Warner Brothers to offer movie downloads in Hong Kong

by Brad Linder May 10th 2007

If you can't beat them, join them -- and charge them. That's Warner Brother's latest strategy for battling video piracy in Hong Kong. The movie studio will offer 100 titles online, including recent DVD releases such as Superman Returns and Happy Feet as well as popular older titles like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The videos will be available for a fee through ViDeOnline's 08Media web site.

Hollywood studios say they lose billions of dollars a year to video piracy, with China being one of the hottest spots for internet pirates. Warner Brothers' move is designed to give Chinese consumers a chance to get high quality movies for a small price rather than turning to the black market.

The files will include DRM to prevent copying. No word on exactly how much the studio will charge for the downloads, or whether anyone in Hong Kong will actually use the service.

[via DailyTech]

Tags: china, hong kong, HongKong, internet video, InternetVideo, piracy, superman retruns, SupermanRetruns, warner brothers, WarnerBrothers

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Brad Linder said 2:29PM on 5-10-2007

Uggh. That's twice today that I've been hit by the fact that my spellchecker doesn't seem to work for headlines. Thanks, I've updated the post title.

Tomi B. said 9:54PM on 5-10-2007

Warner Borthers ? :)

摩摩诘 said 2:51PM on 5-11-2007

personally,I think that is nonsense for China.Chinese people can download almost all the latest hollywood's movies they want from internet without paying anything,just using bt downloader or directly from numerous websites which providing pirated videos.As Chinese,I'm very shame for this ,but I think the situation will change in very early future.China goverment is trying its best in the battle against video piracy,as well as software and other aspects.

Bryant said 8:10AM on 5-28-2007

I think this is a great idea for the studios. The same thing Apple did, first hit them with some lawsuits and then put up a site that people will embrace because their scare someone will knock on the door with a fine for their 13-year-old daughter. If Warner Brothers is interested, I own Moviedownloads.cn

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