Thursday, December 14, 2006

Update: Bob and Harvey want you to be their snitch bitch | Radosh.net:

Last month, I wrote about the Weinstein Company's deal to give Blockbuster exclusive rental rights to its DVDs. Now Jason alerts me that non-Blockbuster rental outfits are suing.

Here's what I didn't realize the last time around. Apparently there's no legal way TWC can prevent Netflix, or anyone else, "from walking into Costco and buying the DVD and renting it," one of the Weinstein's partners acknowledges. "What we can do as a distributor is brand all Blockbuster DVDs with the Blockbuster logo, and all the DVDs that are out for sale will be clear to consumers as being for sale only. We’ll encourage people to call us if they did rent [a DVD that is labeled for sale]."

The lawsuit says such labeling is itself a violation of the law. But what gets me is the idea that we as consumers, having made the choice to rent from somewhere more convenient/less expensive/less generally odious than Blockbuster, would then turn ourselves in for failing to assist Bob and Harvey in their God-given mission to maximize their profits at our expense.


11:46 AM