How to Open a "Movie Cafe"? 57
tunari asks: "Here in my neck of the woods (Cochabamba, Bolivia) there are hundreds of Internet cafes and Nintendo salons, where you can rent games by the hour. I would like to open a movie salon. I imagine a central CD/DVD jukebox and either dumb terminals or, if possible, TVs. Users would need basic control over playback, and, if possible, some automated way to request new titles. Cost is a big issue, as we will probably be charging less than a dollar per hour. What are some of the ways we could set this up?"
Biggest cost (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Biggest cost (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Cost of fines after judge awards huge sum to the MPAA because you used technology to provide a new service to customers without their blessing.
2) Cost of attorneys.
MP3.com was fined exhorbitant amounts for letting people listen to their own music.
Re:Biggest cost (Score:2, Informative)
That's the reason that you get licenses from the distributors of the films. I would find out who holds the distribution rights in your country and ask them. Most likely, you will have to pay them a percentage (50% sounds likely) of every time the movie is shown, plus a fixed fee.
The simple fact is that this guy wants to exhibit films for profit (or to at least make money from the sale of viewing films; as far as the law is concerned, these are the same thing) and that's not covered by any definition of fair use.
If you get the licenses, they really can't sue you (unless you break the terms of the license, for instance saying that you only sold $100 worth of viewings while you really sold $10,000 worth); any suits would get laughed out of court. I would definitely have a lawyer present while negotiating the license, though, and might even consider having the lawyer draft all correspondence.
Re:Biggest cost (Score:2)
What about going at it from the other angle? Have a free library of movies available. Movies can not be removed from the library, similar to how libraries do not allow certain books to be taken home. The cafe would charge for use of the movie viewing equipment. People would still be able to bring in their own laptops with batteries and watch movies for free, but there has to be a tradeoff somewhere (and they might buy food or whatever).
Re:Biggest cost (Score:3, Insightful)
That doesn't get around it. The law's position (at least as interpreted by the courts) has essentially been that any time money changes hands and a movie plays more than an incidental part in the transaction constitutes sale of a viewing of a movie with the accompanying requirement of a license. Video stores do have to receive licenses from the studios to play movies at the store (though such licenses are generally part of the license to rent the film, as the studios have found that having the video playing in the store helps the rental revenue).
Re:Biggest cost (Score:3, Insightful)
does the fbi have jursidiction?
Re:Biggest cost (Score:1)
No-hassle refunds @ Joe's Movie Cafe (Score:5, Funny)
(This is all moot, of course. The MPAA would still sue you to Weehawken and back. But hey, it's fun to dream...)
Re:No-hassle refunds @ Joe's Movie Cafe (Score:2)
Selling the DVD to the customer, and buying it back should not be necessary. It also could get you in significant hot water as courts generally do NOT take kindly to feeling manipulated.
(You may not, for instance, be allowed to prevent the customer from leaving with their purchase. Not a big deal for some movies, they will rent it and return it. Other movies may be exceptionally hard to keep in stock that way.).
A local video rental place will actually sell almost all the movies they have in stock for rent. You have the option to 'Rent or Buy'. My limited understanding of the issues involved (and they are complicated) is that any movie they aquire at regular retail prices MUST be available for sale and not only available for rent. Copies which they buy for Rental purposes do not have to be sell-able. And except for the occasional movie (and most anime) the prices are not out of line. The occasional movie is $80C for no apparent reason.
Re:No-hassle refunds @ Joe's Movie Cafe (Score:2)
What's the FBI/Interpol's definition of "home" (Score:2)
Maybe you could put the TV & player in a small room at your business, and rent out the small room as "apartment space" or "apartment storage space" or something.
"Joe's Movie Cafe, your 'home' away from 'home'".
Re:No-hassle refunds @ Joe's Movie Cafe (Score:1)
Good thing he's in Bolivia - I'd think, assuming that the local government aside of course, that the MPAA could do they *#$@$*% want, I mean who gives a flying, well, anything, about some industry assoc in a foreign country?
MPAA has an export arm called MPA (Score:2)
who gives a flying, well, anything, about some industry assoc in a foreign country?
The MPAA has an export arm called MPA [mpaa.org] whose job is to market MPAA films worldwide. It has been called the "State Department of the MPAA".
Not sure if that's true (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Biggest cost (Score:2)
But in Bolivia? (Score:2)
MPAA (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MPAA (Score:2)
Re:MPAA (Score:2)
Hotels (Score:2, Informative)
Dear Slashdot (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Dear Slashdot (Score:1)
Re:Dear Slashdot (Score:1)
1. Open Movie Cafe
2. Circumvent MPAA restrictions
3. ??????
4. Make a fortune
I could be wrong,tho...
Re:Dear Slashdot (Score:2)
Large Server + Fast Network (Score:4, Interesting)
You can decompress on the server and stream a large quantity of data or stream a smaller quantity of data and uncompress on the client.
I would start doing some quick mental calcs. How many clients can I support with a given infrastructure?
This seems a very expensive way of providing said service. Why not just buy a bunch of TV+DVD players?
Re:Large Server + Fast Network (Score:2)
The big problem is getting it from the central storage unit to the individual rooms, this can be done by 2 methods that i can think of: pipe it over uncompressed which would make it so you would not have to have anything to decompress it on the viewers end, but on the other hand this would put an incredible strain on the central computer to decompress all the movies requirein a lot of money to be put into the central system. the second idea is to have a small computer at the viewers end to decript it, i am not sure if this would be more expensive or less expensive(i will leave it up to you to crunch the numbers) this would also require a very fast lan or other method to get the data from one place to another.
I am really excited to see if this idea catches on, it is a great idea that i hope will spread.
(sorry for any and all: typos, mispellings, mispunctuations and other errors; i am typing this up at 10:00 on a verry small keyboard)
Sorry (Score:2)
I just patented movie cafes. Thanks for the idea tho :)
Bad Idea (Score:1)
Wait a minute (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wait a minute (Score:2)
Then, instead of showing "Tranny potters" he could show "Trainspotters" for one token/minute.
Re:Wait a minute (Score:3, Funny)
It's a novel concept. You give this guy $8 and you watch a movie. There are people selling popped corn and candy, although it is very expensive.
Re:Wait a minute (Score:2)
Thankfully (surprisingly?), I haven't experienced such things in my local theare (in Germany), but Germans have more sense I guess, I haven't seen SUV-driving soccer moms either..
Re:Wait a minute (Score:3, Insightful)
What they did finally get closed down for was that they'd copy all of the first run movies, to make more of a profit... This was back when the initial run VHS copies were 100$ or more, IIRC.... Renting a copy is a no-no, and I'm not sure where "servers" would stand, unless you had a copy (i.e. a license) for each movie used. Would probably have to keep a pretty good journal....
Go Low Tech (Score:1)
Dude comes in with his buddies. Wanna watch the latest hollywood trash. Clerk behind counter says: Be right back. Sets up DVD in DVD player in the room. Makes sure movie works. Collects the $2 for the flick, then says: have fun.
When they leave, they leave. They can't take the dvd with them, cuz it's in the dvd player in the plexi case.
You guessed it, you can still control the dvd player with the remote through the case.
Re:Go Low Tech (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd suggest a couple of changes, though... Instead of special constructions for housing the TVs, just put all the DVD decks in back of the counter. Have some shelving with the DVD boxes out front, much like a rental place; then when you bring a box to the counter, instead of handing you the DVD, the clerk sticks it in a player and directs you to the matching TV.
Re:Go Low Tech (Score:1)
licensing considerations... (Score:2)
But if you're not in a Free-as-in-to-get-extorted-by-the-media-cartels country, then I guess that's not a consideration.
In the US, a DVD for private viewing an indefinite number of times costs well under twenty bucks, but
"
Screening a film outside of the home requires a license from the film studio or a distributor. Licences range from $125 - $1000 depending on the film.
"
Source [nwu.edu]
Note that this is from a small, independant film club! And even they're playing strictly by the rules of extortion, because they're afraid not to.
Of course, chances are that in Bolivia you have more personal liberty than you would in the US, and do not have to pay protection fees to agencies of extortion sanctioned by the very Federal Government. [1]
Anyway, good luck with everything.
Also: I believe that Microsoft must be annihilated.
~Robert.
ps. Once more, just to make me shudder:
Of course, chances are that in Bolivia you have more personal liberty than you would in the US.
[1]
(A run-down of extortion: We make it so that for what you want, you need to pay more than is reasonable, because we have distribution locked down. If you do not agree to pay our price, you must fear for your personal safety. [As in today's Federal prisons, with whose conditions we are all familiar.])
How to open a "Software Cafe"? (Score:1, Troll)
VideoLAN (Score:1)
Ive seen it done before but differnt (Score:1)
MPAA (Score:1)
Slightly OT, but I spent some time in Peru and used the interent cafes there a fair amount. I could never figure out how they made any money. Like this guy, they cost about a dollar an hour. Some had several sattelite dishes. The machines were not brand new, but certainly useable. What's going on?
spreer
Couple thoughts (Score:1)
Re:Couple thoughts (Score:1)
for starters - there's no need for beowolf style clusters, a few servers should suffice.
IDE-hd storage goes for ~100$/80gig or about 20 movies at 4Gbyte ea
without fancy sw you can mount samba server shares for playback or can be served out multicast
the viewing stations don't need gigabit, only the conn. between the server and switch might
you can propably do it on the cheap with multiple 100 mbit nics and low cost 10/100 switches
or better with 5x 80$ dlink Gb nics to 300$ dlink Gb switches
there is no need to download the movie to the computer since a decent viewer can cache enough
low end diskless PC's -like 600Mhz celerons or athlons will do for playback. an integrated motherboard would be cheapest
$100us for mb, 35$ for case, psu, kb, mouse and 100$ for a 17" mono or 20-25" tv set
to be really cheap just stack motherboards to a wirerack, no cases, and run ntsc video to TVs
user can control via keypads instead of keyboards
of course use linux throughout for servers and players
get the money up front! cash preferably. cc and debits complicate things too much
make the viewing open to "club" members only to get by that "can't view to public" restriction
Re:Couple thoughts (Score:1)