August
10
iArthouse Launches Monday
As the indie arthouse market continues to seek new distribution models, on Monday established movie download company EZTakes launches iArthouse, a world cinema online site boasting a selection of more than 800 films.
By year’s end, EZTakes founders Jim Flynn and Bill Clarke and new iArthouse partners John Lawrence Ré and Larry Jackson plan to expand the iArthouse library to several thousand international and arthouse films. Along with iArthouse's download-to-burn technology, which allows consumers to burn titles to DVDs on their home computers to view on TV, the site also offers ad-supported free streaming video and subscription options. iArthouse will “compete with free, illegal downloads," said EZTakes CEO Flynn, "by offering a high caliber of quality, legitimate content and enabling customers to burn their purchased downloads to playable DVDs.”
Founder of theatrical art film distributor Northern Arts Entertainment, Ré moves over to the online side alongside long-time exhibitor Jackson, a former exec veep of Miramax Films. “The marriage of film expertise and proven technology,” said Ré, “has created an organization that is best positioned to utilize the Internet as a distribution channel for high-quality international films.”
Jackson plans to showcase classic titles as well as new discoveries supplied by indie distribs Kino International, Northern Arts Entertainment, Palm Pictures, First Look Entertainment, Arts Alliance America, Vanguard Cinema and KOCH Entertainment. "We have harnessed innovative technology," he said, "to create a thoughtful, global community space for film lovers.”
UPDATE: CinemaTech says the new site is basically a rebrand of what they've been doing for a few years.
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Digital rights management (DRM) is a generic term that refers to access control technologies used by hardware manufacturers, publishers and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices. DRM is controversial and rightfully so, as consumers avoid it wherever and whenever it crops up.
Ez-takes and its constant insistance on DRM, is more of a hindrance for any filmmaker and producer. The people who would use download features are realistically not there: they download from p2p sites anyways. DRM does not actually exist, because any content can be downgraded to analog and then digitzed again; thus ez-takes' claims of DRM are misleading, if mot false.
For independent producers other and better options such as filmbay ,brosmedia and xing are available. Their networking and distribution features are well beyond the standard fare, suggesting a web 3.0 notion. Indy producers need useful tools. Time will tell how things will pan out, but at least there are some good choices out there.
Dave Wakefield
Posted by: David F. Wakefield | November 02, 2008 at 01:25 PM