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posted by n1 on Tuesday June 09 2015, @09:40AM   Printer-friendly
from the wanting-to-be-free dept.

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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  • (Score: 1) by penguinoid on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:26PM

    by penguinoid (5331) on Tuesday June 09 2015, @06:26PM (#194164)

    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.

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  • (Score: 2) by tibman on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:13PM

    by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 09 2015, @08:13PM (#194244)

    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

    by sjames (2882) on Wednesday June 10 2015, @03:32AM (#194360) Journal

    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

      by penguinoid (5331) on Wednesday June 10 2015, @04:25AM (#194373)

      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.

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      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday June 10 2015, @05:59AM

        by sjames (2882) on Wednesday June 10 2015, @05:59AM (#194404) Journal

        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.