Disney and Sony have begun testing what is basically an anti-pirating measure regarding their films in South Korea. What they are doing is testing an on-demand service which offers the ability to rent movies while they are still being played in movie theaters. The Wall Street Journal notes that these are the first US studios to provide the option of buying a movie ticket or watch it at home using their cable, internet, or satellite-TV subscription.
As mentioned in this video done by the Wall Street Journal, South Korea has had a rather large Video On Demand market since 2008. It makes sense to test out an experiment like this in a market where Video On Demand is a common place thing. If this turns out to be successful, we could potentially see a shift in how long movies stay in theaters. Theaters, however, still play a big role in building and spreading the word about new movies.
While this could help with piracy in the long run, it may eventually have a significant impact on the movie theater business. Could the movie theaters compete with the convenience of sitting at home and watching the same film?
[WallStreetJournal via TheVerge]
