Computer giant Intel and Revelations Entertainment, co-owned by Oscar winning actor Morgan Freeman and producer Lori McCreary announced the creation of ClickStar, a company designed to offer premium movies directly to the Internet, including original content and first run products.
Revelations formed the company and Intel has given them some capital. The strategy for Clickstar is set up an online service where consumers can access, pay for and download first-run, pre-DVD films and artist-created entertainment channels.
“ClickStar addresses the growing worldwide consumer demand for digital content – especially filmed entertainment,” Freeman said. “Our goal is to deliver first-run premium entertainment to film fans around the world and to make film easier to buy than to pirate.”
The launch date for the new company is slated for early in 2006 and no mention of major movie companies getting involved. As box office in traditional cinemas continues to drop, studios struggle with way to reclaim those last revenues. Certainly debate will ensue but where that debate may lead is up for contemplation.
A major worry for ClickStar, as with any online media operation, will be piracy. Video-on-demand (VOD) may be the wave of the future but the wave won’t get very far as long as piracy continues to be the problem it is. While a site like Clickstar will have an advantage because people will have to pay for the content at least once to get it and pirate it in most cases, that danger will still be there.
Despite the recent ruling by the Supreme Court, P2P networks still traffic a tremendous amount of content at absolutely no charge and that’s always going to be a thorn in the side of online enterprises like this. Some studies are starting to show people are more willing to pay for online content in some cases but realistically, as long as it’s free, then people will want the free content.
In many cases, the quality of the free product is far substandard to the movie experience or the DVD but it’s dramatically altered the paths of ticket sales for films as well as weak DVD sales. ClickStar believes they can offer an alternative to some of these losses.
The new company will use the Microsoft digital rights management software and Window’s media technology to protect their product.
Movie rentals and basic PPVs could easily be done. The company did say burnable content wouldn’t be available in the first run but later versions would offer that capacity.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
