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By Weerada P. Sucharitkul
FilmDoo Co-founder
The new buzz in the film industry is that Sean Parker, the co-founder of Napster and early investor in Facebook, and Prem Akkaraju, previously a partner of SFX Entertainment and InterMedia Partners, have teamed up to form the new video-on-demand (VOD) day and date startup called the Screening Room. According to Variety, the service will offer customers the chance to buy a movie on the day it is released in the cinema for the price of $50 per view, viewable within a 48-hour window, after the initial purchase of a $150 set-top box that transmits the film through its state of the art anti-piracy technology apparently built in.
Renowned heavyweight filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, JJ Abrams, Peter Jackson, Brian Grazer and Ron Howard have reportedly become supporters and stakeholders in this venture. The Screening Room may prove to be another contributor in the paradigm shift within the entertainment and film industry, as the traditional release window is further reduced and theatrical distributors increasingly work with online platforms such as The Screening Room to maximise revenue. Apparently, the Screening Room plans to give participating distributors as much as 20 percent of the per-view revenue, before it takes its own fee of 10 percent. The key question is whether it’s the right formula and model for levelling the global content playing field.
Distributors and cinema owners have traditionally strongly fought against day-and-date releases, viewing them as a threat to the theatre industry. But it looks like opinion is divided in this new venture. Major studios such as Universal, Fox and Sony, and exhibitors such as AMC, have expressed interest in the possibilities of this new venture. The Screening Room will have the benefit of being an exclusive partner in content distribution, which will certainly help to stimulate demand. However, this clause is also likely to be a deterrent for companies with tie ups to other companies such as Sony with PlayStation. Meanwhile, many distributors and exhibitors will see this as an end to their already dwindling hold on the market as content piracy becomes more prolific and apparent.
On the VOD front, FilmDoo is dedicated to democratising the current film distribution system to benefit all – and by all, we mean not just the big players of the film industry but every player on a global scale. In our opinion, Sean Parker’s platform will not only further harm small exhibitors but may create a monopoly of content distribution that is likely to further increase the costs and reduce choices for the public. A world with less choice is after all a world less well off.
We believe innovation and technology should be used to shift pre-existing business models towards more globalized and democratised distribution and pricing. The evolution of the film industry requires this, and thus, new innovation and technologies should be used at the right price point and to level the playing field, not just for Hollywood but for the global film industry as a whole. This is our FilmDoo solution towards an ongoing war against content piracy. We appreciate Parker and Akkaraju’s attempt to bring a new platform to help day and date releases, but the $150 set-top box and $50 per view is well above the average range for your regular everyday viewers. As a result, this is unlikely to significantly reduce content piracy nor democratise the content distribution system in order to provide audiences around the world with the ability to access content they want to see, when they want to see it and at the right affordable price point.
