Claiming that the Family Movie Act (2006) allows it to stream movies while taking out aspects of the original production that are offensive to audience members, VidAngel offers 2,500 titles that “filter out bad language and graphic scenes.”
A user purchases the stream of a film for $20 then resells it back to the company 24- hours later for $19, thus getting to watch the edited film for $1.00. VidAngel meanwhile still pays full retail price for the individual titles they offer – see Method 4: Our Current Model.
I’m not sure I understand their business model. Either they are pirating, losing money every time they stream a film or are able to acquire the movies they offer at less than a $1.00 from retailers.
Reminds me of reaction videos on the YouTube TV. Stream a full length copyright show with a thumbnail in the corner of some fool reacting. It circumvents copyright laws and the person who posts it makes money thru monetization while stiffing the original creators.
Watched Deal Pool last weekend.
That was an awesome 15 second film.
Maybe it works this way. The company buys the full movie for, say, $25. Customer #1 “buys” the bowdlerized version for $20 and then “sells” it back the next day for $19. Company nets $1. Customer #2 does the same thing, and the company has made another buck on the same movie which it already paid for. Once the company has done this 25 times, it has paid for the original movie acquisition and makes $1 profit each time it “sells/buys back” the movie after that. I can see how they could make a profit that way, and it is just like regular movie rental services. The difference is that they couldn’t get away with modifying the movie and then rent it that way, so they “sell” it to avoid getting sued by the original movie distributor.
But I could be wrong.
Well, as a used car dealer once told me, “We lose a little bit on every sale, but we make it up in the volume.”
😄
I can understand the studio being obligated to protect the work of those who made the movie, but it seems like it leaves a lot of money on the table.
Why not give those with control of a film’s content a share in the money made on the filtered versions? That why they get to decide if they want to participate or not (i.e. be true to their “artistic vision” or compromise for $$$$).
Don’t you understand economics?
They make it up on volume.