Guba, a pioneer in the user-generated video content space, became a pioneer of another sort today, when Warner Brothers’ film and television content went on sale on Guba.com at 2 PM PST. Through its deal with Warner, Guba will initially sell almost 200 movie and television titles (quickly expanding shortly thereafter), ranging from new releases like “Good Night and Good Luck” to ‘classic’ television content like “The Jetsons”.
Guba will offer two services to users. View-On-Demand (VOD) is priced from $1.79 to $2.99 and affords the user a 24 hour rental. Download-To-Own (DTO) will range from $9.99 to $19.99 for newer titles and allows unlimited viewing on 2 computers and 1 portable device, while allowing a single DVD burn for backup. The service will play content through Windows Media Player on a 640X480 screen. Downloads are progressive and will run up to 1.3MB/second.
The deal sounds similar to the Warner/BitTorrent deal, but Guba is out to consumers first, so kudos to them. To be honest, my money was on Apple to get there first since the Pixar/Disney merger. But Apple’s power probably worked against them here. Having a broader online distribution network in place will give the studios more leverage in negotiations.
As to Guba being one of the chosen few, CEO Tom McInerney offered: “We treated the studios with respect, we listened and were responsive to their needs. Our proprietary technology gave the studios confidence that we could protect their copyrighted material and that our user-generated content could exist side by side with their premium content.”
I can’t think of any negatives for Guba in this deal. I don’t know how long it will last, but a lead is a lead and any differentiation in this space is a plus. Good buzz, extra traffic, and the goodwill of at least one major Hollywood studio, which might help them soon add another, will be a nice shot in the arm.
On the studio side, I like the concomitant release through web and DVD. It shows Warner is starting to get it. But what I don’t like in the deal is the pricing. While the VOD pricing seems reasonable when compared to a video rental, DTO is too high. Equivalent pricing through the two channels will hurt web uptake. These are savvy consumers. Distribution costs through the web are lower and, while I haven’t reviewed the experience yet, I doubt the experience will be equivalent to a DVD. Yes, I know lower web pricing could raise the ire of Warner retail distributors. Still, since the move online is a test, now is the time to understand the effectiveness of lower pricing in the web channel. And, of course, a lower price point is also the best way to combat the studio’s biggest fear online — piracy.
In related news, see Paul La Monica’s analysis of the DVD v. download war. He thinks DVDs will be king for another five years or so. The end is almost certainly much closer than that.
“I can’t think of any negatives for Guba in this deal.”
I can. Windows and USA only….which sucks if you’re in the Netherlands like I am.
“The service will play content through Windows Media Player on a 640X480 screen.”
$9.99 to $19.99 and i get 640×480 resolution? on wmp only? only 1 dvd? no thanks.
congrats to guba, but i’m not buying online video content until i can actually use it where and when and as often as i want.
that’s right! seem like NOT a good deal. as a matter of fact, i can’t get it, why do they set this number-of-computers limit… o_O
*sigh*
They still don’t get it.
If Adobe could only figure out how to do DRM in Flash Video then a company like Guba could offer a cross-platform video solution. This windows only stuff is a shame.
Thanks for the comments. Every limitation at a price equal to that of a DVD — geographic, number of copies… — is a negative for the consumer and will be reflected in the success (or lack of) of the offer. More digital rights, broader availability, lower price point — all will help with adoption. But it seems the studios will only learn this the hard way.
meh, cross platform is bound to happen. they’re just hitting the giant windows market first to see what sticks.
i’m unhappy that they’re deciding to sell low quality video to “own” and then they restrict what you can do with your newly purchased video.
if _I_ own it, then _I_ should be able to do whatever i want with it, besides give/sell/bootleg it to somebody else. Am i a criminal if i burn _my_ media to _2_ dvd’s? this is ridiculous.
Damn! This sounded so good when I looked at the titles that are available. 640×480 is good enough for me!
I selected a movie that I wanted to see and that I couldn’t find in local stores, and pressed the RENT button.
Guess what.. USA only. What a disappointment. Bummer.
Finally, I’ve been waiting for this for a long time now
But I still think that the prices are a little high since there is no competition yet. What I really mean is that – right now I’m shopping at Blockbuster and they charge me about $30 a month for the movie-pass – which is 2 movies at the time and unlimited rentals… well, I’ve seen almost everything in this freaking store – I can not go to another one – I have to be in my local one… now, it takes me anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes to pick 2 movies and the more I go the more I get disappointed since I’ve seen already too many good movies and even more bad ones. Anyways, now, I’m averaging about 6 movies a week (I just can’t go there any often then that anymore)… can you imagine how many movies I will watch if i have access to very extensive database of movies within a couple of clicks? My search time probably won’t be longer then a couple of minutes and I’ll probably be doing that every night, since I don’t have to drive anywhere, …. so, let’s just take those 6 movies a week I watch from BB – 6*4=24*$1.79=$42.94 a month – that’s at least which doesn’t make sense since it gives much bigger choice then local BB store, less time to pick and no need to drive… so I can end up spending 3 or 4 times more then I’m spending at BB right now – easley – that’s too expensive!
I too was disappointed with the fact that it’s USA only, but come on people, baby steps. It’s good enough that the studio big shots are willing to put their content online, now they will have to learn the right away to do business in this medium. Even if they have to fall and stumble a couple of times. I dont know who will finally do it the right way — or the least bad way — but it’s bound to happen. They just have to sharpen some of the edges.
And I don’t see why they couldn’t open this to the rest of the world… Even if they applied DVD regions to each user’s country, I’d be happy. I understand why someone from Portugal shouldn’t be allowed to buy a dvd for a movie that hasn’t hit the movie theatres yet, since that would work against them in the box-office… but if the movie is already out on dvd, why not make it easier to distribute? Movie downloads are even friendlier towards the environment! (i guess… ;P)
This is just like a much older site – http://www.movielink.com
Another Windows and US only service. Why do we need Guba when movielink has been doing this for a while? Someone get a clue and make a deal with Apple already, and tell Steve we want VOD _and_ DTO options at better prices than these… ;-P
Another similar site, http://www.cinemanow.com, has also been in the same business for some time.
I did not draw a clear distinction in my post, but one interesting difference between Cinemanow/Movielink and Guba/BitTorrent, is the studio’s willingness to put their content side-by-side with the free stuff. They know this is where the traffic is and eventually they are going to fhave to figure out how to compete with free.
Still, this won’t take off until Apple gets in the game and the price comes down.
I think Warner Bros. is testing the waters with this deal, and I’m sure that sometime this year Apple will manage to get a killer deal with the studios and dominate the market as the case with iTMS.
There are some very valid complaints. But as one poster pointed out, “baby steps”.
The US only restrictions are because of the tremendously complex intellectual property arrangements that seem strange to us but are common in the film business. In the movie business, it’s common to sell the distribution rights to a particular country well ahead of the film’s release to help finance it. Remember, these movies are very expensive to make ($50+ million) and this is a way to defer cost and risk for the studios. Because of this, the rights to non-US territories often don’t belong to the studios.
MovieLink and CinemaNow are both owned by the studios, and I’m encouraged that Warner had the courage to think outside the box and team up with a small hungry company. A lot of great content has been bottled up, and I think you’ll see greater flexibility and experimentation from the studios moving forward.
As for Apple, that was my first job and I still love that company. They’ll continue to do great things and we all owe a lot to the vision that Jobs and his team have brought to technology. For GUBA, we’re trying to make the Internet a better place and we’re having fun as we go.
–Thomas McInerney
CEO, GUBA.com
I like Guba. But Jesus, why pay for DVDs? Adam, you are so right. Unfortunately, the sad thing for Guba is there are many startups about to launch with this exact same service which have already sealed some partnerships with big companies mentioned above (but selling recent DVD and TV episodes for, um, FREE). This is through a better revenue generated business model than charging people (an enormous $9.99 to $19.99/Windows Media Player on a 640X480 screen, etc…). I just hope that Gube gets this and can provide this service for free in the very near future.
I am not suprised by the lack of international support, but to me this usually signals a lack of effort outside of the US. TV Shows for example: I can not imagine that anybody (outside of the US) has snapped up the VOD rights for The Jetsons, they will certainly be owned by WB. So while I can understand some content I certainly think they could try harded to find content which they can sell outside of the US and treat us a little better. I’d be happy with some TV shows, forget the movies.
Warner Bros. are selling The Flintstones on DVD here – why can they not let Guba do it? It appears WB are just lazy and couldn’t care about the extra profits from non-US countries.
Newgroups
Well timed release…Competitor YouTube just announced a big deal with NBC today where NBC is offering free (mostly promotional) content on their site in addition to on air mentions for the site. Altogether, it’s good to see the content owners embracing this new medium of distribution. It shows it has legs to stay around for a while…
Pass.
Does it support Media Center Extenders?
Yup…. Windows Media Extenders are supported.
Wow. What a changed what happened to the really cool porn newsgroup browsing site?
Is Guba still the same company or did the domain get sold?
It’s like another MySpace-like site reincarnation.
Has anyone actually got this to work?
I get an error on the deliverlicense.asp and they seem to be closed on Friday at 11AM CST heh