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Topic: Meet the Lone Loser in MoviePass Hitting 1 Million Members
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Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
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posted 03-04-2018 03:29 AM
http://www.slashfilm.com/moviepass-lawsuit/ quote:
In-demand movie theater subscription service MoviePass isn’t about to let someone muscle-in on their turf. The similar service Sinemia thought they could get in on that sweet, sweet subscription action, but MoviePass is taking them to court for patent infringement. Who will win this battle of the subscription services? Place your bets.
When I was growing up, there was a reoccurring commercial about non-brand cereal that always caught my attention. Perhaps you remember it – it featured a well-dressed man duck-walking down a cereal isle at the supermarket, saying, “When you’re shopping for cereal, I suggest you walk this way.”
I bring this odd commercial up because it’s a reminder that while MoviePass may be the go-to “brand name” for movie subscription services, they’re are some “bottom-shelf” options available too. Case in point: Sinemia (which I’ve never heard of before), representing the bottom-shelf cereal in this analogy.
Like MoviePass, Sinemia offers ticket subscription plans to make your movie-going experience more affordable and frequent. “Sinemia is a private movie club that provides discounted movie ticket subscription plans,” explains their ad copy. “Through a combination of easy to use technology and pre-paid debit cards, Sinemia has created an innovative solution for the movie-going experience.”
Apparently, some of that “easy to use technology” has caught the eye of MoviePass, who claim that Sinemia has some explaining to do. Per Variety, MoviePass has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Sinemia, alleging Sinemia stole some of MoviePass’s key features. MoviePass says Sinemia copied features of its mobile app that are the subject of two patents. MoviePass specifically takes issue with how Sinemia is using a subscription card for tickets along with phone location data to check in at theaters. As MoviePass puts it:
Sinemia’s infringement has harmed MoviePass’ existing customer relationships, has harmed MoviePass’ ability to obtain new customers and form new customer relationships, and has harmed MoviePass’ standing in the movie-subscription marketplace.
We’ll have to wait and see what the outcome of this clash of the movie subscription services will be. While MoviePass is no doubt the more well-known of the two, Sinemia has some appealing options as well. Per their website, “Sinemia is available in every major theater throughout your country. You can see the list of theaters here. Sinemia operates independent of theaters, which means you can get your ticket by using the Sinemia card without any explanations.” However, MoviePass seems to have the sweater deal. With MoviePass, you have access to unlimited movies for a monthly fee. Sinemia only gives you access to two movies per month for $9.99.
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Frank Cox
Film God
Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011
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posted 03-06-2018 01:35 AM
MoviePass CEO proudly says the app tracks your location before and after movies
quote:
Everyone knew the MoviePass deal is too good to be true — and as is so often the case these days, it turns out you’re not the customer, you’re the product. And in this case they’re not even attempting to camouflage that. Mitch Lowe, the company’s CEO, told an audience at a Hollywood event that “we know all about you.”
Lowe was giving the keynote at the Entertainment Finance Forum; his talk was entitled “Data is the New Oil: How will MoviePass Monetize It?” Media Play News first reported his remarks.
“We get an enormous amount of information,” Lowe continued. “We watch how you drive from home to the movies. We watch where you go afterwards.”
It’s no secret that MoviePass is planning on making hay out of the data collected through its service. But what I imagined, and what I think most people imagined, was that it would be interesting next-generation data about ticket sales, movie browsing, A/B testing on promotions in the app and so on.
I didn’t imagine that the app would be tracking your location before you even left your home, and then follow you while you drive back or head out for a drink afterwards. Did you?
It sure isn’t in the company’s privacy policy, which in relation to location tracking discloses only a “single request” when selecting a theater, which will “only be used as a means to develop, improve, and personalize the service.” Which part of development requires them to track you before and after you see the movie?
Naturally I contacted MoviePass for comment and will update if I hear back. But it’s pretty hard to misinterpret Lowe’s words.
The startup’s plan is to “build a night at the movies,” perhaps complete with setting up parking or ordering you a car, giving you a deal on dinner before or after, connecting you with like-minded moviegoers, etc. Of course they need data to do that, but one would hope that the collection would be a bit more nuanced than this.
People clearly value the service, because it essentially lets them use someone else’s credit card instead of their own at the movies (and one belonging to a bunch of venture capitalists at that). Who would say no? Some people sure might, if they knew their activities were being tracked at this granularity (and, it has to be said, with such a cavalier attitude) to be packaged up and sold. (Good luck with the GDPR, by the way.)
Hopefully MoviePass can explain exactly what data it collects and what it does with it, so everyone can make an informed choice.
Update: In a statement, a MoviePass representative says:
We are exploring utilizing location-based marketing as a way to help enhance the overall experience by creating more opportunities for our subscribers to enjoy all the various elements of a good movie night. We will not be selling the data that we gather. Rather, we will use it to better inform how to market potential customer benefits including discounts on transportation, coupons for nearby restaurants, and other similar opportunities.
I’ve also asked for information on what location data specifically is collected, for how long before and after a movie users are tracked, and where these policies are disclosed to users.
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Jim Cassedy
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1661
From: San Francisco, CA
Registered: Dec 2006
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posted 03-06-2018 08:35 PM
I was listening to a radio station down in Los Angeles this morning they actually
had an audio clip of the MoviePass president making the comments about how
they track everything; followed by a bit of an on-air discussion afterwards.
Look- - one thing I often wake up screaming is:
"THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A 'FREE' APP!
("If I were King", I'd make it the first phrase toddlers would learn to speak.
I'd make a law to have it painted on the ceiling of every kids' bedroom so
it's the first thing they see when they wake up and the last thing they see
before going to sleep. Maybe it should even be in glow-in-the-dark paint.)
I repeat: "THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A 'FREE' APP! ! !
Have you ever looked up how much time, effort & money it costs to code,
test, and distribute a successful app? Only a fool or a philanthropist would
give it away for free.
Every app comes with some baggage and you're giving up something for
the "free" privilege.
So I don't see why people should be surprised, or even doubt that if you put
the MoviePass app on your phone that they are tracking everything you do.
That's one of the reasons I'm careful about granting app permissions on my
phone. If I have the option to pay for an app, I'll just buy the damn thing.
(Not that the those aren't being tracked too. But I feel better about it)
I'll also never put an Alexa or similar device in my house.
I'm not so busy, lame or lazy that I can't sit down at a keyboard.
Well known Kim Kommando who hosts a popular weekly nation-wide
computer related radio talk show, recently told a story on air about how
she discovered Alexa had recorded sensitive conversations she had with
her husband when they were discussing selling some property.
On a TV talk show I recently heard another celeberity talk about how
he found out Alexa had recorded contract negotiations he was having
with his agent in his kitchen at home.
And at a party over the weekend, one of the guests was telling about how
his roommate was telling him all about a recent trip she'd just taken to
Bora-Bora or Pago-Pago or some such remote place that usually doesn't
come up during normal conversation.
While his roommate was still discussing her trip, the party guest started
getting travel offers on his phone to whatever-whatever place they discussing.
Ok- so I'm getting too far off-topic, but I think you get my point.
And now,something just popped up on MY phone.
(It's probably an ad for glow-in-the-dark ceiling paint) ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 03-07-2018 05:53 AM
quote: Mike Blakesley
How do these people find out about these recordings? I have yet to see a button on the app that says "Tell me what you recorded today."
Well, those things tend to leak stuff they could only have known when e.g. listening to such a conversation.
Recently, we tried to recover an old Gmail account of one of my colleagues.
We were both pretty horrified when the security question Google asked turned out something it had scanned in one of the mails in the inbox. So, Google was actually leaking out private information to some unknown, potentially third party.
quote:
THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A 'FREE' APP!
An app is nothing than a shorthand for "application". Like Frank pointed out, there are plenty of totally free Open Source applications available, some of them even in mobile app form.
It's a pretty simple minded way of thinking if you assume that everybody does everything just for the money. I know it's becoming the default doctrine in the western world and one of our primary export products, but plenty of people just want to share what they've made.
Now, looking at the kind of feedback the Movie Pass app is getting, it doesn't look like they put in a whole lot of efforts.
quote: TechCrunch article posted by Frank
“We get an enormous amount of information,” Lowe continued. “We watch how you drive from home to the movies. We watch where you go afterwards.”
In order to do this, the app needs to be running in the background before I head to the movie theater and also afterwards. Even then, constantly sending back location information, without explicitly mentioning it, is a breach of their service contract with Google and/or Apple.
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Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 03-23-2018 03:37 PM
So now they're lowering the price AGAIN, I don't get it - if their membership is "exploding," why do they have to keep lowering the price?
Something doesn't smell right about this.
MOVIEPASS CUTS PRICE TO $6.95 FOR A LIMITED TIME
MoviePass is cutting its prices again in an attempt to attract customers to its subscription service. The controversial company, which aspires to be the Netflix of moviegoing, is offering a package deal of $6.95 a month.
It initially cost just under $10 for users to see a movie-a-day for a month; both offerings are less than the cost of a single movie ticket in markets such as Los Angeles and New York City. The average ticket price across the country in 2017 was $8.97.
MoviePass said the lower pricing is only available for new subscribers. The company has attracted more than 2 million customers since slashing its prices last summer from roughly $50 a month. But it’s made enemies in the process. Theater chains such as AMC have derided MoviePass’ business model as unsustainable. The service pays full price for each ticket its customers buy, subsidizing their multiplex visits. Though MoviePass hasn’t released its financial information, industry observers suspect it is operating at a significant loss.
However, the service says it is collecting invaluable data on its customers. It believes it can sell that to theater chains or studios, enabling it to eventually turn a profit. Right now, like Netflix and Amazon before it, MoviePass is more focused on building market share than it is in turning a profit.
In an announcement, MoviePass said it was “diversifying its revenue streams” through marketing agreements with studios and film companies, and partnerships with theater chains. It did not provide specific information about those associations. MoviePass has also started acquiring pics. It partnered with The Orchard to buy the heist drama “American Animals” out of the Sundance Film Festival.
“Our vision has always been to make the moviegoing experience easy and affordable for anyone, anywhere,” said MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe in a statement. “With the current growth and support that we’ve seen within the last several months, our studio and exhibitor revenues, and other marketing partnerships have motivated us to lower the price once again, offering movie lovers greater access to MoviePass.”
Last summer, MoviePass sold a majority stake to Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc., a publicly traded data firm. At the time, the company said it had roughly 20,000 subscribers. MoviePass’ new plan also carries a processing fee of $6.55, which does make it more expensive than the sticker price.
Variety article
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