Since the start of online video services there's been a fear that online services will cannibalize packaged media (DVD and Blu-ray). This fear is one of the reasons studios have been restrictive with licensing content and also why some still have a release window between DVD, downloads and video on demand (VOD). Not licensing content is part of the plan "not making the same mistakes as the music industry". I like to bust myths. This day it's time to kill the online-video-will-cannibalize-the-DVD-myth. It's true that the music industry made mistakes and was ...Read More

Video on demand increases DVD sales

In the post "Complicated entertainment laws" I wrote about how Warner Brother's TheWB.com wouldn't allow users outside of the U.S to enter the site and how they instead displayed a message telling users to write their governments to "fight this injustice". It seems as the complaint got to Warner since the message now only says: The WB can only be viewed in the United States. Great! Thanks Warner for listening and acting on this little thing, shall we now proceed with the bigger issues? Read More

TheWB.com update

Newteevee and the Korean Times are reporting that Sony Pictures has left South Korea because of "sluggish sales and rampant piracy". Sony wasn't first to abandon the Korean market though – appearantly Paramount, Universal, Buena Vista and 20th Century Fox have all left which means no big Hollywood studio is operating in the country. This is important news and means the DVD Industry is actually dead in South Korea - and the death is spreading! South Korea's DVD sales has rapidly been falling in the recent years ($673 million in 2002 vs. ...Read More

The death of the DVD?

My first entry on Digital Renaissance will unfortunately be a post that resembles a rant – but comes with a FREE suggestion of how to make the digital world a better place. Warner Brothers just relaunched it's television website TheWB.com with ad-supported streaming of popular tv shows. While the service has some new interesting features and a nice rollout of shows (Friends, The OC, Veronica Mars, Smallville etc.) it shows a digital territorial gap between the US and the rest of the world. See below. This is what it looks like if ...Read More

Complicated entertainment laws?