What the #$%! Warner Brothers and Netflix have come to an agreement in which the studios new DVD/Blu-ray releases can not be rented for the first 28 days of release. THR reports that this will likely spread to other facets of home theater market, but for now it’s only for Netflix. In exchange, Netflix will be able to stream more titles from Warner Brothers through their Watch Instantly program. Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos says:
“We’re able to help an important business partner meet its objectives while improving service levels for our members by acquiring substantially more units than in the past after a relatively short sell-through window. At the same time, we’re able to extend the range of choices available to be streamed to our members.”
I know the studios are trying to find more ways to make money on the home video front, but this is truly a terrible idea. The main reason I have Netflix is to get new Blu-ray releases. If other studios jump on and we can’t get any new releases for an entire month, I can’t see many people being happy with that. I do use the watch instantly service regularly, so it will be interesting to see how many titles they actually do provide. As it stands, I hope the studios take a look at what the customers want and move in the direction that technology is headed, not ass backwards.
What do you think about this news? Will you continue to have a Netflix account if every studio does this timed release?