Global Monopoly of Technology

$958 million? No, Miramax's movies are not worth the price. If you add the works of Pixar Animation Studios, it's about the same. This price is acceptable to me. "

At this moment, Luo Sheng's voice resounded in a conference room of Bluestar Technology Headquarters, and the person sitting opposite him was the head of Disney's negotiator, named Palock.

What is going on is that Bluestar Technology and Disney are negotiating the introduction of the rights to broadcast the film, to obtain the digital rights, so as to introduce the long video content to the BV video website.

It can be said that this is after Bluestar Technology and Hollywood secretly stalemate for several years, and finally the film company could not bear the big wave of streaming media platform first, and took the initiative to come to the door to talk.

Miramax is one of several studios owned by Disney, which has produced films including "Psychedelic Train" and "No Country for Old Men."

The negotiations involved the rights to more than 700 films, and Disney sold it for $958 million.

"OK, Mr. Luo, do you think the price is unreasonable, how much do you think it is?" Pallock asked rhetorically.

"$500 million." Luo Sheng stretched out his hand and said calmly.

Hearing him report this number, Pallock suddenly yelled in his heart, but he still acted very gentlemanly, shook his head and said, "No, this price is too unreasonable, it is no different from a bargain sale. Mr. Luo, Miramac Sri Lanka has a lot of high-quality content, and Netflix is ​​also very interested in Miramax's movies and intends to get exclusive digital rights."

Hearing that, Luo Sheng chuckled in a low voice, and then looked at Pallock and said bluntly: "Don't be here, Netflix will bring it out to oppress me. Exclusives are not popular in the Internet industry. If Disney wants to make Miramax's movies The digital rights are sold exclusively to Netflix, and the big deal is the same when I go to Netflix for a secondary license. To be honest, our people are also negotiating with Netflix people, hoping to exchange video library resources with each other.”

Strictly speaking, there is a certain competitive relationship between BV video sites and Netflix, but the models of the two sides are still very different. They do not touch the core territory of each other, and naturally there is no conflict of life and death, at least for a long time. Not for a while, and not now.

Luo Sheng also doesn't want to enter the core territory of Netflix. The same is true for Netflix. Neither side has the core genes of the other side, but there is still a place for cooperation.

Because content demand is very expensive, for Netflix, it is also true for BV video sites.

Take a look at Disney's food, and the price is almost 1 billion US dollars.

The entertainment industry is hugely profitable, and that's right. Once the movie giants accumulate their film libraries, the profits will soar upwards, and various licensing fees will be soft.

No matter how much the digital rights of Miramax's more than 700 movies are priced down, it will cost four to five billion dollars even if the price is cut in half. Homemade web dramas or movies can easily cost hundreds of millions of dollars, even tens of millions of dollars is not a small thing. The number is enough, it would be good if it can be recovered, but if it loses, it will be lost to the rhythm of grandma's house.

This is just content expenditure, but in fact, the combined operating costs such as bandwidth expenses and human resources are an extremely terrifying consumption.

Online video business, without strong financial resources, really cannot afford to burn.

Whether it is Netflix or BV video network, this kind of large-scale burning of money is very painful, not to mention other petty bourgeoisie.

The two sides talked for a long time, and after constant bargaining, they finally reached a consensus on the price of 660 million US dollars.

On the afternoon of the third day, Luo Sheng and Disney's representative head Palock officially signed the film rental service cooperation agreement. The contract value is 660 million US dollars. The content is Miramax's "No Country for Old Men", "Psychedelic Train" ” and other 729 films with a 15-year rental contract.

All are old movies. If it is a movie that has just been released, especially a movie with a big box office, the rental amount of a movie may be as high as tens of millions or even tens of millions.

After winning the digital rights of these hundreds of movies, BV video sites can watch these complete movie content normally. Consumers can rent movies for $2.99~$3.99, and the general rental period is 24 hours or 48 hours.

However, Luo Sheng did not expect to recoup the $660 million licensing cost by renting these movies to consumers, because it is impossible!

These are all old movies. Even if the inflation rate is not included in 30 years, it is impossible to recover the huge licensing cost of 660 million US dollars. The reason why this money is still spent is for one purpose - to fill the inventory!

And the purpose of filling inventory is only one - user experience.

Whether users read or not, and whether to consume or not, is not the point.

The point is that when a user searches for a movie title on BV video, and he just wants to watch it, the website must be able to provide the service.

This is very crucial. A good user experience and rich content are the foundation. As long as the user stays on the BV video network, he will always bring value to the website from other places. The longer the time, the higher the commercial value.

It is not enough to win the digital rights of more than 700 movies, and it is not enough to double it tenfold, it must be more.

Don't think about it, it is impossible to build a huge content ecological foundation without billions of dollars of money invested in paying for the content. Luo Sheng will not be stingy with money.

After the contract was signed, the fact was announced on the same day.

In the following week, the style of painting completely changed, and other studios couldn't sit still when they saw Disney happily taking $660 million from Bluestar Technology Group.

A second company, Lionsgate, the most successful independent film production company in the world right now, came to the door to talk about digital rights rental contracts for movies.

In the end, Bluestar Technology Group signed a digital copyright lease agreement with Lionsgate for 428 films for a price of 257 million US dollars, also for a period of 15 years.

The news broke, and other film companies finally couldn't sit still, including the other five major Hollywood film giants.

This Nima, hurry up and make money!

Paramount Pictures, a subsidiary of Viacom, also came uninvited.

There is no way, the lawsuit was not won, and the combat effectiveness of the legal affairs team is not weaker than that of Disney at all.

...

On the morning of March 28, at the press conference at the headquarters of Bluestar Technology Group, under the lens of many media, the reporters present photographed the moment when Luo Sheng shook hands with the vice president of Paramount.

After the handshake was over, they took a group photo again.

Today, Bluestar Technology Group and Paramount officially signed a $700 million cooperation agreement, which will provide online rental services for nearly 500 Paramount films including "Hugo" and "The Godfather".

That's more than 200 fewer movies than the Disney-owned Miramax contract, but the contract cost has increased by $40 million.

The result is, of course, the quality and influence of the movie content. Obviously, these 500 movies under Paramount Pictures are more valuable.

The media reporters who came to the scene were very curious as to why the two companies had been fighting in court for a year or two, why they could put aside their differences and make this licensing agreement, and the terms and conditions of the agreement were not further disclosed, so the media could only guess. .

However, what is there to guess? Paramount Pictures saw that a peer company took hundreds of millions of dollars in banknotes from Luo Sheng.

I'm blushing!

Everyone is making money. If you don’t hurry up and grab a handful, Bluestar Technology won’t buy it at that time, and you won’t be able to find a place to cry.

The face is not as good as the ticket.

What's more, the ultimate purpose of the previous lawsuit was not for the ticket?

At the media conference at the moment, Luo Sheng picked up the microphone again and smiled at the media at the scene: "We have been discussing various matters with the film company, and Paramount is still a valuable partner of BV Video Network. After we decide to launch the movie rental business, we will continue to increase the number of digital movies for the BV video network."

"Film rental agreements have now been signed with five of the six major studios, and more than a dozen independent studios, including Lionsgate, giving them access to a total of nearly 13,580 titles, which are now successful Thousands of movies are available for consumers to rent on BV Video. Other than that, we don’t comment on rumors and speculation.”

The non-parties at the scene were also filled with emotion when they saw Luo Sheng chatting and laughing with the vice president of Paramount.

The court battle between the two sides last year was so intense that it gave outsiders the impression that water and fire were incompatible.

There is no permanent enemy or permanent friend in the shopping mall, but only permanent interests.

...

(Ps: The face is not as good as the ticket, I roll all over the place to ask for the ticket~~)