Amazon Disc+ On Demand could be a key weapon in the movie industry’s fight to stop everyone switching from physical to digital media, at least while Hollywood gets used to the idea that even their output is now throwaway.
Physical Vs. Digital
Physical media in the form of CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray is taking a battering at the hands of digital media. Whether by legal means or otherwise, people are increasingly downloading or streaming their favorite music, movies, and TV shows.
Has the horse bolted already or are there ways retailers and content creators can encourage the purchasing of physical media? Amazon thinks there are and is currently experimenting with a way to gently persuade consumers to buy DVDs.
Amazon Disc+ On Demand
Amazon Disc+ On Demand is a promotion which sees anyone purchasing a DVD getting a digital rental of that same movie thrown in. As soon as the purchase is complete then the stream or download will be available to watch.
There are only around 300 movies included in the promotion at present, which isn’t many considering Amazon sells about 330,000, according to NewTeeVee. And it’s limited to those with a U.S. address due to those ever-present international licensing restrictions.
Amazon is calling the digital copy “a gift” and targeting people buying DVDs as gifts for people. They can then give away the physical copy with its packaging intact while still getting to watch the movie they’ve purchased.
If Successful…
If the limited-time promotion is successful surely Amazon would consider rolling this out as a permanent offer. More titles would need to be added, and more countries included.
In the short-term it may harm Amazon’s bottom line on these purchases but if the result is more physical copies being sold then the retailer ends up winning big. As do the movie studios.
Conclusions
is a genius yet very sensible method of enticing people into purchasing movies on physical formats. Sure, in the end both retailers and Hollywood will have to embrace digital formats as the future and let go of their old business models, but it’s a good start along that road.
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