“Worried about its massive DVD sales, retail behemoth Wal-Mart has told some of Hollywood’s biggest players it will retaliate against them for selling movies on Apple’s iTunes,” Tim Arango reports for The NY Post.
“Last year when Disney announced it would begin offering episodes of the hit shows ‘Lost’ and ‘Desperate Housewives’ on Apple’s iTunes, the reaction of the world’s largest retailer sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry,” Arango reports.
“Wal-Mart, worried that offering the shows for viewing on iPods would cut into DVD sales at its stores, sent ‘cases and cases’ of DVDs back to Disney, according to a source familiar with the matter,” Arango reports. “Now, following Apple’s entrance in to the business of selling full-length films for download, the battle between Hollywood and its largest client is getting uglier, as studio executives say Wal-Mart has overtly threatened to retaliate if they go into business with Apple.”
“The last thing studios want to do before the holiday shopping season is to offend their biggest sales outlet; the studios, collectively, rely on Wal-Mart for some $5 billion of DVD sales in the fourth quarter,” Arango reports.
“But several weeks ago, in the midst of rumors that Apple was close to announcing a deal with Disney, Wal-Mart’s David Porter – the executive responsible for stocking the retailer’s shelves with DVDs and CDs and whose influence is so immense in Tinseltown that he’s been named to Premiere magazine’s annual power list – made the rounds of Hollywood studios,” Arango reports. “His message, according to a studio exec involved in the discussions: that there would be ‘serious ramifications’ if the studios hopped in bed with Apple.”
“‘They threatened to hurt us in terms of buying less products,’ said this person. The situation between Bentonville and Hollywood has gotten so heated and so high-level that Jobs recently phoned Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott to ask him to moderate his stance, according to a source,” Arango reports.
Full article here.
Even a low-class anticompetitive cancer like Wal-Mart won’t be able to hold back the future. Wal-Mart logic: we can undercut every business in every town in the world, but you can’t do it to us. If you agree with that logic, by all means shop at Wal-Mart.
WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price: http://www.walmartmovie.com/
Related articles:
Wal-Mart: we’re not fighting iTunes Store movie downloads – September 23, 2006
Wal-Mart not happy with looming threat of Apple iTunes movie downloads – August 31, 2006
Wal-Mart loses ‘philosophical argument’ with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, gains top-selling iPod – November 29, 2005
Nice take, MDN
Oh, poor baby, did little Wally-mart feel an oww-eee. What a frigg’n crock. Hey WM, just stock up some more picture frames, bed pillows and a few more cases of motor oil, y’all ought’a be able to find something to sell if Apple takes the wind out of your DVD sales, you freak’n loser! I’ll never shop at Walmart again.
This depends on the % of a studio’s total DVD sales that are via Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has successfully been able to force suppliers of other goods to change because they represent such a huge % of that supplier’s total sales. I believe MDN is correct regarding the long term, but this could be a factor that slows growth of iTS (iTunes Store) movie sales. That’s a bad thing, but the influence of Wal-Mart is some monopoloy-era shit. Don’t underestimate it.
Not only that, but Wall-Mart is preparing their own online movie downing business. So this posturing is only to better leverage themselves into the downloading market, while keeping Apple out. Monopolistic capitalism at work.
Walmart is evil in every way. They ruin businesses and land. I love when they bulldoze trees and nice land to put a super Walmart right down the street from a couple year old one, you really gotta love that. The way they make our economy so nice.
What is the leverage that Wal-Mart has over the studios? If Wal-Mart stops carrying DVDs, then I’ll go to Target or Best Buy, or K-Mart or….
WalMart is a pestilence on society. In any case, I doubt the “Walmart crowd” is sophisticated enought to be downloading movies anyway…so they probably wouldn’t lose much business anyway. What pricks.
I posted this on another venue:
I’m taking all bets against Wal-Mart. Hollywood, for all their deficiencies, does know on which side their bread is buttered, and they aren’t going to let the distribution model of the 20th Century hold back the distribution model of the 21st.
Wal-Mart’s threats are empty. They are struggling to show quarterly increasses in same store sales. Over the past 30 months (2 1/2 years) Wal-Mart’s stock has declined 20% in value, dropping from $60 to $48 today. They will not throw away $5 Billion in quarterly revenue to spite Hollywood.
Disney’s iTunes revenue will inure Hollywood from these hollow threats.
Wal-Mart can go screw themselves. They only sell censored music and movies anyway. So much for the customer being the boss, eh? It will be a great day when these sorts of repressed, faux-moraliastic losers no longer control what we see, hear, and purchase — and again, Apple leads the way…
v-word: normal
Now quote a source who actually asked for a comment from Walmart and Disney:
link
Isn’t this illegal? I don’t understand how they’re doing this and no one is filing charges. This is the same crap that got M$ into trouble isn’t it?
This almost smacks of anti-trust violations. Maybe the Feds should get involved.
New Link:
<a href=”http://yahoo.reuters.com/news/articlehybrid.aspx?storyID=urn:newsml:reuters.com:20060922:MTFH49922_2006-09-22_23-34-23_N22181208&type=comktNews&rpc=44″ target=”_blank”>here</a
Bravo to MacDailyNews for linking to the OUTSTANDING DOCUMENTARY “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price”.
This movie shows the FACTS on how Wal-Mart is one of the most evil corporations in the history of the world — doing irreversible damage to human beings, neighborhood communities, our environment, and other businesses. Wal-Mart is a truly evil corporation.
If you haven’t yet seen the movie, please rent it immediately:
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
http://www.walmartmovie.com
Wal-Mart is right up there with Monsanto and the oil companies as one of the most evil companies of all time.
These are the actions of a company that is SHIT SCARED of the future.
Lets face it – in 10 years time no one will be buying dvds/cds from stores, all music, movies and games will be downloaded.
The X-box is a case in point, computer games makers will be putting their games on a server and u will download them to the x-box.
Even Walmart cannot stop progress, and looking at the amount of sales Disney has had in only 1 week means that walmarts days are numbered.
Walmart do not have the expertise or ability to compete with Apple or any other movie download service and they know it too.
Welcome to the future of retail Walmart!!
Wal-Mart disputed the Post report and said it was not pressuring movie studios into shunning online delivery.
“Customers want to watch movies and they want to be able to make the choice when and how they want to view them,” a Wal-Mart spokeswoman said.
“While we recognize there are various current and potential providers of this service, we are not dissuading studios from conducting business with other providers.”
A Disney spokeswoman said she was not familiar with the claims in the Post report. An Apple spokesman could not be reached for comment.
The source, who declined to be identified, said the discount retailer learned over the intervening months that customers who download — primarily young, single males — are not the same as those customers who buy DVDs.
Easy, there…
Saying that ‘Wal-Mart is evil’ might be overstating just a tad… Wal-Mart is doing the same thing that businesses do every day – leveraging their market power to maintain their customers. Your drug store, grocery store, auto parts business – hell, even your dry cleaner is probably doing the same thing. The fact that Wal-Mart is enormously successful simply brings everything they do into sharp relief.
Apple, by starting to sell movies, is diving into a very large pool with very big sharks. It would be silly for Apple to come into this business like some little p**sy at a pick-up game crying foul whenever he gets checked, and I’m sure that Jobs & Co. were well aware that this move would ruffle some enormous feathers.
Instead of bad news, this merely shows the overwhelming confidence that Steve has in business model. So just stop crying like little bitches, sit back and enjoy the fight. It’s gonna be good…
(Sorry for all the mixed metaphors)
If this is true – and it certainly seems to be all over the Internet, not that that’s any guarantee of veracity – Apple should threaten retaliation by “reducing” the amount of iPod stock that they can allocate to Wal-Mart globally and instead focus on distributing to independent Electronics/Computer stores.
Wal-Mart may be able to boss Hollywood around, but Apple has a hot product and they should use it as a economic/political tool to get the market landscape that they want.
Wal-Mart bulldozes new land to create new Wal-Marts a few miles away from existing Wal-Marts, so they can get out of paying taxes on the previous Wal-Mart which was subsidized by the community. They are more evil than you can even begin to imagine. Watch the movie: http://www.walmartmovie.com
Fantastic Realist you are apparently not – the money that Wal-Mart makes on DVD sales dwarfs the money they make on iPod accessories. Not much of a threat…
Hey grok, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Why don’t you watch the movie “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price” and you can see with your own two eyes how Wal-Mart is evil in EVERY sense of the word. There is absolutely NOTHING good about that company AT ALL.
Wall Mart can burn in hell for eternity before I buy one more single item from them.
Scumbags.
Walmart is basically trying to coerce the studios to violate the Sherman Act. Agreements to boycott a competitor are illegal, and it won’t happen. I really don’t think Walmart wants to go down that road with all the well-deserved bad PR they’ve got already.
The Sherman Antitrust Act, formally known as the Act of July 2, 1890, ch. 647, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, codified at 15 U.S.C. § 1 through 15 U.S.C. § 7, was the first United States federal government action to limit monopolies.
The Sherman Act provides: “Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal” (see 15 U.S.C. § 1). The Act also provides: “Every person who shall monopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or combine or conspire with any other person or persons, to monopolize any part of the trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, shall be deemed guilty of a felony [. . . ]” (see 15 U.S.C. § 2). The Act put responsibility upon government attorneys and district courts to pursue and investigate trusts, companies and organizations suspected of violating the Act.
Under the law, corporations can qualify as persons under the law. Wal-Mart is attempting to use it’s market power to keep a particular competitor, Apple Computer, from selling video content. Note that they are not opposing Amazon, which currently offers more titles from more studios.
Apple has a case & Disney has a case. Wal-Mart has stepped on their corporate crank.
Now the big question:
Does Alberto Gonzales have the cojones to do his job and enforce the law or will Apple & Amazon have to do it for themselves?
Hey MacBill, I saw the preview – I get the recipe… Mix some shots of Superstores, add a dash of disgruntled ex-employees, throw in some sinister music, a dollop of unsubstantiated and unlitigated claims, steep in the tears of a couple of Mom n’ Pop businesses that can’t survive without raping their neighbors on prices, and you’ve got one hell of a good fish stew.
Simply put, If Wal-Mart is such an evil corporation, running rampant over the law, then why aren’t they in trouble? If people hate them so much, why does everyone shop there? Work there? This Wal-Mart hysteria has gone the black helicopter route.
Wal-Mart could also have opened itself up to a CLASS ACTION lawsuit by having harmed millions of customers, namely iPod and iTunes users, by denying them access to online Movie content through illegal coercion.
Ambulance Chasers, start your engines…
walmart is the devil. walmart and the republican party support nationanalized healthcare. the biggest sponsor of insurance for underpaid walmart employees if the US taxpayer. The biggest supporter of the Chinese economic and industrial expansion is walmart. vote your Commie loving Republican Rep out of office!!!!
viva chavez!! im off to S. america! cant talk crap about the govt but i cant do that here either so what is the difference? oh they help the poor there i forgot … lol
As the Neimoidian viceroys would say, “Isn’t that irregal?”
Yeah, but …
http://www.walmart.ca/
IPods, iPods, iPods … and not much else … all over the Canadian Walmart homepage.
“walmart is the devil…”
and the nuts have officially fallen off the tree and climbed up onto the soapbox… time to go – gotta run pick up a few things at Wal-Mart…
So how do we start an “Apple customers boycott Wal-Mart” movement?
An online petition?
Send mass E-mails to this brain-dead Wal-Mart exec and the company CEO?
Let’s show this company economic pressure.
It’s just business… Sheesh. Wallmart’s got a lobby in Hollywood – big deal!
Wallmart is allowed to put it’s money in purchases where it wants, get the best deals it can, and wield as much influence over price/supply as it legally can – it’s not a government owned agency!
Yikes…
I’m more than aware of that fact, however if there has to be a line in the sand, better that it be drawn now before Apple can be accused of abusing its position and cast in the role of the bully.
Wal-Mart can’t substantively discount the iPod, although it probably gets a healthy “retro” discount from Apple based on volume: However, during peak demand seasons (like the holiday period), Apple could sell iPods through any retail channel it chooses and really doesn’t need Wal-Mart for anything. Even during off-peak demand, Apple’s growing retail presence plus the independent channel together wit less predatory multiples can deliver the same market as Wal-Mart.
If – and I say this based on my earlier reservation as regards accuracy – Wal-Mart is anti-iTS, then let it reap the whirlwind of having no iPod supplies. Then it can stock up on Zune and see how that works out for them.
grok
1) “Everyone” does not shop at Wal-Mart. Maybe “everyone” YOU know shops there. But that’s it. Wal-mart is a dump. You would think that a company making as much money as they do, would spend some of it refurbishing their redneck, trailer trash look.
2) “Everyone” does not work at Wal-mart. Maybe “everone” YOU know works there. But that’s it. I got my MA in Multimedia Design and Graphic Design because working at Wal-mart wasn’t going to support a family and mortgage.
fuck wal-mart
They’ll never get one red cent from me again. Period.
FR – sorry if I was a little snide – bad habit…
It seems to me that Steve would much rather heal this rift than make it p**sing contest. Wal-Mart sells about 40% of all new DVD releases – it’s retail sales are beyond huge – and that’s a lot of potential mac customers in the future. No one with any business acuity who sells a retail product would flippantly alienate the country’s largest retailer.
Rather, I think, Jobs will subject Wal-Mart execs to the vaunted RDF and make them reluctantly understand that physical disks will eventually be replaced, and that Apple will be there regardless. Wal-Mart knkows it can’t compete in the non-physical media space – it proved that with their download store.
Apple doesn’t want to alienate Wal-Mart. The reverse is also true, its just that Wal-Mart doesn’t know it yet. But they will…
Brooklyn – you got me – ‘everyone’ does not shop or work there.
Over on the financial page, however, Wal-Mart has a market cap of $210.32B.
I should have said that more people shop there than anywhere else in the country. Sorry for being inexact. Forgot my audience.
This is really going to bite Walmart in the ass.
Basically, the threat is an empty one. Sure, maybe Walmart will have the cojones not to stock their stores with DVDs, but are they seriously going to say, “We’re going to give up tens of millions of dollars in DVD sales and push you firm into the arms of Apple by no longer stocking your products?”
I think not.
This is all posturing. They can send boxes back to Disney short term, but long term, it’s a losing strategy. People can easily get their DVDs at Target, Best Buy, and Amazon. And Disney will feel more inclined to sell more movies via iTunes. Pretty soon, Walmart will either have to face up to the reality of making money by selling DVDs or not making money by not selling DVDs. I’m sure Steve Jobs is smart enough to make the studios aware of this fact.
This does prove one thing, however – movies on iTunes is already a smash hit.
Wal-Mart is an amazing company, who’s success has taken a huge backlash. I do understand how the management team has forced companies to their buying power will, but this is true in any industry market.
Take Dell. Every quarter the hammer on suppliers until many can no longer play. One must have extremely cheap labor and facilities in China or India in order to compete.
Apple is no different. In fact, Apple is among the best at leaning on its suppliers to achieve amazingly low prices. The one with the lowest price, with the quality meeting spec. wins.
But do I complain about this? No. I just state it is what it is, and fight to win, to achieve more, better, smarter.
If consumers want lower prices at Walmart so be it. But if they want fruitstand guy and higher prices, so be it. The market will decide.
As for me, Walmart helps me keep my hard earned money in my pockets. It helps me save money, or use it on my family, or my children in other ways.
Sadly, many folks against Walmart are the very people who need their low prices to survive. Many of the Walmart working class and those that shop there unfortunately, are not well educated – this is a socio-economic fact. Instead of these people blaming Walmart for their ills, they should absolutely be drilling their kids about the value of an education, and the opression of life without one. It is these adults who should be drilling their kids to do their schoolwork, get good grades, to strive to achieve better than they have or were able at the time. Working at Walmart-like positions or pumping gas should show these people’s kids what to do in order to not end up in that situation.
It is a world of education, and those who do not have it will find it difficult to survive. I see far too much blame on political figures, government, lack of funding for programs, the need for more welfare, and the list goes on. Get an education and this blame disolves, and opportunity abounds.
What’s it matter, Wal-Mart joined the communist party anyhow:
h**p://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/5281218.stm
What would ole Walt do if he was alive today?
All you tin foil hat wearers can drop your pitchforks and put out your torches. While WalMart is not my favorite store, this doesn’t mean that an unverified, anonymously sourced story floating over the internet as a rumor, is true.
FSCK Walmart.
Boycotting since 2000. Never again.
Well Walmart I hate to break the news to you but there are plenty of outlets that will sell the DVD’s if you won’t. Your anticompetative attitude needs some adjusting so I think the big studio’s should sell through iTunes and watch there sales triple what Walmart did. Online sales is the way of the future anyways. And Christmas is a great time to start.
“FSCK Walmart.
Boycotting since 2000. Never again.”
That would explain why business at Walmart has been going downhill the last six years.
LMFAO!!! You libs kill me. Enjoy that limited iTunes movie selection. It’s not expanding past anything that isn’t owned by Mickey Mouse.
As I stated above, this is pretty much an empty threat. Walmart can throttle back on DVD purchases for a short time only – after that, they start losing major business to Target, Best Buy, Amazon, and yes, iTunes. And as the studios become less dependent on Walmart’s sales, the less influence Walmart will have to stop the studios from jumping in bed with Apple.
Sorry, but Walmart can’t win here, even if they can exert pressure for the short term. Capitalism is a two-way street.
I haven’t purchased anything in WalMart in years. I do however frequently stop at one of their stores to use their bathroom before/after I go mtn biking.
“Wal-Mart’s David Porter – the executive responsible for stocking the retailer’s shelves with DVDs and CDs and whose influence is so immense in Tinseltown that he’s been named to Premiere magazine’s annual power list – made the rounds of Hollywood studios.”
I’m sure Mr. “Power Broker” Porter would be happy to explain to investors why Walmart’s sales were off by tens of millions of dollars because he refused to keep DVDs in stock for the holiday season, forcing consumers to flee to Walmart’s competitors like Target and Best Buy.
I agree with “Newtype”
Walmart can hold back the tide for only so long, apple isnt the only outfit that wants to sell movies online, how many online retailers do you think they can hold back?
Plus walmart loses money too, not just the studios, and the studios knwo that, cause if you cant get it from walmart i guess you will go to target? or maybe online.
Far be for me to defend WalMart, but at no time have I ever seen a shortage of Disney DVDs at any of the half-dozen that are equally accessible to me.
Except on Tuesdays, when the significantly discounted price of them (along with most other new releases) usually causes demand to outstrip store supply.
At any rate, count me among the dubious that WallyWorld “sent ‘cases and cases’ of DVDs back to Disney.”
As for WM’s Hollywood rep attepting to intimidate the studios, I have to laugh. The phase “Cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face” comes to mind.
Besides, Hollywood has it’s own “intimidator” at their beck and call that makes WalMart’s look like the little piker that he is.
The U.S. government.
Hey MacBones-
sorry to disappoint you, but it’s no coincidence that WalMart’s world headquarters is in Arkansas and so is William Jefferson Clinton, a/k/a; Slick Willy. It was ole Bill who gave our chinese buddies MFN (that’s Most Favored Nation Status for you at home)privledges to begin importing almost slave labor produced goods. Yep, in about 10 more years, when the only thing the US can produce on its odwn is either Coke or Pepsi, the chinese are going to cut us off cold turkey. then in a matter of weeks President Clinton (Hillary that is) will be forced to launch an ICBM towards Beijing to show them US policy on the god given right to lower prices. Yep, we are totally screwed, we just don’t know it yet. Of course if Bill Clinton had even an ounce of foresight, he would have known that taking down Osama bin Laden should have been high priority after the first time the WTC was bombed. or maybe after the embassy was bombed, or maybe after the barracks in lebanon, or , or, or…
oh nevermind, you probably reside in the conspiracy theorist camp and believe that 9/11 was an inside job so that “W’ can avenge his daddy’s misdeeds in the middle east.
I’d love to see Disney tell Wal-Mart to f*ck off and pull all their product from Wal-Mart shelves — not just movies but all the related merchandise. Make sure Target & K-Mart had plenty in stock. All the kids are going to want “Cars” sheets, lunchpails and such this season. Other retailers, including Amazon and local merchants, would love seeing empty shelves at Wal-Mart!
Wal-Mart can push around many people but Steve Jobs is not one I’d mess with — brilliant strategist, largest shareholder of Disney, 49th richest man, and a visionary into the future. While he cannot take careless risks as CEO of Apple he can certainly lead folks in another direction. He charm is greater than all the Wal-Mart executives in Bentonville.
I suppose if every Walmart worker was unionized and made $20 an hour every one of you liberals would shop there again.
No you wouldn’t. The prices would be too high. Walmart is all about low prices. Why is this wrong?
American labor has priced themselves out of their jobs. The Mexicans, Chinese, East Indians and others are now making the cheap goods for the underemployed Americans. Ironic, isn’t it?
Look at GM & Ford. They make an inferior product at a higher cost than Honda, Toyota and Nissan even though the Japanese companies use American labor. Cheaper, non unionized American labor.
Could it just be that organized labor is obsolete?
Sure looks like it.
Wal-Mart is the grossest place in the world.
Looking at all the wacked out comments here, it’s no wonder that so many mainstream pc users think mac users are mental.
If you don’t like Wallmart, don’t go there – go to another store. Millions of people like Wallmart for it’s prices and convenience, just like PC’s. They’re not ‘stupid’ because they go there or buy a pc – so many snobs…
You idiots, walmart is capitalism in process right in front of your faces.
As for the Chinese, they are doomed, they have a bloated population that is so dependent on Americans with higher end Educated jobs to be their buyers.
China does not have another customer like the US of A
Further more, China is having some economic problems of its own, becoming a victim itself to globalization. They have poor management and even poorer quality control and they have serious national debit issues in regards to business borrowing practices. And they have major major shortages in qualified workers.
Good luck to them, people think China has it all worked out? Like they are secretly holding their breath to destroy us? Who’s the conspiracy theorist now?
One of Walmart’s favorite tactics is to contract with a small supplier causing them to expand production, usually borrowing the capital to do so. When that contract expires Walmart tells the supplier that they expect a bottom of the barrel price in the next contract or they’ll go elsewhere. The small supplier now has no choice but to reduce profits just to stay in business. The alternative is to lose Walmart as a customer and go bankrupt trying to pay for their new production facilites, for wich they now have no customer. I haven’t bought anything at Walmart in years and won’t ever again.
Prediction: Walmart will begin closing US stores in 2007.
Shop anywhere else and it will happen.
Why would ANYONE believe a word from the Post? They’re barely a half step above a supermarket tabloid.
It’s a self devouring system Walmart has created.
Move into an area, kill all the businesses by undercutting. People loose jobs. People go to work for Walmart because they need work and it’s all that is left. Walmart pays crap. All you can afford to buy is stuff from….Walmart and so on.
Granted that is an oversimplification and not the same with every location but the gist of it is correct.
And it’s amazing, even here in NYC area, you go into one of these dumps and you suddenly feel like your in some redneck (no offense) backwater as soon as you pass the electric doors. I been in a number of them down south and they look and feel the same up here right down to the clientel and help.
It’s capatilism at it’s worst. Maybe the executives over there actually think they are doing good. And I am sure they are doing fine but I would love to see them live on the wages they pay there workers for a few months and nothing else. That would be hysterical.
I agree with ” 3rdKidney”
Isn’t this illegal?!?!?
Everyone is so hostile to wal-Mart. I’m sorry, but you guys are a little off here. Wal-Mart is well within it’s rights to decide what it will and won’t sell. It’s up to the companies to make a decision on which way to go.
At the end of the day, however, it will be the consumer that drives the decision. If Disney is making a ton, others will follow, especially if it saves them money. If Wal-Mart sells a DVD for 14.95, the DVD has to be packaged, and shipped to Wal-Mart, which costs alot of money. If the studios can save money through iTunes, and iTunes sells the movies, the companies will go with the money.
I guarantee this is just one more anti-Wal-Mart, anti-capitalist, commie bullshit story that contains no truth.
Nothing would please me more than if Steve Ballmer danced on my testicles in the ladies underwear department at Walmart.
Well, one more thing, if I was eating a nice greasy McDonalds hamburger and sucking down a Coke at the same time.
I LOVE THIS COMPANY > Microsoft…err… Walmart. same difference. *farts*
Sprawl*Mart is only hurting themselves by pulling this. Yeah, they might generate $5B in DVD sales or whatever, but that doesn’t just disappear if they cut back DVDs. People will get their DVDs elsewhere. Fsck Wal*mart and their arrogance.
This is “free-compeition”… pathetic !
There are markets in this world where even Wal Mart is not able to undercut. In Germany they tried to establish a business and sold it after 6-to 7 years and probaly the same number of bilion dollar losses because competition was too fierce for them. I don´t miss them.
MDN is right: they won´t hold up the future.
Wal marde
Well I think Wal-Mart and Asda* can go to hell.
Why – because by boycotting sales of dvd’s once Hollywood offers movies via iTunes, the only winner will be Apple with iTunes.
Instead of Wal-Mart making the $5-billion or so of sales, that’ll go to iTunes! Right folks you’re more likely to buy a movie off iTunes over a dvd sold in Wal-Mart?
Go on Wal-Mart transfer your $5Bn over to iTunes by carrying out your threat!
Not to forget that Wal-Mart by announcing this has just condoned movie piracy as legitimate!
Okay the movie download service is more likely to be success outside of the US, fine by me as the music side of iTunes here in the UK has always been behind that of its US counterpart.
*Asda is a supermarket chain in the UK that is owned by Wal-Mart. Thank goodness I don’t shop there – I shop at Tesco’s, this chain is far bigger here than Asda is and also has plans to offer Apple consumer products instore once major rebuilds of stores has been completed.
Just a shame that maybe Walmart now feels likethey are not as big and tough as they thought. All good things come to an end WALLY.. Even the biggest companies change or go out of business. Hollywood has been around a lot longer than WALLY. I bet hollywood will be here soon after the WALLY fad is over and gone..
I personally think that WALLY needs to start selling more USA stuff and start providing a USA inventions, like the iPod.. WoW.. wouldn’t that be a neat idea..
To the author of the article, nice job. Liked the open and honest of the words.
No, really, Wal-Mart is EVIL.
Just shows that Apple is changing the order of things.
Have Wal-Mart said the same about any other movie download service?
I doubt.
“Simply put, If Wal-Mart is such an evil corporation, running rampant over the law, then why aren’t they in trouble?”
Three words: REPUBLICANS
Poor petit Bébé.
I’m so sad for Wall Mart. They might lose some business.
They had my businees maybe 3 times in my life they will never have a single penny from me.
I was a strange feeling to walk at in a Wall Mart, felt like in the original Dawn of the dead movie. I was surrounded by zombies.
Wall Mart = Microsoft. Very nasty and unfair way of doing business.
Let’s go shop elsewhere!
republicans?
So Wal-Mart wasn’t evil during the Clinton years?
fascinating how much those mystical republicans are responsible for…
When the iTMS opens up movies to the rest of the world next year the sales will be largely to countries where WalMart doesn’t have a majority marketing power.
Here in far west Asia (the UK) we have ASDA, but it is in no way dominant. Walmart is non-existent in Australia; I am unsure of Japan and Europe.
Once the OS sales start to match the US sales, dollar signs will appear on Hollywood executive’s eyes, and in Hollywood money talks.
Interesting that the threats started whem Apple got into the game, but Wal-Mart did nothing when Amazon started their service.
This speaks volumes about what business thinks of the potential of the Apple model vs. the Amazon model.
“f consumers want lower prices at Walmart so be it. But if they want fruitstand guy and higher prices, so be it. The market will decide.
As for me, Walmart helps me keep my hard earned money in my pockets. It helps me save money, or use it on my family, or my children in other ways.”
What you don’t understand is a half of Waldevil’s employees depend on taxpayer financed healthcare- medicaide- which costs the taxpayer billions. So while you save money at the store, you pay more in medicaide tax. Meanwhile, Wallmart develops factories in China, so American factory workers will endup working at wallmart. That’s the high cost of low prices. So, the US looses it’s industrial base atan xlr8t’d rate and China surplants us as the #1 superpower thanks to wallmart. In Washington, the #1 supporter of Wallmart is your local commie loving whore Republican Congressman who cannot pull himself off the teet of lobiest dollars.
hey if this is true, the how about if Apple Features that Documentary on Wal-Mart on it’s front page of iTunes.
Walmart used to sell American goods. They used to have a business sense and principles that stood for good and helped Americans.
Somewhere along the way the whole damn thing turned evil and corrupt, probably in a bid to become bigger and bigger with better and better stock-share pricing.
Now they’re just another corporation, trying to push people under to push themselves up.
DON’T SHOP AT WALMART!
What a liberal take on Wal Mart, MDN. I’m proud of ya.
This story is bogus. Wal-Mart will simply create it’s own
movie download business.
We’ve seen the numbers of music downloads on iTunes and on average the claim goes is 20 songs per ipod have been downloaded from itunes.
That will easily be less for movies. Why would they cry over movies and not DVD TV show collections. They are just as popular as DVD movie sales.
If Wal-Mart is that worried they shouldn’t be. Digital movies won’t won’t outsell DVD’s since quality is low and it restricted to the computer.
Plus Zune-Mart is coming soon. MS and WM have a common enemy in apple. Look for big promotions
of Zune per MS pressure and incentives.
MDN word “play” -come on boys and play fair.
Typical WalMart.
When I was in business school, one of my classmates woarked for a company that makes the leading brand of crayons (begins with a C, ends with “ola”)
They got called in for a very angry meeting when Walmart determined that the compay had given Target the same pricing Walmart was getting (Walmart insists that they get a better price than anyone else).
The company was told that it didn’t matter that they were the leading brand. WalMart would pull their products from the shelf and replace them with crayons from China, and people would buy them because “Walmart is the only store in most markets”, so people have to buy what’s there.
The problem is that WalMart is so big, manufacturers have no choice but to whore themselves out to them and do what their told. I think that Walmart accouts for something like 20% of sales for Proctor and Gamble today.
As a European I think it’s incredible to read these posts.
Whether a US American is politically left, right or centre, he still considers the worst and most abusive word he can call his political opponent is ‘commie’.
And all this just a short 50 years after McCarthyism – the most disgraceful period of American history.
Haven’t you guys learned anything from history?
In Europe, if we want to abuse our political opponents, we call them ‘fascists’
Now that’s more like it!
But in a country where 73% of the population believe that the earth is 6000 years old, who can expect anything else?
Wal-Mart evil? I dunno about that, but they’ve done their damn best to destroy LOCAL businesses and land all over the country.
I’ve walked through Wal-Marts and seen all the bloated po’ folk buying cheap goods produced by even poorer folk… at pitful wages. Gee, what a concept; exploit the destitute to serve the poor! Bravo Wal-Mart!
Aside from their getting huge tax breaks from local politicians, ALL Wal-Mart profits end up somewhere else, NONE of it goes back into the local economies they’ve done their best to infect.
Personally, I support local businesses over national chain stores.
I have NEVER spent a cent at Wal-Mart and NEVER will.
FUCK Wal-Mart.
ALL the studios should band together and pull their movies from WM’s shelves, a preemptive strike if you will. How sweet it’d be, just in time for the holidays.
No retailer, not even WM, should be able to tell studios where they can & cannot sell their works.
Heh if WM had any sense they’d team up with iTunes! Like MDN said you can’t stop the future. WM is in immediate danger of becoming a dinosaur: big, terrifying, and extinct, killed off by sudden climatic change.
Even WM knows the game of business is either evolve or die. Where would WM’s music business be today if Sam Walton had fiercely held onto 8-tracks? You get the idea.
ALL the studios should band together and pull their movies from WM’s shelves, a preemptive strike if you will. How sweet it’d be, just in time for the holidays
Umm, in case you haven’t heard… The Hollywood studios (apart from Disney) are not to thrilled about Apple gaining traction in the download market either… It’s not just Wal-Mart..
Apple is up against a double-whammy
Look,
Just FUCK Walmart
Walmart is so big it has monopoly power on the buying side, throwing its weight around anyplace, anywhere.
It is the Microsoft of retail, only worse, because it is so much larger.
Here’s how big it is (from a Fast Company article in 2003):
Wal-Mart is not just the world’s largest retailer. It’s the world’s largest company–bigger than ExxonMobil, General Motors, and General Electric. The scale can be hard to absorb. Wal-Mart sold $244.5 billion worth of goods last year. It sells in three months what number-two retailer Home Depot sells in a year. And in its own category of general merchandise and groceries, Wal-Mart no longer has any real rivals. It does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger COMBINED. “Clearly,” says Edward Fox, head of Southern Methodist University’s J.C. Penney Center for Retailing Excellence, “Wal-Mart is more powerful than any retailer has ever been.” It is, in fact, so big and so furtively powerful as to have become an entirely different order of corporate being.
Wal-Mart reminds me of a certain software company.
Never ceases to amaze me, one silly surface look at an issue or story and everyone with rare exceptions goes off the deep end.
Walmart saves millions of people money everyday, which gives the average consumer more buying power, and somehow that is evil? Give me a break.
The Post and much of the media today is so biased, you cannot read any of their stories at face value. The story is usually between the lines somewhere. The documentary doesn’t offer any counterpoints or balance.. what a useless piece of film..
MDN likes hits and hot topics like this, but posting that useless anti-walmart ad was too much…
A close friend of mine is one of the largest wholesalers to Wal-mart and the Post article is pretty much business as usual for them. They are known to be bullies on a whole different level when it comes to purchasing from distributors and wholesalers, so regardless of what Wal-mart is publicly stating, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was true. There is a lot of money at stake for both sides.
DVDs are obsolete. Blueray is the future.
This may have been said already but I would never by any media from Wal*Mart. They dumb it down to appease the Christian reich. And anything truly interesting won’t be found there anyhow. You have to go to the the loocal shops.
This is why I believe Apple to should be more open to partnerships with other corporations. Imagine if Apple partnered with Wal-mart, Target, Amazon and Tower-records to offer a version of the iTunes music store thru their websites… windows media player would instantly become usless and obsolete. iTunes and Quick Time would instantly become the global standard for music and video…. just a thought.
Where do we live again ? Do we only have one store in the entire country ?
Add this to my list of reasons for not shopping at Whore-Mart
PRESIDENT BUSH: I fully understand, however, that there will be a Russian-style democracy. I don’t expect Russia to look like the United States. As Vladimir pointedly reminded me last night, we have a different history, different traditions. And I will let him describe to you his way forward, but he shared with me some very interesting thoughts that I think would surprise some of our citizens. Now that I’ve lured you into the deal here, you know — like, for example, how do you promote land reform. So we discussed land reform. You know, one of the interesting decisions a government has to make, particularly this government would have to make, is how do you encourage private ownership of land further than that which has already happened. Anyway, he shared some thoughts with me. Sorry to put — lay the trap out there for you — but it was a good discussion. He’s a strong man. Look, he’s willing to listen, but he also explains to me, he doesn’t want anybody telling him how to run his government. He was elected. And so it was a cordial relationship. But he can speak for himself.
PRESIDENT PUTIN: We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly. [Massive laughter erupts]
DUBYA: Just wait.
WHAT A DUMMY!!!!
Who’s the douchebag in this thread that said “Clinton lacks vision”?
Are you stupid?
Good God- just check this out….
REPORTER: What do you think tribal sovereignty means in the 21st century, and how do we resolve conflicts between tribes and the federal and state governments?
DUBYA: Yeah — tribal sovereignty means that, it’s sovereign. It’s — you’re a — you’re a — you’ve been given sovereignty, and you’re — viewed as a sovereign entity. [Laughter emanates from the audience]
REPORTER: Okay.
DUBYA: And, therefore, the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between — sovereign entities.
— Well that clears up the relationship perfectly, Washington, D.C., Aug. 6, 2004
BHWAAAAA HAAAAA HHAAAAAAA!
For an even bigger laugh, check the audio out (caveat: at once, funny…..yet embarassing).
http://dubyaspeak.com/policymaker.phtml?year=2004
(halfway down the page).
So, because a Reuters ticker quotes a WalMart spokesperson as disputing the original claim then all has been set right in the land of make believe!
You are so wise. You have opened all our eyes to the truth!
Good call, MDN. Walmart is bad for America, killing every mom and pop business around and being strongly anti-union to keep worker’s rights as low as possible. I wish people would wise-up and stop shopping there.
Persomally, I don’t give a shit about Mom & Pop, who usually complain having to medernize, never clean or uodate their stores, and have combative attitudes (customer service).
Actually, I like the new Walmart Supercenters (grocery store included!)
Especially since they are including so many organic products now.
should have read “about having to modernize”
Walmart saves millions of people money everyday, which gives the average consumer more buying power, and somehow that is evil?
Evil is forcing jobs to be exported to Third World swamps and sweat shops.
Evil is being a BIG trampler of employee rights, and helping to reduce the American workforce into an expendable commodity.
Evil is the Wal-Mart Paradox: where people who work there can only afford to shop there. Sounds like something from the bad old days of company stores.
Evil is killing entire business communities. There is no choice when Wa-Mart IS the choice!
Need I go on? Evil is doing all the above in the name of money.
Especially since they are including so many organic products now.
Spinach too? LOL
It’s a toss-up.
Yes, jobs are exported (not that Walmart is alone here); yet a whole class of people can buy various goods that would be ordinarily out of reach.
So, moderation.
Yes, I shop at Walmart (actually only occasionally), as well as “Mom& Pops”.
But I as serious about my “Mom & Pop” complaints,
In a global world, I shop where I perceive the best price/customer service ratio to be.
I was with the MDN write-up until I actually watched that trailer. Short version: I hope the movie itself has something of substance, because the trailer was COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY UNCONVINCING. Is that the best they’ve got against Walmart? Not what I’d been lead to believe, but watching that trailer didn’t even remotely convince me of what evil Walmart is actually doing.
Now the pressure on studios, on the other hand, is convincing. But seems like we have only limited hear-say in that case.
I heard from a friend that Walmart has been bullying all its suppliers.
Man, (some of) you guys got me really worried. I fully agree w/mac user 47.
Or is it that there are some guys wearing fatigues sitting in a cabin in the Appalachian Mountains logging in with different names and making comments here over and over again?
If you don’t like Walmart, don’t go but don’t expect the majority of the population of the USA to suddenly stop going to Walmart because of this.
Buy Apple’s movies on-line and choose alternative stores to buy your cheap electronics and laundry detergent but just keep in mind that there are people out there who do spend time clipping coupons and checking out the weekly flyers and ending up @ Walmart.
E-mail withheld to avert any potential of Mac-users showing up in the bushes in front of my company wearing Gillie Suits.
Whether or not this is accurate (which Walmart PR will refute) I have refused to give this retailer any of my money based on what they’ve done to small towns all across the country. Two reasons Walmart would never do this…Best Buy and Target (both happy to sell DVDs to former Walmart customers).
No, po ru. Not The Appalachians.
CRAWFORD, TX
(Where a grade C average, former Conn. preppie now lives, fake swagger/dialect and all.)…
GUEST: Can you drink this? (asks while reaching down to the water)
DUBYA: Sure.
GUEST takes a handful to his mouth.
DUBYA: Except for the cow sh*t.
GUEST “spit take” ensues.
— Dubya playing the consummate host on his ranch, Crawford, Texas, date unknown
<a >Wal-Mart</a> can suck my bawls.
Wal-Mart can suck my bawls.