IP Democracy: Hollywood's Dance with the Apple Devil

Variety’s Ben Fritz has this great piece today on the status, or at least the subtext, of Apple’s negotiations with the Hollywood studios to sell full-length movies on iTunes. As is well-known by now, the sticking point in getting films on iTunes is Apple CEO Steve Job’s demands that all movies be priced at a single flat rate.

This uniform pricing strategy paid off in spades for Apple when it came to music, much to the regret of the record industry which has been all but broken by Apple’s unwillingness to revisit music pricing terms. Now, Hollywood is facing the same unstoppable force that is Steve Jobs.

It’s that type of clout that makes many in the film industry nervous as Jobs and Apple negotiate to extend iTunes to feature-length films, a natural step after the store added TV shows last fall. Film moguls are eager to get access to the huge base of customers, especially as an antidote to piracy. But Jobs’ reputation as a brilliant yet arrogant executive used to getting what he wants has left many in Hollywood wondering whether the new-media titan will prove a friend or foe.

None of the studios (including, apparently, Disney, of which Jobs is the single largest shareholder) want to be the first to do a deal with Apple. The article also claims that the studios are trying to build up pacts with alternative online film distributors such as Amazon, Movielink and BitTorrent — I doubt Apple is the least bothered by these distant, distant rivals.

By all accounts, everybody is afraid of Steve Jobs, his tough demands, his intimidating intelligence and well-documented temper. Folks are going to be even more fearful after reading this piece. In defense of Apple’s notorious secrecy, Jobs himself tracked down and grilled a Daily Variety reporter who wrote a piece on some leaked Apple development. The scary part: he reached her on a private line of a rented condo and she hadn’t given the phone number to anybody.

When Daily Variety broke the news that Pixar had hired writers for the pitch that became the 2007 release “Ratatouille,” Jobs tracked the reporter down at the Sundance Film Festival, demanding to know her sources and threatening to fire the film’s writers. He called her on the private line of a rented condo — a number she had not given out to anyone. She still doesn’t know how he found it.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on June 19, 2006 6:30 PM to IP Democracy