Digital video disks pulled

By Keith Newman

One of the country's largest video rental outlets has pulled 20 digital video disk (DVD) titles off its shelves under threat of legal action from major movie distributors.

But it now wants the major studios to take responsibility for releasing official products on time.

Bob Smith, manager of Video Ezy in Auckland's Ponsonby Road, was reluctant to remove parallel imported early-release DVDs until his neighbouring rival The Source agreed to do the same.

Both stores removed offending titles last week.

"I only did it because others were doing it," said Mr Smith.

"It was bringing in a good-sized turnover and I wasn't going to let them take my customers away."

Now the focus is on trying to convince the distributors to lift their game with timely release of DVD titles for the region, thereby reducing the temptation to parallel import from the United States.

"They've got to get them in the stores on the day and date of release, which has not been happening," he said.

Columbia TriStar and Universal informed the major rental chains and independent outlets not to supply DVD movies before the official video release date or they would invoke their rental right under the Copyright Act.

A series of industry meetings over the past month has seen video rental outlets defying the major studios for fear of losing business if some stores kept parallel imported titles on the shelves.

However, it appears the Video Dealers Association has cut a deal across its membership to abide by the official release dates, which it expects to have signed off by the end of the week.

Video Ezy, for example, has asked its stores to remove DVD titles which are ahead of normal video release date. The chain is also campaigning to get distributors to leave a window before titles are offered for sale at retail outlets.

"We've agreed to take the titles off the shelves to protect their theatrical window. Now we think they should play ball and give us a rental window of at least three months," said Mr Smith.

Warners had been the first studio to get products to stores in time with You've Got Mail now available and Ronin available next month on DVD.

The Source manager Jaysin Brown said he did not mind removing early release titles from his store "as long as everyone plays ball".

He said interest in DVDs was growing steadily but didn't believe distributors were pushing the new format here for rental as it could be detrimental for the video side of the business.

Mr Brown said video rental outlets would be watching each others' shelves closely to ensure no one was breaking the agreement.

While the rental industry originally agreed to work with official distributors with the advent of parallel importing last May, a number of stores broke ranks and began offering titles imported from the US for local rental.

These were appearing often months ahead of official release date and sometimes before the theatrical release.