Let's say I held the rights to, ohh...Yuri Norstein's films. All of his directoral work. I was selling them online through the usual venues - iTunes, XBox Live Marketplace, Netflix, Amazon, and so on. But let's just say I added a twist. On my website, you could watch every one of them for free.
It would be the same as what the Ghibli blog is already doing, when I'm posting videos that have been uploaded to YouTube. Only this time, I'm the publisher.
If you could watch Hedgehog in the Fog or Tale of Tales for free, in that little YouTube window, would you still pay for them on iTunes? If not, why not? And if so, what would be your cutoff point? What would be the right dollar amount?
I'm reading "The Long Tail" right now, which is the best business book about the internet era. It tosses a lot of interesting ideas into my head. Please let me know what you think, and, by all means, quiz your friends.
2 comments:
Depends on various things. For one, of course, the price. Second, the quality of the product. One great thing about myspace, for example, is that you can discover things, and only pay for it if you feel it is worth it. It's like watching a film on TV and then deciding to buy the DVD, because it was so good, only now you can go and find the material, instead of having to wait for it to come to you. Of course, when talking about Norstein, I don't think quality would be a problem if the picture quality was high enough. Third, the paid version should give something extra. Higher video quality at the least. Preferably quality high enough for DVD, so we can burn it and watch it on our tv's or even home theatres. Fourth, I think it is really valuable to know how much money goes to the artist. I'd be much more eager to pay for it if I knew most would end on Norstein's bank account, rather than yours (even if the price tag is low).
I can't honestly give a price tag, because that depends on the situation I'm in. Everything from financial status to my mood of the day can influence my decision on whether to pay for it or not.
One more note: the only reason my dvd collection isn't full of Ghibli work, is that the prices are ridiculously expensive here. A 2h film (+ sometimes storyboards as alternative camera angle) for 35 euros? No thank you. Not even for Ghibli. But the day I found Pom Poko for 10, without any extras, I bought it immediatly.
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