Could Redbox Crowdsource Its Way Around Movie Studio Blockades?
Last week, we wrote about the legal battle Redbox is facing with some of the movie studios. Redbox, of course, rents DVDs at a $1/rental from vending machines that it places all over the place. Some of the studios are upset that (a) they don’t get a cut of each rental and (b) that Redbox also sells those DVDs. So they’ve been trying to force Redbox to sign agreements that would give them a royalty cut and which would put limitations on Redbox — such as not renting out videos until well after the DVDs are released and also having the company destroy, rather than sell DVDs when they were done renting them. Of course, the labels don’t have much of a legal claim here. Redbox has every right to buy DVDs and to then rent them (right of first sale and all that). But, what at least some of the studios have done is to demand that DVD wholesalers not sell to Redbox, which certainly seems like a typical restraint of trade situation. In at least one case, a studio has also told downstream retaile
