4 ms·

Wonder why they just don’t start their own store?

by madengr 8y ago

platz 8y ago
do you want to negotiate a contract with hollywood?
- slededit 8y ago
  Renting store bought DVDs is legal. There was a big court case about it in the 90s.
- jedberg 8y ago
  The beauty of Blockbuster is that you don’t have to! Thanks to the First Sale Doctrine, in the US, you don’t need permission from the copyright holder to loan out legal physical copies of copyright content. The reasons “rental copies” exist is because they were more expensive versions that were available early so the rental stores could have them before they were for sale. But it was (and I guess in rural Alaska maybe still is) perfectly viable to build a rental outfit based solely on retail copies of movies.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    I don't remember how much it carried over to the DVD era, but there was a period when typical VHS tapes were priced very high and the expectation was that individuals would just rent them but some, like certain Disney films, were "priced to own" on the assumption they were the sort of movie which could be a Christmas stocking stuffer. I think some of the big chains also had deals with the studios where they'd get a bunch of discs for a reduced price and paid a revenue percentage or something like that.
    - ralphc 8y ago
      The start of this era was around 1987 with "Top Gun" https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/15/arts/marketing-top-gun-cassette.html https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/15/arts/marketing-top-gun-ca...
    - chiph 8y ago
      I recall tapes were selling in the $65-80 range. Which was a lot of money in the early 90's. Because tapes would wear out with each play, I elected to buy 12" LaserDiscs which cost only slightly more, but would never wear out. For those who never saw one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOrn2hBsYKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOrn2hBsYKE
      - ghaff 8y ago
        I have a shelf full of laserdiscs that I honestly don't know what to with (and a laserdisc player). I don't want them and I assume there are individuals who do but I'm not about to go to a lot of trouble to sell them. I suppose I could put the whole thing on Craigslist, take it or leave it. But I'm far enough out of a big city that I've never had much luck with that tactic.
        mmt 8y ago
        If you have enough unusual content, perhaps archive.org could arrange to have it taken to them. They seem to have an interest digitizing older, non-digital media.
        dawnerd 8y ago
        Depending on condition there’s quite the market for them on eBay. But yeah, it’s a hassle to package and ship them.
        thaumasiotes 8y ago
        eBay?
        ghaff 8y ago
        Too much hassle.
  - platz 8y ago
    > before they were for sale Right, I bet a substantial pct of customers would just buy the dvd outright these days, if they can just get it from retail
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    There was an interesting story about RedBox a few years ago. Hollywood was trying to block them from buying movies for their kiosks. So they were sending armies of employees with gift cards out to all the Best Buy, Walmart, and whoever else sold the movie and was buying them at retail. Even though a supreme Court case has upheld rental rights, Hollywood is still trying to keep them from buying the movies in the first place.
    - lovich 8y ago
      Why not just stop selling the movies instead of wasting all that time, capital, and effort?
      - jjeaff 8y ago
        Because they want to sell the movies. Just not to rental companies. Every DVD sold to redbox could be 20-30 DVDs that never get sold because people were able to rent it.
- ghaff 8y ago
  You don't need contracts with Hollywood; you can just buy the discs--although my understanding is that at least the big renters did have deals of various sorts. The article says that the Alaska Blockbuster stores, which were owned by someone else, were just slowly failing. This isn't a case of successful stores being shut down because a parent company as a whole failed.
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    I'm not sure how many copies on hand a rental store would need, but Hollywood has tried to block rental companies from buying in bulk for years. RedBox was sending employees out with gift cards to buy up enough stock. There were some lawsuits against retailers by Hollywood outfits for selling too many to single buyers.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      The relationship between the studios and disc renters has gone back and forth over the years. The time of news around Redbox seems to have been about 10 years ago [1] when DVD sales were supposedly starting to decline significantly. I'd be a bit surprised if it were an issue to the same degree today where video is often available for streaming rental (and on things like airline entertainment systems) before retail discs even go on sale. And I don't know the latest numbers but Redbox revenue was (unsurprisingly) declining sharply as of a year or so ago and Netflix is letting its DVD back catalog rot to the point where it's almost not worth it. [1] https://www.forbes.com/2009/10/26/dvds-mitch-lowe-business-entertainment-redbox.html#2da218325927 https://www.forbes.com/2009/10/26/dvds-mitch-lowe-business-e...

Wonder why they just don’t start their own store?

platz 8y ago

do you want to negotiate a contract with hollywood?

slededit 8y ago
Renting store bought DVDs is legal. There was a big court case about it in the 90s.
jedberg 8y ago
The beauty of Blockbuster is that you don’t have to! Thanks to the First Sale Doctrine, in the US, you don’t need permission from the copyright holder to loan out legal physical copies of copyright content. The reasons “rental copies” exist is because they were more expensive versions that were available early so the rental stores could have them before they were for sale. But it was (and I guess in rural Alaska maybe still is) perfectly viable to build a rental outfit based solely on retail copies of movies.
- ghaff 8y ago
  I don't remember how much it carried over to the DVD era, but there was a period when typical VHS tapes were priced very high and the expectation was that individuals would just rent them but some, like certain Disney films, were "priced to own" on the assumption they were the sort of movie which could be a Christmas stocking stuffer. I think some of the big chains also had deals with the studios where they'd get a bunch of discs for a reduced price and paid a revenue percentage or something like that.
  - ralphc 8y ago
    The start of this era was around 1987 with "Top Gun" https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/15/arts/marketing-top-gun-cassette.html https://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/15/arts/marketing-top-gun-ca...
  - chiph 8y ago
    I recall tapes were selling in the $65-80 range. Which was a lot of money in the early 90's. Because tapes would wear out with each play, I elected to buy 12" LaserDiscs which cost only slightly more, but would never wear out. For those who never saw one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOrn2hBsYKE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOrn2hBsYKE
    - ghaff 8y ago
      I have a shelf full of laserdiscs that I honestly don't know what to with (and a laserdisc player). I don't want them and I assume there are individuals who do but I'm not about to go to a lot of trouble to sell them. I suppose I could put the whole thing on Craigslist, take it or leave it. But I'm far enough out of a big city that I've never had much luck with that tactic.
      - mmt 8y ago
        If you have enough unusual content, perhaps archive.org could arrange to have it taken to them. They seem to have an interest digitizing older, non-digital media.
      - dawnerd 8y ago
        Depending on condition there’s quite the market for them on eBay. But yeah, it’s a hassle to package and ship them.
      - thaumasiotes 8y ago
        eBay?
        ghaff 8y ago
        Too much hassle.
- platz 8y ago
  > before they were for sale Right, I bet a substantial pct of customers would just buy the dvd outright these days, if they can just get it from retail
- jjeaff 8y ago
  There was an interesting story about RedBox a few years ago. Hollywood was trying to block them from buying movies for their kiosks. So they were sending armies of employees with gift cards out to all the Best Buy, Walmart, and whoever else sold the movie and was buying them at retail. Even though a supreme Court case has upheld rental rights, Hollywood is still trying to keep them from buying the movies in the first place.
  - lovich 8y ago
    Why not just stop selling the movies instead of wasting all that time, capital, and effort?
    - jjeaff 8y ago
      Because they want to sell the movies. Just not to rental companies. Every DVD sold to redbox could be 20-30 DVDs that never get sold because people were able to rent it.
ghaff 8y ago
You don't need contracts with Hollywood; you can just buy the discs--although my understanding is that at least the big renters did have deals of various sorts. The article says that the Alaska Blockbuster stores, which were owned by someone else, were just slowly failing. This isn't a case of successful stores being shut down because a parent company as a whole failed.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  I'm not sure how many copies on hand a rental store would need, but Hollywood has tried to block rental companies from buying in bulk for years. RedBox was sending employees out with gift cards to buy up enough stock. There were some lawsuits against retailers by Hollywood outfits for selling too many to single buyers.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    The relationship between the studios and disc renters has gone back and forth over the years. The time of news around Redbox seems to have been about 10 years ago [1] when DVD sales were supposedly starting to decline significantly. I'd be a bit surprised if it were an issue to the same degree today where video is often available for streaming rental (and on things like airline entertainment systems) before retail discs even go on sale. And I don't know the latest numbers but Redbox revenue was (unsurprisingly) declining sharply as of a year or so ago and Netflix is letting its DVD back catalog rot to the point where it's almost not worth it. [1] https://www.forbes.com/2009/10/26/dvds-mitch-lowe-business-entertainment-redbox.html#2da218325927 https://www.forbes.com/2009/10/26/dvds-mitch-lowe-business-e...