Dear gsr721,
thanks very much for your question! Your idea to sell movies on the
Internet is indeed a wave of the future. There are at least two major
operations doing this legally now, Movielink and CinemaNow, and other
smaller ones as well.
The type of license that you will need to sell and rent Video on Demand
by downloading is a Video on Demand Internet License (commonly referred
to as a VOD Internet License.)
If you do decide to sell video this way, security, or digital rights
management (DRM), is going to be your biggest challenge. I'm told the
studios are still very leery of piracy, and will send a technology team
to investigate that you have the type of secure technology they
require to download encoded films.
To negotiate rights to distribute movies via Internet you can contact:
Walt Disney Studios/Buena Vista Television
Seth Zachary is Director of Pay Television at Buena Vista, the company
that does distribution for Disney.
You can phone him at 818-460-7518.
Seth Zachary says he is the person to talk to about downloading
video RENTALS on the Internet. He can put you in touch with
the person involved with SALES.
Paramount Home Entertainment:
Steve Madoff is Executive Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs
He is willing to talk with you. His number is 323-956-5740.
His e-mail is:
steve_madoff@paramount.com
Madoff volunteered that currently his office gets about 3 requests of
this nature each week. Currently they will license some people and not
others. You would have to satisfy Paramount's questions about your
financial capital, whether you have high-security technology, etc. In
answer to your question about the cost/movie, he said that most of the
VOD deals are revenue-sharing, i.e. based on a percentage of your take.
But, he said, everything is negotiable. (This is the same "price/movie"
answer I got from others.)
Warner Brothers:
This is the person you should talk with at Warner Brothers:
Andrew Mellett, VP Sales, VOD & PPV.
818 977-8280
andrew.mellett@warnerbros.com
Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer
Trish Francis, VP of Entertainment, Legal. I"m told it would be her
department that you deal with, since she handles licensing. However she
is out this week, so hasn't returned my e-mail. I reached her office at:
tfrancis@mgm.com
310-449-3000
I'll confirm with you when she gets back to me whether she's the right
person.
20th Century Fox
The response I got from 20th Century Fox was negative. One of their
lawyers, Mark Myerson phoned me and told me that Fox isn't interested
in negotiating VOD licensing with anyone since they are planning to
do it themselves. They apparently do already have a distribution
rights agreement with CinemaNow. I would not take this as a permanent
situation though, everything is changing in this field.
Sony
Neal Skuro, the Manager of Retail Marketing for Sony Home Entertainment,
was very negative about Sony licensing movies for Internet download. He
told me that right now there's nothing Sony is willing to do to license
that kind of distribution. His quote, "Downloads, how many people want to
watch movies on a computer?"
If I were you, I'd go ahead and contact the accessible people at the
first three studios. Once you have jumped through their hoops, you
will have learned enough to come across as a legitimate agent, and
can then approach the less welcoming people at the other studios.
Here is some background information I found during my preliminary
research:
Movielink has been doing this since 2002. see "Movielink Ready to Roll"
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:5FiIyqhepTcJ:news.com.com/Movielink%2Bready%2Bto%2Broll/2100-1023_3-965194.html+movielink&hl=en
According to Jeff Levy's KNX Radio "Show Notes," from March 19 adn 20,
2005:
"Four of the biggest studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures,
Universal Studios, and Warner Brothers, jointly back Internet movie
download service Movielink, and Disney has launched trials for an
over-the-air download
service called MovieBeam."
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:fg8aXDyV8pAJ:www.jefflevy.com/knx1070-show-notes-March-19%2620-2005.asp+%22internet+movie+download%22&hl=en
However, Disney's three month experiment with Moviebeam is already
over. They pulled the plug on it last month:
http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2005/04/moviebeam_pulle.html
Tivo and Netflix have also been working together since September of
'04 to provide a movie-on-demand digital download service via the
Internet.
"If you look at the Internet, it's really just starting out to be a
delivery mechanism for content. Long term, that's the way we think movies
will get delivered," said Daver, who just joined Netflix this week as head
of corporate communications. "We have a strategy to deliver movies across
the Internet, and TiVo is one step in that direction."
(Shernaz) Daver declined to specify a definitive release date for the
service, but Netflix has said previously that it will have some
digital distribution of films by the end of 2005."
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-5390718.html
Also see "Warner Bros License films to Netflix VOD partnership" at
http://digital-lifestyles.info/display_page.asp?section=business&id=1602
However, the Tivo/Netflix venture is not off the ground yet.
I also pulled up some good info on what you would do if you wanted to
sell hard copies of movies. (If you change your mind about the VOD,I can
tack that on at no cost, if you're interested.)
If anything in my answer is unclear, please feel free to hit the
"Clarify Answer" button before you rate my work.
Good luck in your venture!
Sincerely,
cath-ga
search strategy:
movie distribution rights
internet movie sales
internet movie sites
internet movie download
Resources:
extensive use of the Hollywood Creative Directory for phone numbers |
Clarification of Answer by
cath-ga
on
24 May 2005 21:47 PDT
gsr721,
Thanks for your kind rating and the offer of a tip!
I did finally reach the woman at MGM today who had not responded
to my calls and e-mail. She told me that MGM has sold most
of its catalogue to Sony for distribution. She gave me another
name at Sony for licensing, a woman named Thanda Belker: 310-244-4609.
Since the other person I spoke to at Sony was very negative, perhaps this
gal will be more receptive, both about Sony films and their newly acquired
MGM stuff. Worth a try for you!
As for the tip, once your rate the answer, you can't tip on that
question anymore. But you could post another question, "for cath-ga only."
Then say anything, such as "How'd you like a tip?" Then I'd answer it,
"You bet!" (not to sound too greedy!) That way, you could attach
whatever tip you'd like to the $2.00 question. Google Answers gets
25% of our question fee, but researchers get 100% of our tips.
Thanks very much for taking the trouble to ask. Sorry it's a little
inconvenient to add later. I will be sure and forward to you any
other late responses to my calls and e-mails. Good luck!
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