The first preliminary verdict came down against Universal yesterday when a judge refused to dismiss anti-trust charges. Redbox filed two other charges that didn't experience the same fate though, but we'd bet that Redbox was just hoping that at least one would stick. In the suit that did, the claim is that by instructing distributors to refuse to sell Universal titles to Redbox for the first 45 days after release, that Universal is using its influence to prevent Redbox from competing in the movie rental busines. This is far from a verdict though, and with Redbox buying Universal titles at retail, and the fact that this thing has already been going on for some time now, we'd be surprised if any of this was resolved any time soon.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
lian996 @ Aug 18th 2009 12:51PM
With the success of Redbox, I wonder if we are now going to start seeing a lot more of the vending machine businesses start to popup to become as proliferous as they are in Japan? Less of the tchotchke type of stuff, and more real merchandise.
Seems like a real possibility in this depressed economy since it would severely cut down costs with regards to both personnel and physical location businesses.
YouFaceTheTick @ Aug 18th 2009 11:59PM
Redbox will lose - as they should - as the content distributors own the property and have a right to determine when and which companies can rent their products.
tt @ Aug 19th 2009 1:08AM
What? you can rent a movie for 1$ ?!
Ok, it's official.. I live in a village (Canada)
Ramin @ Aug 19th 2009 5:01AM
@ YouFace:
The claim is saying that they are purposely trying to make RedBox lose because they release to other vendors but refuse to release to them. This is where the anitrust suit comes in. If they did this to Blockbuster as well then everything would be fine.