in one case, they actually showed us the figures. It's now been on the air worldwide for ten years. There's been merchandise, syndication, cable, books, you name it. The DVDs grossed roughly half a BILLION dollars (and that was just after they put out S5, without all of the S5 sales in). So what does my last profit statement say? We're $80 million in the red. Basically, by the terms of my contract, if a set on a WB movie burns down in Botswana, they can charge it against B5's profits.
They need 'loss' to offset the profit. To make it look like the whole thing is run at a loss.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:31PM
Always upvote JMS.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:09PM
I'm actually rewatching B5 right now : ) Such a great show.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday June 09 2015, @07:19PM
People doing the end-run around region locking is a harbinger of things to come. That is, people will see through artificial scarcity and act accordingly. If we make the tools to do that universally available to each other, it will greatly erode centralized control of all kinds.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @06:08AM
The pity is .. them dinosaurs put a penny in the bank way back in the Pleiscene Era and now, through the sheer force of simple interest, have enough money to swamp any opposition with more lawyers than law school can produce in six million years.