SEPTEMBER 6. 1959
`
`TIME
` TH 5 $5.5..5 HEY .N 5 “1.5. 51.5 [3, )1. ext H. E .
`
`VOL. 154 H0. 10
`
`MOVIES HIT THE NET
`
`Hollywood is eyeing
`the Internet as the
`gigaplex of the future
`By IDSHUA QUITTNER and
`DAVID E. THIGPEN
`
`HE WORDS FROM THE MOVIE TRAIL-
`er flicker across the small screen
`with quietly creepy menace: “Six
`miners lost in the wilds of Colo-
`rado in the 18705,” reads the first
`line, which dissolves as a suspense-
`ful, subtonic noise rumbles from the sound
`track. "Five half-eaten corpses. One sur-
`vivor and . . .”
`I”
`“. .. seven great songs
`Yes, moviegoers, it’s Canniball The
`Musical. You know—the cult-hit comedy
`that the creators of South Park made when
`they were in film school. Want to see it?
`Forget the video store. Simply mouse on
`over to SightSoundcom and download a
`copy. You can rent the Ell-megabyte film
`for $2.95 a day (before it digitally disap-
`pears), or buy it for $59.98. In fact, you can
`buy or rent it anytime, day or night—the
`Internet is always open.
`
`It’s so much cheaper to distribute
`movies digitally, rather than prinn‘ng film
`and shipping it
`to movie theaters,
`that
`both Hollywood studios and independent
`filmmakers view the Net as the grandest
`gigaplex of them all—though they haven’t
`sorted out who will benefit the most. Last
`week Adam Sandler’s people said the fun—
`nyman would be doing the main voice for
`afree, Net-only animation, The Parapet, due
`out next month at WamerBros.com. And
`Metafilmics, producer of Robin Williams’
`$100 million-grossing 1998 film What
`Dreams May Come, revealed plans to pro-
`duce a movie, The Quantum Project, which
`will be initially distributed to paying cus‘
`tomers at SighiSoundcom.
`that Quantum
`The announcement
`would become the first large~budget film to
`go straight to the Net raises some crucial
`questions. Will people still go to theaters,
`or even rent videos from stores? What
`will happen to the big studios and
`distributors, especially given the
`success of The Blair Witch Proj-
`ect, which formed its core
`
`audience on the Net before catapulting its
`way—through theatrical release—to a box-
`office bonanza? Will the Net open new
`markets for independents?
`I,
`The answer to that last question, at
`least,
`is a no-brainer. Virtually everyone
`agrees that the advent of Net movies will
`certainly be a boon for independent film-
`makers, who, thanks to the plunging cost of
`digital video cameras, powerfirl PCs and
`editing software, are already making de-
`cent films on modest budgets. Metafilmics
`producer Barnet Bain expects Quantum to
`cost around $3 million to shoot—way be-
`low the Hollywood average of $50 million
`a picture. That will enable the company to
`finance the project privately.
`And the Net, in theory anyway, is the
`answer to the distribution dilemma that
`vexes every small filmmaker. Bain esti-
`mates that there are some 35 million peo-
`ple in the US. with access to Windows Me-
`dia—a free software program that not only
`allows you to see videos but also permits
`the makers to protect their movies from
`piracy. Ifan is able to reach 5% ofthat per
`tential audience, he could easily recover
`his costs and turn a handsome profit. From
`there, the film could travel the traditional
`distribution route: video, pay-per-view,
`HBO and finally free TV. Says Ban-1: “This re-
`verses the distribution chain. W’e can be in
`
`the revenue stream first and exploit all the
`nontlieahical opportunities ourselves. We
`can cut out that whole middle layer.”
`And that, of course, is good for movie
`fans. Mark Cuban,
`founder of Broad-
`cast.Com, which was recently absorbed by
`Yahoo, predicts that the business of film on
`the Net will take off precisely because it of-
`fers
`content
`unavailable
`elsewhere.
`
`BroadcastCom, which has signed a deal
`with ministudio Trimark to produce origi-
`nal films for the Net, has a library of some
`13,000 hours of feature films, TVshows and
`documentaries. But Cuban says his compa»
`my will take a bite directly out of distribu-
`tors rather than the studios. “Blockbuster
`
`should be afraid,” he says. “Not this year or
`next year, but three to five years from now,
`we will have a significant impact on their
`rental business.”
`
`Don’t expect to see a box-office smash
`online soon. Since movie files are so big,
`downloading is an option only for people
`on high-weed connections. Also, publicity
`is expensive-amid even more necessary if
`the doors are thrown open to budding
`auteurs. Indeed, Scott Sander, president of
`SightSound.com, says that in the month or
`so Cannibal has been up, fewer than 100
`people have paid to see it. It seems that
`on the Net as well as off, there’s just
`no accounting for taste.
`I
`
`
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`SIGHTSOUND TECHNOLOGIES
`EXHIBIT 2315
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`CBM2013—00023 (APPLE v. SIGHTSOUND)
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