Disney to Begin Renting 'Self-Destructing' DVDs

[tgpo]

Now the Downside . I bet ALL the DVD screeners released in the future will use this technology, think about it! No more disks laying around for a cleaning person to find :P

Why is that a downside? If if causes DVD Screener not to appear online then great. I'm tired of paying high ticket prices becuse of idiots who upload/download movies.

[RAAGAAman]

This will Just drive more DVD Copying. Sometimes you want to see a movie two or three times before you return it. This is espeically true for Kids movies. Stupid Idea and Landfills will be full of this crap.

RG

[thinkert]

I think a couple of you are missing the point with these:

Those talking about this as if it were a copy-protection scheme-it's nothing of the sort. It's a convenience factor design-you can buy it anywhere, you can open it when you want-not an anti-piracy scheme.

Those talking about Blockbuster having to stock umpteen copies and going out of business-my guess is that it's not designed for rental stores-they would continue as usual. It's designed to be sold at retail outlets. Rental stores would continue to stock actual copies for rental.

Those saying "it will fail, I don't mind going to the video store"-I have gone to the video store on occasion to find the movie I wanted sold out. If this were available, i might be able to run to Wal-Mart and get a disposable copy to watch instead. Since retail stores can carry these in semi-large quantities, it increases the likelyhood that you will be able to find it. Rental stores won't be able to stock as many rentals as retail stores can stock these disposables, and you can't match the convenience factor of buying it and saving it to watch whenever you want, rather than having to run to the video store when you're in the mood. It's kinda a cross between pay-per-view and a rental, now that I think of it.

As for price, I would imagine that it will be slightly more than a rental, so as not to tick off Blockbuster completely (although they can't be happy with it in general). That way, you can go to Blockbuster for a cheaper rental, or pay a little extra for the convenience. That's how I would guess Disney would position it.

With those things in mind, do I think it will succeed? Probably to some extent, unless someone figures out you can spray hairspray on it or something like that to disable them. I think it will find a nitch, and it may have a small impact on rentals, but I don't think it will become a huge market.

[Nolonemo]

I agree. Its not a rental.

Haven't you guys ever read the contract on the envelope before your open it to remove your new software? You do not buy software, you buy a license to use it.

Disney is not renting a disk, they are not selling a disk. They are selling a limited license to view their software (the movie). The license expires when the disk goes opaque.

FWIW, the studios have eyed the money made by the rental chains (that is, when said chains aren't running each other into the ground with cutthroat competition) enviously ever since the rental market matured. Disney is just looking for a way to cut out the middleman. It's brilliant because if you don't have to worry about handling returns after the rental, you can use any retail outlet to sell the product. The cost to produce the DVDs and packaging is probably pennies at the volumes you're talking about. Think about it, hit movie comes out on DVD, you can pick up a rental at any 7-11 in the U.S. "Unsold" disks get picked up at the next dropoff and credited back. For 7-11, it's just like dealing with magazines or newspapers.

One thing about Disney, not all their movies are hits and Disney stock has had its problems caused by poor performance in some sectors of their corporate empire, but those guys aren'te stupid when it comes to figuring out new ways to make money. I'm quite curious to see how this plays out.

One last thing, as in software, the industry is moving towards a license model for all entertainment. You don' t own nothing except the right to use the software within the terms of the license agreement. This is just a step in that direction. The medium containing the software is valueless.

[madmax-zz]

Just read this post and find it unbelievable surley this is not true

[defense]

I saw this on CNN a few days ago and it is absolutely, one of the top 5 most ludicrous things i've ever heard of. You mean to tell me that Michael Eisner or any other top dogs at Disney haven't the slightest clue about the DVD copying process, and how it's getting easier and easier by the day? You gotta' be kiddin' me.

Even "IF" these oxygen affected disks are sold at the regular price of a rental, which I believe will be the case, then how the hell can they compete with a company like NetFlix? Nextflix has a substantial inventory and depending on the plan you have, you can get a movie for about $1.00 or so and NEVER get a SINGLE LATE FEE! I mean, why the hell would anyone purchase a movie for (at the least) the same price they can get it for at netflix or Walmart? With sites such as walmart and netflix, you can watch the movies whenver you want, even weeks or months down the line and never incur a late fee.

I can't see this ridiculous service lasting more then a year TOPS. Disney is gonna lose a nice piece of change with these disks but they won't notice it much.

[leebo]

Now the Downside . I bet ALL the DVD screeners released in the future will use this technology, think about it! No more disks laying around for a cleaning person to find :P

Why is that a downside? If if causes DVD Screener not to appear online then great. I'm tired of paying high ticket prices becuse of idiots who upload/download movies.

I don't believe the relatively FEW people uploading screener movies are why ticket prices are so high. I believe it's "STARS" like Keanu Reeves making $30,000,000 a picture.

Remember, the average person does not download movies from the Internet. Mostly techies do that.

Believe me, if stars got paid what teachers do, ticket prices would be half what they are now.

[freak_in_cage_10k]

I believe that thin,colourless plastic covers which stick onto the surface of a CD, preventing it from being scratched are widely avaliable and very cheap! Why not just stick one of these onto the DVD, thereby preventing the oxygen from touching the surface!?

[leebo]

It's brilliant because if you don't have to worry about handling returns after the rental, you can use any retail outlet to sell the product.

Eisner thought Divx was "brilliant" at the time, too. I remember videotaping him at a deposition a few years ago. I listened to his "brilliant" thoughts about Divx, and thought "no way will that fly".

But what did a peon like me know about big business?


I think if it works at all it will be in a small, nich market as mentioned by thinkert (rental store out of stock, run to 7-11). But even that is iffy.

[cellmaniac]

The destroying DVD has a huge marketing potential for "online" rentals...who needs Blockbuster when you can order a new movie online and have it mailed to your house and not have to worry about getting the darn thing returned.

Perhaps Disney wants to get into the online movie rental thing to make a few bucs!

It should be successful as long as the disc is readable by all commercial DVD players...and my guess is that they'll be single layer discs.

[pacmania_2001]

Didn't the Die Another Day DVD Screener (the one given to media, critics etc) use this technology?

And didn't it still end up online whilst the movie was out at the cinema's.

[LanEvo7]

The idea might work, but it basically comes down to what they are charging for the dvd. If they are charging $10 for it, why not just spend the extra 5 and buy the regular dvd. It would create a lot of garbage, but thats where recycling comes into play.

[gll99]

Caution this may be a disturbing thought for some.

If the license agreement indicates that the DVD is for short term use only, it would be illegal to copy these discs or to do anything to extend their use, therefore Baldrick would probably have to warn or ban anyone who attempts to discuss bypassing the technology.

If someone discovers how to do it they probably won't be able to explain it here.

Need a crying emotion here but in this case I side with the industry's rights. My rights are in deciding to buy one of these rental DVD's or not.

Another thought

What if the movie industry is in collusion with microbrainsoft, harware manufacturers and other major companies and that these DVD will not play on a DVD rom. due to either software or hardware imposed limits. In this case I would not side with the movie industries because they would be limiting the use of my hardware It's my business if I want to use a DVD rom to view a movie on my monitor. ([/i] I guess??)[/i]

It would play on home DVD players where most people would not be able to make a copy because of copy protection like macrovision or css or some other new technology. Even if a few players have firmware hacks it's not everybody and there's no way to know that they would work with these discs.

[bokkasrealm]

Im all for abiding by the law but some of the posts in this thread and others are just silly. All of these morality issues you contemplate are just so childish. You could care less about more important matters such as world starvation and disease. You fight people on and on about copying plastic discs when some child in Rwanda is starving to death. I understand this is a DVD/VCD discussion forum but why not leave the morality issues out of it. Or at least stop pretending like you're a saint for the cause of something important whether that cause is pro copying or pro mpaa. It's just a movie! It's not life or death!

The Disney situation just boils down to this, it's another way for them to keep control of their product but at the same time be able to offer it by their own terms and sell it anywhere. In my opinion this is an awful idea that just creates more garbage for the landfills plus I won't be buying anything that I can't keep. It is turning out to be as useful as the disposable cellphone. Anyone remember that idea? Do we really want to rent everything in our lifetime and then be able to throw it away? Disney is buying into something that is about as useful as chewing gum. What if our rental cars exploded after 7 days? What if I bought a pocket knife that went dull after 500 cuts? Just sell the product or don't, quit lending it to me. Here's a great idea for Disney. Tie a rope around every DVD and when the time is up, just pull it out my hands and reel it back in like a fish when it's rental time is up.

[RAAGAAman]

I will say again to go out and buy yourself some stock in DVD writer companies. I think these disks will not be seen as a "rental" experience but a purchase. Saying this I think people will believe they are entidled to a copy of the disk they just bought. Anyway seems like a good cash cow for Disney unless they get sued for increasing landfills.

RG

[gll99]

bokkasrealm

All of these morality issues you contemplate are just so childish. You could care less about more important matters such as world starvation and disease

These of course are serious and important matters but they do not negate that laws of the land, they unfortunately, coexist. I would find it difficult based on the information gleened from this forum to be in a position to judge whether users here care about these issues or not, so I won't comment.

In case you were responding to my post and even if not, I don't believe this is a moral discussion. If my comments sounded like that then it was unintended. If and when an individual decides to circumvent the technology then it may or may not become a moral issue for that person.

My point is a legal issue of rental or time limited ownership versus legal unlimited ownership of a purchased product (fire and theft etc... excluded of course ). The water is muddied a bit with a product like this (which we are discussing theoretically of course).

When I purchase a durable DVD I have expectations of reasonable use and the right to protect my investment by backing it up (at least that is the general public opinion). This situation appears to cross the line. On this site we will have to defer to Baldrick since it's his site.

I'm all for discussion and hope this topic continues since so far we are mostly expressing our opinions about such a product. The fact that we may have ideas as to how such technology may be futile and easy to bypass is not in itself unlawful. All we are doing is enjoying a healthy discussion on a topic of interest.

[NightWing]

For the consumer just another offering. But for the Retailer it may be a nasty problem.

1) How good is the packging. Can it take handling. Via vending machine, shipping and by a little kid playing with it unsupervised?
2) Return policy. There is always a precentage of damage. Will disney take back defective product? Who will the money if any for refunds come from? Disney or the retailer?
3) If it requires special handling then that cost the retailer and his margin goes down. For example a supermarket runs around 1 to 2% markup. Most places are bases on the customer wating on themselves with very few items requiring assistance. That cost money and human reources to handle special items. If Wallmart cant put them with the norma disk but lock away I dout if they will sell them. A 7/11 may but thats an item by the counter which they have more proffit items taking up that space.
4) Along with damage product what is the policy on unsold product that expires after a year? Any credits?
5) Tech support or all the call why did my disk die? Both to the seller and to Disney.

From the creators site they state all it does is make it impossible after the time runs out, for the laser to read the disk. Nope it not adding protection but a time limit. If they wanted to be locktight there is a teck out there when the beam hits a chemical layer it start to make it opaq. But all this does is fogup after a set time and add nothing to the key protection already on the disk.

PS: Could it be they are solving two problems with one stone? They can mfg cheep enough with proabbly just the movie and enough to get it to the consumer for a low price for impulse buying and make some momey on people that want to do backup?

[txpharoah]

You fight people on and on about copying plastic discs when some child in Rwanda is starving to death.

Wrong. We are people with little money. Want to know the real a-hole here is? Try Disney! With all that money they have, they'd blow millions to be sure moviegoers cannot copy plastic rather than spend that millions on improving the lives of people around the world.

Your argument is well said, but flawed in its direction. I don't have millions to give. If the world was right, everybody would just make what is needed to get by comfortably, everybody could enjoy art (which includes movies) for nominal expense, and things like world hunger would end.

Unfortunately the greed of men will prevent that from happening. And companies like Disney will represent greed to its fullest. Even though they pay nice, I would NEVER work for them, as I disagree with their "morals" and other standards.

This 48-hour DVD is just another expensive ploy to save a few bucks. Even then, the savings may never appear because the tech to prevent will be expensive to make, and future savings will not be too much. Anything that can be man-made can be broken. It's been proven with everything, and will continue that way forever.

[Nitemare]

I think that what these companies (and unfortunately most of the consumers) forget is that markets are customer driven. If Disney decides that people are going to get throw-away DVDs then they will market them. I'm sure it's legal, and I'm just as sure that it's not just another copy-protection ploy, but just a geniuinely bad idea that's been overlooked by greed on the coporate level of Disney.

Just because Disney makes it doesn't mean that people will buy them. Of course the general public are mostly lemmings and many will, but there is more and more evidence of people shaking off their apathetic lethargy and waking up to the nonsense around them. Who knows? Maybe this will be the final straw for many of them? There is already a pretty good boycott started right here!

Gee... I hope this post sounded as lofty as that "starving Rwandans" thing!

[thxkid]

well Disney is a bunch of wussies anyway, they have one of the greatist movies from the 1940's and will never release it here or any where else(been pulled from Japan) just so glad I got ALL my Disny stuff on Laser disc before they decided what not to release it any more - Song of the South for one, so glad none of mine ever got Laser Rot and they transferred fine over to DVD-R, never know when the Laser Disc player may go belly up. Plus most of these Laser discs have the ever popular frames that angry animaters drew extra to piss off eisner.
Eisners Phone number in Roger rabbit
Jessica Rabbit no under wear
Lion King famous - "Sex" Dust scene
Aladdin whispers - "all teens have sex" - in one scene from aladdin
plus many more of this stuff, its laughable now. I could be off a little in the exact quotes its been a while since I played back those certain scenes and they were only on CAV Laser discs and only a few before Disney jerked them and demanded you to return the ones us customers bought, yeah right!!

[tgpo]

Aladdin whispers - "all teens have sex" - in one scene from aladdin

"All good teenagers take off their clothes."

[pacmania_2001]

Isn't the Lion King one spell out "SFX" as in 'Special Effects' not "SEX"?

[clanger]

There's a big technical aspect that Disney may have over looked here as well. The problem of packing them in a suitable "bag" that'll stop oxygen getting to the disc over an extended period of time....

I work for a packaging company (plastic bottles etc), and it's difficult and expensive to produce oxygen impermiable packaging, the main reason why so many foods are full of "E" numbers and preservatives, ie: fizzy drink bottles have several layers of different plastics to stop oxygen getting to the drink.

what's going to happen if you buy a disc, lose the receipt, then when you want to watch it 3 months later, it doesn't work cos' it's changed colour ??

somehow I can't see the staff in Woolies changing it for you as you couldn't prove you hadn't watched it !

[TBoneit]

FWIW:

The Local Newspaper (Courier News) states that Disney is coming out with 48Hour life DVDs that self destruct, available in August. "for slightly more than a video rental"

Also mentions Moviebeam service that will be a set-top box that receives movies over the air waves. View for 24Hrs. "for slightly more than a video rental". However you'll need to also rent the box for moviebeam.

website is c-n.com however I never did find it on their website, only in the printed version, Section E of the bridgewater edition.

Cheers

[next]

The point is this isn't truly a rental. You are only "renting" something if you pay some money for using the item for a limited period of time and then have to GIVE IT BACK to the owner (e.g., video rental shop).

You are in effect BUYING an item with an extremely short lifespan.

Disney are in the rights to do this, but I think that it is silly concept and not one that will sit easily with the general public.

Furthermore, this seems to be an extremely environmental UNfriendly step to take.

Regards.

Michael - you are a bright guy. One of the smartest here. But please. This is just a medium play. If there is an advantage to having to return something after 48 hours verus not having to return it then I choose the latter. Why would I choose to make an extra trip to the rental store to avoid late fees when technology can take care of it for me.

edit - always an edit - sorry

As far as the environment how can we price the cost of the return trip. Extra petro for those that drive which is a drain on fossil fuels etc...plus the loss of time as it relates to production etc...etc. I would prefer to make one trip. Make a purchase. Put my purchases on a shelf. And view at my leisure. And yes - only get my 48 hours.

[drewson99]

for the truth about the Alladin thing:

http://www.snopes2.com/disney/films/aladdin.htm

listen to the clip at the bottom of the page yourself and decide - it's pretty stupid to interperet that as "all good teenagers take off thier clothes"

not that I am a Disney fan, actually hate just about everything they have done since I was born. older stuff is great though.

[andkiich]

I don't like the idea. What happens if you watch it, then 4 days later you want to watch it with a friend, but now you have to run all the way back to the video store or wherever and "buy" another. It would be cheaper to pay the late fees in some cases than it would to re-rent, but that wouldn't be an option anymore.

And what will libraries do? They have limited funding as it is, so how are they going to keep these items in stock?

Another bad idea that will either die like DIVX if it comes out, or will never materialize.

UNLESS - Disney already has a plan or way to "neutralize" the oxidation. In which case, the movie could become unplayable after a few days and needed to be returned to the video store and be "cleaned".

I don't know, just thinking out loud, but the whole thing doesn't seem very feasible.

[disturbed1]

I don't like the idea. What happens if you watch it, then 4 days later you want to watch it with a friend, but now you have to run all the way back to the video store or wherever and "buy" another. It would be cheaper to pay the late fees in some cases than it would to re-rent, but that wouldn't be an option anymore.

Seems like most people are confused. You won't be buying anything but license to view for a limited time. It's a rental.

What happens if you watch it, then 4 days later you want to watch it with a friend- you buy another license.

What happens if you went to blockbuster to get a movie, returned it, then wanted to watch it again? You rent another copy.

Your not buying anything, your renting.

Bootleggers will have field day with this.

$5.95 for a disc that expires, or $3.00 for a bootleg that lasts forever

If it can be read in your set top, it can be read in your PC.

[TheInformer]

A guy on the Retrogames' Current Affairs board says he's going to buy one of the 48 hour specials, copy it onto a DVD-R, and mail it to Disney along with a message for them to kiss his posterior (PG language there).

Copy protection doesn't work. It didn't work on the Apple II, the Amiga, or the PC. All it does is alienate the base of customers.

I hope Disney gets to experience what Circuit City did with Divx.
They deserve it.

[hotwings]

This has even gotten to the point that Leno was poking fun at the story. Something along the lines of:

kid: Daddy can I watch Dumbo again?
dad: I'm sorry Timmy, last night Dumbo killed himself.