I would like to thank the staff of New Day Film for their contribution to the never ending discussion of tiered pricing of educational video programs. But I want to try to break the myth of educational institutions ability to afford this pricing system. I have been the audiovisual librarian at a small private university for over ten years. I believe the main problem is that publishers and distributors of educational video programs treat all universities and colleges the same not recognizing the huge differences in library budgets between a well founded large university and a small university with little money for its AV resources. We use an allocated formula for our library budget so all disciplines can get something for their instruction resources. The allocated amount for each discipline hardly gives them the ability to purchase 1 or 2 video programs for the whole year with the current institutional pricing the publishers and distributor have set for their programs. In most cases, when our faculty, looking for a quality program on a specific subject for their field, become aware of the pricing, ask me to find a commercial popular feature film on the same subject instead of the quality educational program because they need several programs for their courses each year and cannot afford buying one or two high priced programs. Sometimes I feel that publishers and distributor are living in another world or on an ivory tower and do not see what is going on economically in our educational system. I completely understand the cost of producing a quality film and the small number of customers that makes the filmmaking expensive. But we should find a way to see the other side's point of view too.
Farhad Moshiri Audiovisual Librarian University of the Incarnate Word San Antonio, Texas From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Susan Albrecht Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 8:02 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Videolib] A Distributor's Response From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jacqueline Ochs Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 8:30 AM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [Videolib] A Distributor's Response We'd appreciate your adding this to the conversation with regard to Institutional and Home DVD Pricing: We wanted to share our perspective on the recent spate of emails on the list serve about the topic of tiered pricing connected to one of the titles in our collection. When filmmakers complete a film, they look for the best opportunities to distribute their work to different markets and usually work with different distributors who hold rights to different types of markets. New Day Films, as many of you know, is a cooperative distribution company that distributes to the educational market, which includes university and college as well as public library, K-12 and community organizations. If a filmmaker affiliates with New Day, that means that New Day has the film's rights to the educational market for his or her film. New Day, like most other distribution companies, has a tiered pricing system. The cost per film for academic institutions is higher, for example, than the cost to a community group or a high school. New Day is responsible for educational sales, but other types of sales, including sales to individuals, are handled differently by each individual filmmaker. Most of our members have some other arrangement in place to sell their films to home or individual users, and those prices are typically much lower. The assumption behind the range of prices is that academic institutions will be able to use their copy of the film for years to come, showing it multiple times, to large numbers of students. The assumption behind the home user prices is that it is for one person or family to use. We understand it is not illegal to purchase a DVD intended for home use from Amazon and use it in the classroom, but independent filmmakers survive because of the honor system that Anthony Anderson wrote about in his post. If our higher-ed customers stopped paying the institutional rates, independent filmmakers would never be able to continue producing the high quality films on social issues that faculty and students depend on. We always are open to finding a solution to pricing concerns so that our films get used and shown. We also have developed different options for digital streaming licenses to accommodate the institution that only intends to use a film one or two times. We always are looking for ways to creatively work with the video librarian field to fine tune product delivery and pricing structures that work for higher ed and for the filmmaker. We hope this helps to explain the tiered pricing approach that many independent filmmakers use. Jacki Ochs and Debra Chasnoff, on behalf of New Day Films Let me put out a couple of thoughts in response to this. I completely get what you're saying - I really do. However, keep in mind that - in spite of our best efforts as library/media people - many, MANY times the only use a documentary gets is individual checkout by interested parties. It is hardly the case that each documentary I purchase for our library gets screened by scores of students. Hell, I'm thrilled when I see a double-digit circulation stat for a documentary. Here's my other issue with an academic price vs. a community group/community college/public library price. Not all colleges and universities are the same! We, for instance, are extremely small (FTE875), and while we are not poor, our budget for materials is GOING to be small compared to institutions with 5,000, 20,000 or 40,000 students. Requiring a school our size to pay the same as a University of Michigan or University of Maryland really doesn't make sense to me. Heck, community colleges are often much larger than we are. Why the assumption that one "educational" price is appropriate for all institutions of higher education? So I admit I balk a bit at the "honor system" comment. I am the steward of a very modest budget, and while I REALLY believe in high quality educational & documentary films, I have to be careful. Do I come home from NMM each year and see what's available elsewhere at Home Use prices? You bet I do. I do what I can to support the kinds of films I can get from New Day, MEF, Bullfrog, Icarus, Video Project, Filmakers Library, Cinema Guild, Kino, Landmark, ro*co, Passion River, Film Ideas and all the other awesome distributors out there, but I do also purchase some DVDs at home use prices from third party sellers. I do it: 1) because my budget won't allow me to buy all of the films I want at educational pricing; and 2) when I'm fairly certain that there won't be a public screening of a particular title on our campus. (On occasion, I've been wrong about that and have gone back to add PPR. THAT, for me, is the honor system part of this.) While I recognize that it would be a pain on the distributor's end, offering at least *one* alternate price for institutions under a certain size would be wonderful. That, or working with smaller schools (as one vendor already does, and I love them!) to grant them the K-12/public lib/comm college pricing. Just $0.02 from the small school POV. 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VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.
