I too have been surprised there hasn’t been more of an uproar about this. It seems legally shady to me – how can you restrict sales to certain parties and not others?

*blink* Well. I hadn’t noticed this b/c while we have purchased our AV from Midwest Tape for the last couple years (and I really looooove their website) cost issues have pretty much moved us to Amazon. We buy maybe a couple hundred dollars worth a month (we are not a big library).

This is…remarkably dumb

I think there has not been as much of an outcry as with this as there has been with ebooks simply because there are other sources to go to to purchase the materials. There is no other option with ebooks.

I wonder if Warner will eventually, and quietly, backtrack when they don’t see an increase in sales.

@Jason: I agree – I think it’s totally misguided, but because distribution isn’t as easy to control as it once was, content producers are circling the wagons to retain whatever control they can.

I also agree that physical items as content containers are on their way out – I actually had a big section on that in this post, but I deleted it all because it took the discussion in an entirely different direction. But, like you said above, whether the content is physical or electronic, the models are changing and we’re going to be faced with a new marketplace for both acquiring access and delivering it to our patrons. Libraries have to keep up with content options, but also explore new services and resources to offer our patrons.

But I don’t think that’s any reason not to fight to retain access to anything we feel we should have access to (like these DVDs). If we don’t speak up for our point of view, content providers will just keep rolling out one profit-minded bad idea after another.

Speaking now as a patron, this isn’t going to impact me very much. I used to watch the “bonus” materials, but found that most of the time they were very tedious, especially right after watching a terrific movie. I might occasionally watch a movie a second time with the director’s or actor’s commentary on, but that’s only with very special movies–I think the last time I did that was with “The Namesake.”

Because I’m not involved in ordering, I wasn’t aware of this policy until Brian blogged about it.

I sent out an email to my peers enquiring about this policy in Canada. Then yesterday afternoon Duncan Hamilton, Chief Operations Officer of Library Bound Inc. in Waterloo, Ontario, sent out the following email:

“Good Afternoon to all;

Some of you may have received an email stating that Warner Brothers has instituted a new policy whereby any new Warner theatrical DVD releases will be held for 28 days before libraries and rental stores will receive there copies.

Please be advised that this policy only pertains to American (U.S.) Libraries and Rental Stores and therefore will NOT affect the release dates for any CANADIAN Warner Bros. releases.

All LBI customers will receive there copies of Warner DVD releases, such as Harry Potter Pt. 2 on the published release date……with absolutely no delay.

If you have any question regarding this matter please feel free to contact me by phone or email.

Thank you as always for your continued support

Duncan Hamilton
Chief Operations Officer
Library Bound Inc.

I think the difference between this and the HarperCollins fiasco is that Harper would cost libraries more money. They were restricting the number of times an e-book could be checked out in an effort to force more sales. This is just saying you have to wait a month before you can purchase a new release. It doesn’t hurt your bottom line. It doesn’t force you to purchase another copy once the first has been checked out some arbitrary number of times. So…it’s not even close to the same thing.

I know this won’t be a popular opinion – but…it’s not our job to make sure the public can see a movie immediately after it’s released. It’s nice when we can do it, but it’s not vital. It’s not essential. It’s just a very nice convenience, and it keeps people happy so we don’t have to deal with as many complaints. But, we’re not the free version of netflix or a video rental store. If someone wants to see it for free, I don’t see how it’s such a terrible thing if they have to wait 28 days. I mean, even the networks are starting to restrict free online access to their prime time shows until a certain amount of time after it’s originally aired (e.g., Glee – you can’t watch an episode online till 8 days after it aired). Hasn’t killed anyone yet. I imagine it will be the same for this policy.

RE the comment from the PubLib list serve about it only being one studio… Just a bit more information on Warner Brothers and their home video arm…

Per Warner Home Video’s own marketing information (found here: http://tinyurl.com/66dblmw) WB dominated the marketplace in 2010 and has been–for 14 consecutive years!–the number one studio in overall sales.

This is not “just one” company. This is the “largest distribution infrastructure in the global video marketplace.” <—a direct quote from the aforementioned website.

Thanks for bringing this issue to a public forum, Brian!

I agree completely with Didi. This is not remotely the same as HarperCollins.

My guess is two of the biggest consumers of DVDs at a library are a) families and b) cinephiles. The large majority of family DVDs (e.g., Thomas, Curious George) are not theatrically released, so this policy doesn’t affect them.

If a family really needs to get Harry Potter and can’t wait 28 days, they can go to Blockbuster or use VOD and pay $3.99 for it. If they choose to steal it, that’s on them (which I think is less likely for the average library patron anyway, in this case — I mean is the dad going to say, “Well, they don’t have Harry Potter. Let me go home and spend some time finding a good feed on bittorrent and we’ll all sit around the laptop and watch it?” Maybe, but not very often).

[…] ebooks, which were duly mocked in this space. Apparently that wasn’t hilarious enough, since this maneuver is nearly as perverse: Warner Home Video is forcing DVD distributors […]

Possibly the reaction to this issue is merely being delayed.

Libraries are getting the short end of the stick with both this decision by Warner and also with the HarperCollins ebook fiasco; that’s clear. But as Didi says, librarians made the HarperCollins decision a high profile issue in a short amount of time because it cost libraries additional money (and there’s little enough funding to begin with).

Warner’s decision does not appear to cost extra money to libraries (in fact, it sounds like it will save them), but the COST is in the VALUE of the materials for library patrons, and once they realize this, I think that’s when the major complaints will rise.

Does this mean budgets are taking precedence over service? I hope not.

Even without a cost differential, the idea that companies would strip their products of value-added extras for library patrons is appalling. There SHOULD be more talk about this issue NOW, within the library community, and I’m glad you took the time to write about it, and that you are voicing the importance of “fight[ing] to keep libraries from being marginalized.”