The leaders of the film industry have again proved that they are utterly clueless about the 21st century. Instead of rethinking spending upwards of $100 million on crap like war of the worlds, and going out and relearning how to tell stories with films, they are going to flush a bunch of money to try to make their own copy protection. From techdirt.com:
If the studios would focus on creating movies that people actually want to see that for a price that they are willing to pay. Who wants to pay $10/person to seek drek like the fantastic four and so many other hollywood failures. The likes of Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts and others don’t need to be paid $20million a pop. Movies like 28 Days Later are shot on digital video (using the Canon XL1s) and look awesome and cost a fraction of the price of many studio flicks. Screw the big studios, and their crappy blockbusters. Go with the independants and find stuff that is really worth watching.
It worked soooo well for the music biz, I’m sure it will work for the studios. Only question is, how much money will they waste?
BTW: I downloaded (legally) the video for Nickelback’s new single Photograph, and used freeware to strip the mp3 off the sound. It’s now on my iPod. I think this is evidence that some record companies believe the best way to sell songs is to let people sample them, which has been my position for a decade now.