Re:Blockbuster: Losing the plot
by waterlesscloud on Monday November 03, 2014 @04:56PM
(#8553813)
I'm not sure where you mean Redbox prints DVDs. They don't do it in the machine, as popular titles can be "sold out". It was over a week before I could find that last Captain America movie at my nearest Redbox.
No; they print them at their warehouses on an as-needed basis. DVDs get destroyed and lost easily, and they don't cost much to print. Individual machines will still run out if they're not restocked, though.
If it's true, they probably use a system similar to library ebook loans. They have a certain number of licences that can run out, even though there's no technical reason for it. I don't know why copyright owners would do it with Redbox since they get money for each loan.
It won't be a spectacular implosion like Blockbuster because they have the benefit of low capital overhead: those kiosks aren't that expensive and the DVDs themselves are basically free (AFAIK Redbox prints copies of them as-needed in exchange for a share of rental revenue to the copyright owners). So they can keep running them as long as the rental revenue covers the maintenance and re-stocking of the kiosks. The kiosks aren't even using valuable real-estate: if you got rid of a Redbox kiosk, I don't know there's anything else you could really put there that would generate a lot of money.