Film Distribution, Movies, Online

Hollywood wants to make movies easier to find online

So Peter Kafka at Re/code may be right: No one who already has a good system of pirating movies is going to be swayed into not breaking the law by Wheretowatch, the new site from the MPAA that is meant to serve as a directory of where to find movies for legal streaming or download. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t serve an important purpose for the rest of us.

where-to-watchw640_580-0

Right now the legal viewing ecosystem is incredibly fragmented. Netflix has the rights to movies from these three studios, Amazon has the rights to movies from those two and so on. And things get even more confusing when you go beyond the world of big studios movies and into indies, where the various rights holders placing small bets all over the place. So if someone wants to watch anything from the latest James Bond movie to a buzzed-about documentary may wind up searching any of a number of places and never stumble on the right one. This frustration is just one factor that pushes people into illegal torrenting and such.

But if people had – and knew about – a single search tool they could use to find what they were looking for then it can make for a much more efficient experience. Again, it may not have the power to sway anyone who’s already tied to their torrenting site since they may be using it for ideological reasons as much as for frugality. Someone who hasn’t yet been pushed to the “Oh forget this, I’m torrenting it” line, though, may find this is a good reason to say on the legal side of the equation.

It starts and ends with education, though. The stories I’ve read about this site don’t mention it, but it would make a ton of sense for the MPAA to not only get studios on board but also sites like Netflix, Amazon and others (this newly formed group of streaming companies comes to mind). The former could link to the search database from a movie’s official website and social profiles, something that would be much more efficient than sending out a stream of updates every time the licensing deals change. And the latter could get on board from an education point of view, saying they support legal streaming/downloading and offering this as a place to find the best experience.

In other words, it’s incumbent on the MPAA to get the word out and to use all means at its disposal to do so. Otherwise this is a solution that does almost nothing to solve the problem.

Advertisements