To refresh your memory, Kirk McElhearn, on his blog Kirkville, wrote a post about movies disappearing from the iTunes Store On December 5th (2008). This was picked up by Macworld later that day. Still later in the day, I made a blog post (link) which summarized the conclusions made by the commenters on the Macworld site and noted that there was nothing strange about this.
The thing that made me write that post in the first place was that I expected Macworld to be somewhat professional, and write an email or call somebody or spend some time on a decent web search; that is, to perform a little research.
Well, the prize goes to CNET for actually doing some journalism and research, I have to call out practically everyone else for merely participating in a blogging echo chamber. My biggest problem with all of this is that all of the attributions go to Macworld, and not Kirkville. I guess the fact that McElhearn writes occasionally for Macworld somehow means that makes sense, but then again, he didn’t submit it to Macworld as a post for their site.
Anyway, the CNET piece by Greg Sandoval is really the best of the bunch:
And the culprit here is a system that for decades has pumped billions of dollars into the coffers of Hollywood studios and the television industry. What has happened is Apple and Netflix have crashed into windows. “Release windows” is the term used to describe periods of time a certain type of media is allowed to show a movie. Typically, a feature film is first released in theaters, then on DVD, followed by pay-per-view channels and finally on broadcast TV.
To reiterate the lessons learned, licensing is fluid, particularly movie licensing, and there is nothing to be alarmed about, such as the NBC/Universal debacle of 2007-8. Rather, they like to keep themselves busy by allowing licensing and taking it away. This creates the illusion of work and justifies the salaries of the executives at these companies.
As far as quality of comments go, I will give a tie to CNET and the second Ars Technica piece for quality. Meanwhile, a tardy bell for Cult of Mac for bringing up the rear, as it were, coming in last with nothing new to say.
Timeline of Posts
December 5
Kirkville : Where Have All the iTunes Store Movies Gone?. References: Original story.
Macworld: Movies disappearing from iTunes Store without a trace. References: Kirkville.
pooter.net/blog : iTunes Store Movie Disappearances – examined. References: Kirkville, Macworld.
December 8
Ars Technica – Infinite Loop (Justin Berka) : Certain movies disappearing from iTunes Store, cause unknown. References: Macworld.
December 9
CNET : TV has license to kill movies at iTunes, Netflix. References: Macworld, Original reporting!
December 10
AppleInsider : TV deals causing movies to disappear from iTunes Store. References: Macworld, CNET.
AllThings D : Now Not Showing at iTunes and Netflix: Some of Your Favorite Movies. References: CNET.
ZDNET – Apple Core (Jason O’Grady) : Studios throw the kill switch on Apple and Netflix. References: Macworld, CNET
Ars Technica – Infinite Loop (Jeff Smykil) : Disappearing iTunes Store movies: case closed?
Daring Fireball : “This is the sort of stupidity that drives even those who want to be honest customers toward bootlegging.” References: CNET.
December 11
Cult of Mac : Solved: Hollywood Behind Vanishing iTunes Movies. References: CNET