Consumers Want Cheap, Easy, and Fast Un-Restricted Access to High-Quality Digital Products
Many experts in the entertainment industry have come to the conclusion that in order to deter illegal file sharing consumers must be provided cheap, easy, and fast access to digital products.68 The music industry has finally embraced using the Internet to facilitate legal digital downloading as seen through iTunes and amazon.com. The movie industry would benefit from following in the music industry’s footsteps, but has not.69 The movie industry continues to be reluctant in changing its business model and, instead, chooses to attempt, hopelessly, to regain its lost revenue by blocking consumers from what they want, a fatal mistake which the RIAA made for years and paid for severely.
In September of 2009, the MPAA proposed to withhold releasing new DVDs to RedBox, a new successful business that rents DVDs to consumers for $1 through Kiosks placed in stores such as Jewel, until 30 days after the DVDs were released in stores. This business strategy was in hopes that it would increase newly released DVD sales.70 Blockbuster also supported this arrangement since it would give its brick-and-mortar stores, now on their deathbeds, a leg-up on RedBox and other distributors.71
The MPAA has to stop trying to use its members’ rights in order to force consumers back into their old business model. RedBox is popular and successful because it provides a service that consumers want. And since consumers know that a business can be profitable by offering $1 movie rentals, consumers are not going to be forced by the MPAA to go to Blockbuster or Wal-Mart instead and buy a $20 DVD.72 Consumers are going to go find an alternative and see the DVD they want to see for $1 or less, legally or illegally. Taking away products and privileges that consumers believe should be available to them is only going to drive them to piracy faster. More importantly, the MPAA has to realize that brick-and-mortar rental stores like Blockbuster, and even Redbox Kiosks, are not the future of the DVD industry; the Internet is, and that is where the MPAA has to start focusing its efforts.
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