MovieDownload Tagged Articles at Cinematical

It's been awhile since we last heard anything about Movielink. Actually, it's been awhile since we last heard any news regarding movie download sites in general. Honestly, I had pretty much forgotten about them, despite the news earlier this year about Hollywood giving the greenlight on download-to-DVD options. But today we get a doozy of an announcement relating to the topic: Blockbuster Video is buying Movielink.com. I'm sure I'm not the only person not surprised by the decision. I've been expecting Blockbuster to do something with downloads for a few years now -- though I did think they'd develop something new, in-house. Going with Movielink seems easier, but it also brings any baggage the download site has in terms of reputation and satisfaction -- something I can't speak for since I've never tried their service. All I know is that in two years Movielink (and CinemaNow and Guba, etc.) has failed to show the world that this is the wave of the future. Part of this, I believe, is due to the high price of movie downloads. Then there's also the matter of iTunes jumping in late and stealing the show. Blockbuster will have to figure out a cheaper cost -- among other things -- if it hopes to compete.

Personally I have little interest in movie downloads, because I have little patience and a terrible attention span when it comes to watching stuff on my computer. If anything I would rather watch streaming videos on the web, and even then I prefer short stuff or segmented films (unfortunately my favorite segmented streaming movie site was not legal). Even as a longtime fan and subscriber of Netflix, I haven't yet been able to finish a whole feature on the company's new streaming, Video-on-Demand-style "Watch Now" option (and even though I don't take full advantage, I'm still disappointed that Netflix's recent price decreases caused customers' streaming hours to decrease as well). Blockbuster's purchase of Movielink is probably going to be seen as more directly competitive with this Netflix service (than with iTunes), so we'll have to see what people prefer -- streaming or download -- in the future. Blockbuster's plan for now is to continue to operate Movielink as is, but they'll also be integrating the site's technology and elements into Blockbuster.com.

Remember back in the '80s and '90s, before piracy became a big deal, when everyone made mix tapes and even sometimes (gasp!) copied whole albums onto cassettes? Remember when it was okay to tape a show or movie with your VCR? Well, it is no wonder that the record and movie industries have been having great difficulty convincing people that copying is just as illegal as downloading. Probably because there aren't as many easy scapegoats to arrest or sue when the piracy pertains to simple, small-scale copying.

The Los Angeles/Bloomberg poll, which I wrote about the other day, has some more results that aren't any more surprising than the revelation that people don't like paying a lot for movie tickets and concessions. 58-percent of teenagers think that it is fine to copy a DVD or VHS tape that they or a friend paid for. In fact, they think it is legal. Comparatively, 19-percent think its okay if the movie wasn't purchased. At least a smaller percent thinks it's okay to copy movies, regardless of the situation, than to copy music. This is likely because nobody ever popularized video mix tapes (or DVDs). Actually, I'm surprised that never happened. That Boogeymen - The Killer Compilation DVD was a great idea.

Warner Bros. may well be leading the movie download race against other studios, as it is one of the few to already have deals with download sites CinemaNow and MovieLink, and it recently announced an agreement to distribute movies via BitTorrent. Now they have signed with one more, Guba. I won't go into the technical differences between all the download sites, mostly because I don't understand them well enough, but it doesn't matter since the pricing is still what matters most, and Guba isn't much different from the others. New movies cost $19.99 and old movies are $9.99. To rent the films, though, is only $1.99 for 24 hours, with the option to extend the rental period for a little bit extra. Each movie is a Windows Media file, so it can be streamed on anything with the Windows Media Player, including portable devices.

Once again, I'll be sticking with my Netflix, but I applaud the apparent advances in this area of distribution. As long as they keep experimenting, they're likely to get something that will be attractive to me eventually.