Is this "Block Buster Exclusive" anti-competitive bullshit?

Cafe Society
1

So, I don’t really know how long it’s been going on, but I’ve bumped up against it for the first time.

I still patronize a small, local video store. They categorize movies by director. They have trustworthy house picks. Usually have a good selection of new arrivals. The gumball machine always puts out 2 gumballs for a quarter.

You can also get 15 rentals for $49 (that’s about $3.25 a piece).

Anyway, I’ve been meaning to get the Adam Corolla movie “The Hammer” since it came out. The video store originally told me, “It’s not out yet” and when I said, “I think it is”, the guy checked his book and said, “oh yeah, it is. We’ll get it in for ya.”

Well, a couple weeks have gone by, and they still don’t have it. So, a guy I work with tells me, “that’s a blockbuster exclusive.”

Well, what the fuck is that?

That, apparently, is the bullshit fucking method that Blockbuster has dreamed up to stay competitive in the era of netflix, and PPV TV. From an article about the Weinsteins signing exclusivity. . .

Oh, I get it. . .by limiting the locations I can find your movie, it’s helping your movies be seen by more people. That makes sense.

Yeah, no fucking shit I can go to blockbuster. I don’t fucking want to go to blockbuster. I want to go to the video store I’ve gone to for the last 12 years. I want them to continue to exist and not be forced out of business.

This is a rotten fucking deal for consumers, and for competitors of blockbuster.

I don’t see any reason for a production company to do this unless they are getting paid, paid, paid
by blockbuster.

Would a movie company dare tell Loew’s that they’re only going to release their movie on AMC screens?

Anyway, it’s bullshit. And fuck Adam Corolla, too. He’s been flat out fucking begging people to see his movie, and when I try to, I find out he might as well be shilling for blockbuster. Fucking asshole.

2

It’s available on netflix. Your co-worker appears to be mistaken.

3

Agree, total bullshit. If Adam Corolla thinks I’m patronizing Blockbuster in order to see his film, he’s severely delusional, in that he assumes his charisma is powerful enough to outweigh the contempt felt for this particular chain. I do give them credit for coming up with a marketing scheme that makes me despise them even more than I did, though, because I didn’t think that was possible. Pretty stupid move in light of the many, many illegal channels for procuring movies these days.

4

Well said aside from the fact that you don’t have to go to Blockbuster to rent it.

5

You can buy a copy on Amazon, too. And there’s no reason that your local video store couldn’t do the same. They’d have to pay retail instead of whatever (probably much lower) rate they’d get from their normal distributor, but that’s all the “Blockbuster Exclusive” label means. It means that the studio is exclusively selling cheaper copies to Blockbuster, not that there’s any restriction on other stores buying retail copies and renting them.

6

it’s not at redbox either.

Huge amounts of us don’t use netflix either. I still think it’s completely bizarre to watch whatever came in the mail instead of going to a video store to pick out a movie.

You can purchase it through amazon, too.

I just want to fucking rent it at my video store.

7

My video store can purchase a copy at Amazon and then rent it?

Geez, I don’t think so.

Correct me if I’m wrong.

8

They don’t just send out movies at random. The customer chooses which movies are sent to him or her.

9

Well, you did mention netflix in your rant and made the assumption that we couldn’t get it from them.

So have them buy the fucking thing for rental. Who’s stopping them? They probably figure that they won’t make a profit on it if they buy it. You can get it at Amazon for $16 ($12 for a used copy). Do you think that four other people who shop at your video store will rent it? They obviously don’t.

I do happen to think it’s worth a watch and just added it to my netfilx queue. I’ll let you know how I like it when I’m doing viewing it. You’re welcome.

10

Happy to be corrected on this, but I think you’re wrong here.
If you buy a video retail, it’s illegal to rent it- right? It’s supposed to be for your own private use. I’m not waging an opinion on whether or not a small independent could get away with it or not, but it’s illegal either way.

And the retail releases, unless this has changed since I worked at a video store over a decade agao, but the retail releases are cheaper than the rentals- not the other way round. The reason it’s illegal to rent out your private copy of a video you bought retail is that video stores have to pay a much higher price for their copies as they will be using their copies for profit, not for private home viewing.

Again, happy to be corrected on this.

11

If netflix can buy it from somewhere and rent it, why can’t they?

12

You are wrong. There are no special rights required to rent movies. In some cases, movie distributors will make “rental” copies of movies available at a lower price, and include some kind of profit sharing agreement, but no such agreement is required.

I could, for example, rent you any of the movies I have on my bookshelf.

13

No shit.

But, I can put “Harold & Kumar” and “Enchanted” on my list, but there’s only one that I hope is here when my nieces come to visit, and only one I hope is here on Friday night when Stewie comes over with a new bag of dope.

14

Movies generally arrive in one day. It takes my girlfriend less than two minutes to change the order of our queue two days before we know that her teenage son will be staying with us. We can have two movies at a time with our account as well.

You really ought to learn how netflix actually works before you bag it.

15

You worked at a video store back when they rented tapes. The laws haven’t changed, but the business practices have.

Back in the day, “rental” versions of tapes were released for around $100 apiece. There was nothing special about these copies of tapes, it’s just that they were the only ones released. And they cost $100. Members of the public could easily have bought them if they wanted to pay that much, but most didn’t. So, only rental stores bought these copies, and rented them out. A few months later, the “consumer” tapes were released around $20. Again, no difference in the rights, it’s just that they were priced for individual purchase.

When DVDs came out, the studios did away with rental pricing. The DVD was released simultaneously to rental and consumer retail outlets at the same price.

So, yes, you really can just go down to Walmart and buy a DVD then rent it out, and you really can just rent out movies you own. There may be some confusion about the fact that movies are only licensed for “home viewing”. That just means that you can’t screen them in public, or for money, and that the person who rents the movie can’t either. It doesn’t mean that they have to be shown in only one home only by one owner.

16

Neat.
Thanks for the info!

17

But they probably have to buy them. Blockbuster signed an exclusivity deal with The Weinstein Company to become the sole rental carrier of Weinstein films. So Blockbuster is the only rental place which gets their Weinstein films sent to them, but under the First Sale Doctrine, there’s nothing that says other rental stores are able to buy their own copies and rent them out.

18

Well, with the rental question out of the way, I just want to chime in and say that it was a pretty good flick. It has a bunch of rants from Corolla, which is a majority of the movie. Not an overly complex film, but easily as good as something in the theaters. This is an example where lack of big names ultimately hurt the appeal of the film (both in making it too expensive to produce it, and not having any big names to get anyone to go out and see it).

19

FWIW, I don’t consider it “out of the way”.

It’s an extra hurdle for my local place to purchase the DVD through channels that blockbuster doesn’t have to go through. They don’t have the manpower to do it. They didn’t even really have the awareness that the movie was out until I told them about it. The owner actually has 3 or 4 stores, so he’s big enough not to be able to follow every release. But certainly not big enough to tell Weinstein to fuck off.

I don’t know if blockbuster is lining Weinstein’s pockets, or has made an agreement such as “if you don’t give us exclusivity, we won’t carry you at all”.

Either case, it’s reminiscent of “payola” or “chipola” – my name for the case where Frito Lay (I think it was) told supermarkets, “stop carrying brand X or you can’t carry Frito Lay.”

I don’t care if I can get it from Netflix because I don’t use them. I don’t care if my video store can buy it from Wal*Mart and then rent it to me. I don’t think it’s fair that they don’t have access to it through their normal distribution channels.

20

Just wanted to ring in on Netflix. You should really consider joining. It’s a no-brainer to arrange to have any particular movie on any particular day. I mean, if I can do it…

Plus, there’s no driving to the video store to pick it up and driving back to drop it off. Not to mention a selection that no store can match.

Netflix (and, I assume, Blockbuster’s similar service) are so superior in every way to walk-in rental that I’m surprised the brick and mortar stores can stay in business.