Want to watch Green Lantern or Horrible Bosses on demand and have a Dish? You’re going to be out of luck. Warner Brothers has pulled the two films from Dish’s on demand offerings over a dispute with Dish’s corporate partner Blockbuster.
The video rental firm reportedly purchased copies of both films from retail outlets and made them available for rental in brick and mortar stores. The move reportedly violated the 28-day rental moratorium the studio has in place with rental outlets, leading to Warner Brothers pulling the films from Dish’s on demand offerings. Dish and Blockbusters have an agreement that allows Dish users to rent discs from Blockbusters’ stores and on-line rental service.
“They felt it was important to continue to offer day-and-date rental so rather than work with us they went around us,” Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment. Blockbuster declined to comment.
“The question is: how do we make ownership more valuable and attractive?” said Tsujihara. “We have started the process of creating a window in bricks-and-mortar DVD and Blu-ray rental.”
Now comes the part of the story that may be of greater concern to those of us who rent movies. Studios are looking to expand the window between when a disc is released and when consumers can rent it, starting as early as next year. The current agreements for the 28 day window expire at year’s end and Hollywood wants to make us wait.
“The Netflix and Redbox deals are going to be expiring at the end of the year and beginning of next year, and it’s likely we will try to extend those windows,” Tsujihara said.
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