Online Retailers Join Web Sites In Fox Embargo
An influential group of UK based online retailers and journalists have joined forces in an attempt to expose the greed of a major film studio over the pricing of it's DVD Video titles. The group of e-commerce sites and web-based magazines are calling for a media and sales boycott of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment products, starting with the newly released ""Titanic."" As Paul Brennan, Managing Director of DVD Net comments: 'Someone needs to make a stand now on behalf of the UK's Consumers. You can buy the majority of extra-laden DVD titles in the UK for £20 or less, but Titanic, priced at up to £30, has no extras and not even an anamorphic transfer. It's outrageous.' Other online retailers DVD Warehouse, Region2.co.uk, Marcam Titles and Titan DVD have also pledged their support to the group, and all of these retailers have taken the unprecedented step of removing ""Titanic"" from their inventory in protest at the distributors pricing policy. In a show of support for this brave move, the UK's DVD Web sites have formed an alliance to back up their retail counterparts. A total online media blackout of Fox products will continue until these issues are addressed publicly by Fox, with the announcement of an RRP of £19.99 or less for all their releases (including those already out), together with the respective dealer pricing (around £13.61). Mark Hughes, Editor of the DVD News UK Web site, states 'The prices being charged for the DVDs released by Fox are clearly not good value for money, and risk putting people off buying into DVD altogether. Over £20 for any single-disc DVD release is sheer profiteering and we are not happy to continue to support Fox while they try rip off the very people we run our sites for'. This issue is closely related to how much consumers pay for certain goods, with the UK and European Parliaments becoming increasingly concerned at the 'rip-off' culture of large corporations, who use their size and dominant market position to exploit consumers. The DVD releases of Fox embody this perfectly, by being significantly more expensive than those of all the other distributors in the UK, let alone elsewhere in the world. Source: DVD Net