Available to own on DVD or hi-def Blu-ray...

I just saw a commercial for a new movie coming out on DVD, and the title of this post was the tag-line. Pretty familiar, huh? These days--and for quite some time now--movie studios are urging you to buy their movies and own them outright.

It wasn't always like this. When movies first started appearing for home video--in the days of the first great format war, VHS vs. Beta (before Stalin turned the war around in the winter of '43 and battered the Beta-troops back to Berlin), the studios were notoriously hinky about ownership. Movies were sold at exorbitant prices and geared towards a rental-only marketplace. Video stores were expected to buy them at a high rate and earn their money back through repeated rentals. The first movie I ever bought on VHS--Annie Hall--cost $89.95. Now it's $7.49 on DVD on Amazon. In those days, the prospect of owning even a miniscule movie collection on VHS seemed dismal.

Then Paramount took the first big step and released Flashdance and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan at $39.95 each and that opened the flood gates. Prices crept down. A new collectors' mentality was fostered and encouraged, culminating--or so we thought--with the Laserdisc format, one designed specifically for collectors. That in turn brought us DVD, much smaller and cuter, and the studios realized that each one of us, in one way or another, is a collector, and film is the perfect medium to bring that trait out. Everyone has that ONE movie they want to own. Special features, deleted scenes, blooper reels, and commentaries became the norm. DVD fostered the rise of home video for collectors, hard- and soft-core, and at a price point we could all agree upon.

Now it's all poised to go away. You can tell me Blu-ray is the wave of the future. You can slim down the packaging and put that cute little clear-blue topper on the case; you can add even more special features and appeal to the film fanatic in me. But lurking down the road is what the studios wanted all along, the one thing that they've longed for, pined for, dreamed about: complete and utter ownership of their movies.

Anyone with an ounce of brain power knows that Netflix and Blockbuster will soon become download only services. The studios will LEND you their movies, lease them to you, let you watch them, but I'm convinced that the days of owning a movie are over. You can watch but you can't touch. You can't hold it, can't caress it, can't own it. You'll download a movie--in a high-definition format--be able to watch it for a few days, a few weeks, maybe even a month, for a fee...and then it will disappear. And the next time you want to watch it, you'll have to rent it again.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the studios will relent and let us own movies, but owning them as a download that exists solely on your computer (or some extra added high-capacity hard drive that comes as part of a service) isn't the same as that array of DVD boxes that sits across from me, looking so warm and inviting. It's soulless and utilitarian at best. Those three filled-to-the-brim shelf units--designed specifically for DVDs, I'll have you know--mean I never have to say I have nothing to watch. Perhaps a hard drive full of choices will speak the same language, but I doubt it. Computers are fragile pieces of equipment, prone to crashes and debilitating data losses. And once the whole Skynet™ thing kicks in, they'll be our enemies anyway.

You laugh (I hope), but I think the Skynet paradigm isn't that far off from the studios' ultimate endgame: complete and total subjugation of the movie-watching public. There will be added perks, of course. Someday our prince will come in the form of on-demand movies for download the same day they premiere in theaters. But that's a lame trade-off. Just as people will always want to go out for a night at the movies, sharing the communal aspect of film-viewing that has been a hallmark of the industry since the days of nickelodeons, people will also want to OWN their favorite films. We might be building a generation of downloaders, rippers and burners, but right now, my peers, my peeps, well, we want to own these films that speak to us. We want the cute little boxes, the nice packaging, the great graphics, the bonus features, the ability to walk over to a shelf, pull out a favorite film, pop it in and sit back and relax. The studios are so enamored with technology they forget who we are: we're a nation of collectors, for better or worse, a country filled with people invested in the pride of ownership. A film on a hard drive becomes software. A movie on DVD--regular or high-octane Blu-ray--becomes a treasured favorite. But the cold hard hearts of studio execs will never be able to appreciate that fine point.

Comments

[M_eHart]

"Anyone with an ounce of brain power knows that Netflix and Blockbuster will soon become download only services. "

Well, not as long as some of us are on dial-up. :)

Maybe I'm just predisposed to see it, but it sure seems like there are a lot of parallels to discussions taking place in the book industry here...

[Pam]

Dear Gary!
Oh,oh, shudder, I HOPE THAT vision of yours will wait until I am laying in my grave, watching the angels performing some great western movies for me! Looking at my collection of videos and dvd`s and before THAT was possible I recorded them (the vikings!)on tapes for my little recorder....I hate the idea of not having the opportunity to WATCH MY FAVOURITES each tine of day I want to....I always thougght of video and dvd as wonderfult things....please let not slip away from us...