Warner Gets a Jump on Film Pirates in China

In a groundbreaking response to movie piracy, Warner Bros. Entertainment released its latest film on DVD in China the same day it debuted in U.S. theaters.

The goal for Warner is to battle rampant piracy in China by giving movie fans a legitimate alternative to bootlegs. But the boldness of Warner’s action, which it took last week with no fanfare, was tempered by its choice of movie: “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” a relatively low-budget film that the studio had not planned on releasing in Chinese theaters.

Nevertheless, several industry executives said they believed it was the first time a major U.S. studio had taken a movie scheduled for a wide-scale theatrical run and released it simultaneously on DVD in another country.

..

Even a low-risk movie can provide some insights into the market, though, and particularly into the way customers respond to the early availability of legitimate products. Those lessons could prove valuable in other countries with high piracy rates, such as Russia and much of Southeast Asia.

“We will closely monitor the impact of this release on our other businesses to determine whether to follow this same release strategy with more high-profile titles,” said Jim Cardwell, president of Warner Home Video.

The major studios’ strategy of delaying home video releases until months after a movie’s premiere has guaranteed pirates an exclusive window of sorts. Until the official DVD and VHS release, the only version of a movie available for viewing at home is a pirated one.

Some independent production companies, including Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner’s 2929 Entertainment and Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary’s Revelations Entertainment, plan to release movies online or on DVD at the same time as they reach theaters. But even though the major Hollywood studios have been releasing DVDs closer to the theatrical premiere, Adams said, he doubted that they would ever put them out at the same time.

“That would be silly,” Adams said. “People are still going and buying several billion tickets a year, and it’s that exposure and word of mouth … that drives the DVD payday.”

And the DVD payday is the one that really counts. Adams said home video sales and rentals accounted for 60% of the U.S. revenue for feature films last year, while ticket sales accounted for only 23%.

.. so, Mark Cuban was right? ..