DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

Welcome to another edition of our annual Blu-ray sales analysis, where we look at how Blu-ray has performed over the last year.

The data used in this analysis derives from our weekly updates, based on figures released by Media Play News (previously known as Home Media Magazine). Some of the historical figures you’ll see have also been adjusted, due to slight tweaking of the metrics used by MPN to create these sets of data, although the changes have been very subtle and does not change the bigger picture in any way.

The conclusion from last year’s report centered on the fact that while Blu-ray revenue made a slight recovery off the launch of 4K Ultra HD and the better caliber of releases from 2016, Blu-ray revenue’s peak seems to have been reached in 2013.

Read on to find out if this is still true, or if UHD has helped Blu-ray turn a corner!

Blu-ray Market Share

As has been the case with all of our “Blu-ray: The State of Play” reports in the past, we start with the ever wider Blu-ray Market Share graph. Blu-ray market share represents weekly Blu-ray sales as a percentage of total packaged disc sales. So a Blu-ray market share of 45% means that 45% of all disc packages sold in that week contained a Blu-ray disc (inversely, this also means that 55% of disc packages sold only contained the DVD version of the content). With the way sales figures are reported, any edition that includes a Blu-ray version of the film is counted as a Blu-ray package (even if the package also contains a DVD version of the film). Ultra HD Blu-ray sales are also counted in the Blu-ray column. In the graph below, we also point out some of the more obvious milestone releases. 2017’s major releases, at least those that had a significant impact on Blu-ray market share for the week that they were released, were Moana, Rogue One, Logan, Beauty and the Beast, The Fate of the Furious, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Cars 3.

Blu-ray Market Share – 2008 to 2017 – Click to see larger version

Note that because Blu-ray market share is proportional to DVD market share, any drop in DVD sales will also result in a higher Blu-ray market share, even if Blu-ray sales are steady. With DVD on a steady decline, Blu-ray market share will continue to rise as long as it’s own sales decline is slower than that of DVD’s.

Below is the same data condensed and with a trend line added. The trend line does seem to indicate some kind of flattening for most part of 2017, and certainly the peak recorded in 2016 (for ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’) was not bested in 2017, although there were a few smaller peaks that, had it not been for the record breaking week in 2016, would themselves have been record breaking. The standout releases were ‘Rogue One’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’, both of these did much better on Blu-ray than your typical release, hence the peaks in the graph.

Blu-ray Market Share – 2008 to 2017

Blu-ray Revenue

For actual revenue, unfortunately, no records were broken as you can see from the graph below. In fact, none of 2017’s releases managed to beat 2017’s The Force Awakens, and even the important Black Friday/Cyber Monday and holiday sales weeks were lower in 2017 than compared to the same week in 2016. 2017’s peaks were also somewhat lower than even 2015’s, but the record remains with 2013 (and may always be the case). 2013 being the peak Blu-ray year, at least when it comes to revenue, remains a likely fact for the foreseeable future – it’s not so much that disc sales were so much higher, but that discs costs less per unit than they did in 2013 – so more sales could still mean less revenue.

Blu-ray Revenue Growth – 2010 to 2017

2016 vs 2017 Comparison

So let’s take a closer look at how 2017 did compared to 2016, starting with Blu-ray market share as shown in the graph below. Overall, it looks like 2017’s market share was, in most weeks, better than 2016’s. This may have more to do with the decline in DVD revenue being faster than the decline in Blu-ray revenue, which causes Blu-ray market share to naturally rise.

Blu-ray Sales Market Share: 2016 vs 2017 Comparison

Revenue wise, the differences between 2016 and 2017 were less visible. It was mostly an up and down affair, with some weeks being higher, some being lower, although 2017 really failed to hit the peaks that 2016 did, especially towards the important end of the year holiday sales period.

Blu-ray Sales Revenue: 2016 vs 2017 Comparison

We can get a clearer picture by looking at the raw numbers. Out of the 52 reporting weeks in 2017, 23 of them were better than the same week in 2016, with 29 being worse. This is almost a complete reversal of 2016, and is actually more similar to 2015, when 31 weeks had a weekly revenue worse than the same week in 2014. It appears that without record breaking huge releases, Blu-ray is definitely experiencing a steady decline.

Average Blu-ray market share was 39.6% in 2017 compared to 36.36% in 2016.

As a result, Blu-ray revenue continued the decline first seen in 2014. Total Blu-ray revenue for 2017 was $1.88 billion, compared to $2.02 billion in 2016, a decline of 6.74%.

Conclusion

To sum up:

• Blu-ray market share grew, but it may largely be due to the decline in DVD than any rise in Blu-ray sales
• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was the title to beat in 2017
• Blu-ray revenue continues its decline

These results still seem to confirm that 2013 was the peak for Blu-ray sales, and that the “Rey” of hope for in 2016 may have been just a temporary one. There are some bigger releases in 2018, including The Last Jedi, the latest Avengers movie and surprise mega-hit Black Panther, but even these may not be enough to slow or stop Blu-ray’s decline.

Welcome to another edition of the WNR. Hope you’ve had a pretty good week, and now you’re ready for this pretty poor excuse of an WNR. Yes, once again, the news Gods haven’t smiled upon us this week, but there are still things to talk about. So let’s get started!

Copyright extension will endanger creativity and cultural preservation

Will it ever end? The US Congress is considering extending the copyright term again, this time to 144 years. This means that recordings from as old as 1923 won’t fall out of copyright protection until 2067. Worst of all, the extension will be applied across the board automatically, as opposed to requiring rights holders to apply for the extension. This is all and well for recordings for which the current rights holders are still receiving royalties for, but for “orphan works” where the owners have long given up practical ownership of the work, the extension to 2067 will hamper efforts to (legally) preserve and archive these works, and so many may be lost forever.

It’s often easy to forget that it is as important for copyright protection to exist as it is for it to expire. Big media and the copyright lobby has placed most of the focus on copyright’s ability to protect the owners from earning royalties, which is important. However, if this was the only goal of copyright, then why did it originally have a component which will see it automatically expire after a set term (usually the life of the creator, plus X number of years). In other words, why should copyright expire and simply not exist indefinitely?

The reasons why copyright should expire is also the reason the copyright lobby cites in their argument for the strengthening of copyright – creativity. When works expire into the public domain, these works can then be referenced, remixed, edited freely or otherwise used to create new works. It is the reason why Disney can take classic stories such as Pinocchio and Snow White and create new (copyrighted) works from them without the hassle of buying the rights to these stories. And without anyone owning exclusive rights on something, it is also the reason why studios other than Disney can take the same stories and create their own copyrighted works, such as Universal’s ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ or Relativity Media’s ‘Mirror Mirror’. It’s also the reason if the original Star Wars trilogy ever falls out of copyright, someone other than Disney/Lucasfilm can take a shot at it. But at this rate, you and I would be long dead before that ever happens, if it ever happens at all. Plus there’s that tricky thing called trademarks, that will prevent anything real from materialising. #Sad.

The other reason is much more for works that are less well known than Snow White or Star Wars, and it’s about the preservation of these works for future generations. With automatic copyright extension and orphaned works, any effort to digitize and archive these works may be deemed illegal until their copyright expires, by which time, it may be technically impossible to preserve them.

So let’s not be too shortsighted when it comes to copyright, as it’s most than just about money and protecting the interests of a few big corporations.

Blu-ray sales for 2017 may disappoint despite gains made by Ultra HD Blu-ray

I know I’m a little late this year in publishing our annual Blu-ray: The State of Play report, but rest assured, it’s coming soon. And before that glorious day occurs, I thought I would just share with you a preview of what you might expect. As you might have guessed, things aren’t looking great for physical media. But how not great, I hear you ask.

Well, the last State of Play report saw Blu-ray revenue make a small comeback, rising slightly even. At that time, I put that down to the better caliber of releases for 2016 (compared to 2015), as well as the positive effect of Ultra HD Blu-ray. The same factors still applied for 2017, but unfortunately while UHD continued to grow, the caliber of releases was comparatively lacking, and these two factors failed to arrest the decline of physical media sales in general. As a result, Blu-ray revenue fell by more than 6%, and the majority of weeks in 2017 was poorer than the same week in 2016, in terms of sales.

The full report will have lots of other juicy details such as a list of the year’s best selling Blu-ray titles and a closer look at Blu-ray’s market share. Look out for the full report here in the coming days (although with my track record, it will be more likely weeks/months).

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Looks like we’ve reached the end of another WNR. See you next week!

Welcome back from a “much longer than I thought it would be” hiatus. A combination of travelling, getting sick from travelling and then lack of news meant that the WNR had to be postponed. Until now!

So we finally do have news this week, not too much, but enough to get the old keyboard out and write up a WNR.

Roku accidentally blocks YouTube and Netflix for suspected piracy

There’s been a bit of an unwanted copyright spotlight on Roku, with the company facing legal action in Mexico. This is probably why Roku has decided to take a more proactive strategy towards anti-piracy enforcement, and they have started to remove channels that aren’t solidly in the legitimate camp in terms of content.

This strategy appears to have caused some friendly fire last week, when Roku decided that both YouTube and Netflix were no longer on the right side of the (copyright) law, and blocked both channels with their now infamous “FBI warning screen” (where they explain why the channel was removed).

Facing a customer backlash, Roku quickly took to Twitter to explain the whole thing had been a mistake, and that the channels may have been inadvertently blocked during one of Roku’s anti-piracy actions (when they were trying to block another channel).

With the creative industry taking aim at all streaming related activity, I guess it’s only wise on Roku’s part to take proactive action. Just not so proactive that they start blocking the likes of Netflix and YouTube, obviously.

4K Ultra HD Blu-ray is the only physical media format that’s not in serious decline

The latest DEG report on the state of the (US) home entertainment industry is out for Q1 2018, and it pretty much reads as you would expect it to read. Almost everything digital is doing great, particularly streaming, and that’s more than making up for losses in physical media sales and all kinds of rentals.

Of particular interest to loyal readers of this feature will be the near 29% increase in revenue for subscription streaming compared to Q1 2017, shows that there seems to be still room to grow for the streaming business. 4K Ultra HD sales are booming as well, with sales up 130% and now accounting for 12% of all Blu-ray sales. And 35 million households now have at least one 4K TV set.

So it seems that the home entertainment industry is moving towards digital, streaming and 4K and a rather rapid pace, and it seems this time at least, they are ready to take advantage (with a little bit of help from Netflix, Amazon, Apple and other tech companies).

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Short and sweet one this week. No idea if the next week is going to be better, or worse, or absolutely amazing. Hoping for the latter then!

Just a heads up that the next few weeks might be light in terms of news and roundups, as I’m going on a small trip. Luckily, there were a few things to talk about this week, as otherwise, it would be a rather long break without a WNR. The things that we talk about are rather related too, as you’ll find out.

So without wasting any more time …

The problem of leaked screeners has gotten bad enough that the MPAA has finally decided to seek external help to get the problem under control. The MPAA has partnered with the Content Delivery & Security Association to created the Trusted Partner Network (TPN), a group that will try to ensure standards are being met in terms of the secure storage and distribution of entertainment content, including screeners.

TPN will set out to raise awareness of proper security protocols, and TPN approved assessors can provide auditing to content owners and vendors who wants to ensure they aren’t the weak link in the distribution chain.

You can’t blame them for taking some action though, because screener leaks and even major hacks have become so common, they’re no longer even news worthy. That’s not to say that the problem is so big that the revenue lost, and the jobs associated with it, has become news worthy as a result. If anything, it appears that the movie business has never been better.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi was the top movie domestically

Don’t think that’s the case? Then why not check with the MPAA, who’s most recent report paints a very rosy picture of the film business. The last 3 years have been record years, domestically, for the movie industry, and globally, 2017 was a record breaking year.

Box office receipts are up, especially in emerging markets like in Asia, and not only that, home entertainment profits are up as well. The latter might be surprising because the same report paints a dire picture for physical media, with revenue down some 41% since 2013. But as luck would have it (or not luck at all, but just common sense), the rise of digital has more than offset the losses with physical media. This has meant an overall increase in consumer spending, meaning that despite some of the money going to the likes of Apple, Google and Netflix, digital is actually more profitable than physical (or maybe more precisely, the ease of use of digital now means people are consuming more content than ever). Who would have thought that innovation and user friendliness are the keys to success? I certainly didn’t in 2009 or even earlier if I had bothered to search through WNRs from before then.

But the focus on piracy still hasn’t decreased, because in the eyes of the MPAA and its members, it’s still “money lost” despite there being very little evidence that stopping piracy entirely (not possible anyway) would lead to a surge in profits. For me, the transition to digital would not have gone so smoothly had there not been pirate applications that had already gotten people used to consuming digital media. Kind of like how without MP3 piracy, Apple would have found it a lot harder to launch the iPod and iTunes, because there just wouldn’t have been a market for the entire ecosystem. And without the price pressures put on the industry by piracy, Spotify would have never existed for the same reasons Netflix might have never been.

Digital, more precisely, digital subscriptions, are helping the music industry recover financially

And as we’re on the topic of music, it’s a bit of a coincidence, or not, that the RIAA also released their own report on the state of the music in industry, and it’s starting to look brighter too. Again, digital is playing a key role in the “revival” of the industry (following it’s “collapse” due to piracy if you believe the RIAA, or more likely, the transition from CDs to digital). And within the larger physical to digital transition, and as we are also seeing within the movie industry, there is also a transition from ownership to subscription. From iTunes to Apple Music, or iTunes again to Netflix.

And hysterical claims from the RIAA about the lousy royalties from streaming, it’s actually paid subscriptions that’s driving industry profits forward – both digital downloads and physical media sales were down, but total revenue grew by 16.5% thanks to a 56% rise in the number of paid subscription.

Things will never go back to the heydays of CDs, but so many things have changed since then (um, the Internet, for one), so is it really realistic to expect business to stay the same?

You can’t blame everything on piracy.

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And on that note, we come to the end of another WNR. There might still be one next week before I leave for my trip, unless I run out of time packing, which is very likely. See you … when I see you again!

I’m not getting into the April Fools game this year. If you follow this roundup, or just read news in general, you’ll already know how absurd real news stories can get these days, so anything I can come up with for April Fools will be lame by comparison. So if I you read a new story about the MPAA sending a representative to become a board member of the XBMC Foundation, the foundation that operates the Kodi project, or if the RIAA has decided to submit Spotify to the USTR to add to their global piracy blacklist, or if Australian media boss Graham Burke says Google’s perceived lack of action on piracy means kids are being lured into bad Internet neighbourhoods full of prostitutes and drug dealers, then you probably have no idea whether they’re real or if they’re an April Fools news story.

That last one was actually real news, BTW.

Here’s the real news (I promise) …

‘Kodi’ has been filtered by Google

Google has decided the term Kodi might as well be a synonym for piracy, and has banned the word from its Autocomplete feature. So instead, if you type “kod” into Google, you’ll get the suggestions like “kodak black” or “kodiak bear”, and nothing related to the media software.

The fact that the Kodi software is just a media interface, not too dissimilar to Microsoft’s Windows Media Center software that came with Windows versions from XP to 8.1, makes the banning quite strange. Especially when you consider that other legal software terms with even stronger links to piracy, such as “uTorrent” and even “Popcorn Time”, are perfectly fine by Google standards.

I do expect Google to reverse their decision in an embarrassing back down at some stage, and they will do what they always do, blame the algorithm (and so to theoretically remove the human element from the equation as a means to project themselves from lawsuits … never mind that algorithms are written, tested and monitored by human beings, and I believe that’s where the ultimate responsibility lies – anyway, getting off topic).

Does this all have an effect on Kodi? According to Google Trends, search traffic for the term “Kodi” dropped by more than 21% in the last week, so …

People are pirating Spotify. I really didn’t know that this was a thing until this week.

Another media software in the spotlight recently is Spotify, mainly due to its impending IPO on the NYSE. As part of that process, Spotify has had to audit themselves and present any irregularities. One irregularity that Spotify has identified is that approximately two millions of its users are using hacked versions of the Spotify app, which allows free accounts to access premium features, such as no ads. What this means is that there are two million users that aren’t generating profit for Spotify, and unfortunately, these users has been counted as normal users and included in Spotify’s previously published key performance indicators.

I personally believe it isn’t the ads that people are trying to bypass by using the hacked version. The free version of Spotify’s most annoying limitation, at least when it comes to the mobile app, is the inability to select tracks to play, and only being able to play a playlist on shuffle. Worst yet, and this is one of those badly documented limitations, the shuffle playlist play will only work for a number of tracks before Spotify will just play you random (but sometimes related) tracks not in your playlist. This is especially true if your playlist consists of tracks from a couple of different albums – this is Spotify’s way to prevent free account holders to listen to a single album on a loop, even if it’s on random shuffle. If it was just the ads, I think most people would just live with it.

Anyway, Spotify has notified accounts suspected of using the hacked version and also barred the hacked versions from accessing Spotify’s servers. There are however many hacked versions, and not all are blocked, and so I suspect many users are still using “pirating Spotify”.

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And on that note, we come to the end of another WNR. See you next week!