March 2, 1999
Companies Join Race to Turn
The Web Into a Cyber-Multiplex
By EBEN SHAPIRO
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Coming soon to a computer screen near you: movies over the Internet.
At least three Web sites have begun offering film fans the ability to watch
movies, including full-length feature films, on their computers. Though the
quality is a far cry from the local multiplex's, Hollywood studios are already
racing to figure out how to take advantage of the technology without losing
hard-won copyright protections for movies.
One of the sites, ifilm.net, made its debut last
week, specializing in independent films. The
launch followed on the heels of the
announcement that Trimark Holdings Inc., a
small Santa Monica, Calif., film producer,
would license its library to Broadcast.com
Inc., of Dallas, which broadcasts music and
video events on the Internet.
Monday, Atom Corp. of Seattle unveiled atomfilms.com, a polished site
devoted to short films and animation. The site includes movies such as
"Holiday Romance," a British comedy that was just nominated for an
Academy Award. Acknowledging "Internet technology constraints," Atom
executives call shorts "the perfect content for the medium as it exists right
now."
For the most part, though, the selection of films available on the Internet is
extremely sparse -- one of the best-known titles in the Trimark deal is
"Warlock" -- and the video quality is poor.
Still, the Web holds out the prospect of huge changes in movie distribution.
The music industry and other parts of the entertainment business are
struggling with the issue of how to distribute their product on the Web
while containing an explosion of Internet-based piracy. Film requires far
more memory and bandwidth to distribute than music does. But in the
fast-changing digital-media world, experts say, capacity will be more
widely available within the next two to three years.
Security Issue
Still, cubicle dwellers aren't going to be sneaking a peek at major studio
releases on their office computers anytime soon. Until they resolve the
security issue, major studios have no interest in promulgating Web movies.
"Nothing will be done until you have some sort of copyright protection,"
says Robert Daly, co-chairman of Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros., one
of Hollywood's biggest studios.
The entertainment industry is currently consumed with figuring out how to
deliver music safely and profitably on the Internet, Mr. Daly says. "We
aren't working on video right now."
There are disturbing signs that the pirates are already moving on from
music to movies. Cyveillance Inc., an Alexandria, Va., firm that specializes
in scanning the Internet for illegal uses of copyrighted material, says it
located a pirated copy of "Saving Private Ryan."
Christopher D. Young, the firm's president, made a copy of the movie,
which was put up on the Internet by someone who had taped it using a
video camera in a movie theater. (The profile of someone standing in the
front row is visible in one scene.)
Mr. Young made a CD-ROM version of the movie and sent it to the legal
staff at DreamWorks SKG, which co-produced the film. "The growing
problem of digital piracy is an issue that DreamWorks takes very
seriously," a studio spokeswoman says. "We will take whatever measures
necessary, including appropriate legal action, to vigorously protect our
copyrights."
The swirl of activity around making video material available on the Web
illustrates how quickly the Internet is changing from a text-and-graphics
medium to a multimedia experience. Millions of computer owners have
loaded their computers with software, widely available on the Net, that
allows them to listen to Internet radio broadcasts or that let them watch
President Clinton's grand-jury testimony.
The founder of San Francisco-based ifilm.net LLC is Roger Raderman, a
30-year-old advertising executive who is keeping his day job as a creative
director at Digital Domain, a unit of Saatchi & Saatchi PLC. Saatchi &
Saatchi has no connection to Mr. Raderman's business. The site, started
with an investment of about $150,000 by Mr. Raderman and a few
partners, features films by little-known filmmakers. It currently offers 70
titles, ranging from "The Honeypot," about the adventures of a jar of honey,
to "Peephole," featuring the antics of residents of an apartment building.
No Charge
Initially, Mr. Raderman is letting filmmakers post their films at no charge.
Eventually, he says, he plans to charge them a modest fee and also to sell
advertising on the site. Mr. Raderman is working hard to build a buzz for
his site in the film community. He persuaded Trina Wyatt, an executive with
Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Productions Inc., to sit on the company's board.
Here's what you see when you log on to ifilm.net. There are still
photographs from various movies, and biographical information about the
filmmakers. Once you select a film, you click on "view now," and after a
few seconds the movie appears in about a quarter of the computer screen.
The sound quality is excellent, but the picture, viewed using a fairly
standard modem, is murky and jerky. Rapid movements by characters
leave blurry trails. Some characters appear to be moving in a trance.
As for the pirated version of "Saving Private Ryan," it's safe to say the
powerful battle scene viewed on the Internet probably isn't what director
Steven Spielberg had in mind.
Not surprisingly, the companies pushing Net films say that to focus on the
herky-jerky quality of the movies is to miss the point. "Comparing this to
television is wrong," says Mark Cuban, president of Broadcast.com. The
real point, he says, is that the Net isn't a print medium anymore, and the
personal computer is becoming an entertainment device.
"It's about access, not about what the picture looks like," Mr. Cuban adds.
"When you were young, didn't you watch cartoons, even though they were
snowy?" |
