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Among the specific concerns is that Trend is asking studios or distributors "to provide evidence to support its public boxoffice number when it falls outside the standard deviation level."

More vague concerns also are raised in the letter, including that it places movie industry jobs at risk. The letter even alludes to "abusive practices that triggered our nation's economic crisis," though without specifying how that crisis relates to boxoffice futures.

omments (23)

Furthermore, complaints about releasing data are laughable, because the data is already released, and a virtual trading system has existed for a 13 years without any problems (HSX). Cantor owns HSX, and HSX often predicts movie results more accurately than studio estimates, so the idea that these trading systems are designed around a faulty understanding of the movie industry is laughable. If anything, this is one of the most tested trading systems in the history of this country to ever go live. I cannot think of any other trading system we have that had 13 years of data on before people started trading it for real money.

I have worked in both industries as a futures trader and film producer. The people who criticize this practice don’t understand it. Futures markets where designed to reduce risk, starting with the grain markets a long time ago. If you could lock in a good price for grain and didn’t know what the future would be, but you knew what your costs were, you could lock in a profit while speculators could take on that risk. It’s a great idea for the film biz. There will be fewer box office disasters and more films greenlit because of the influx of investor dollars. Those who don’t want it are nervous that their accounting practices will be scrutinized and they SHOULD be nervous. I say bring this thing on!!

Warners has even gone further, saying it would impose the same restrictions on Netflix and other DVD by-mail subscription providers unless they agreed to a "day-and-date revenue sharing option."

here's no way of getting around the fact that the studios who are trying to put the muscle on Redbox are making the same mistakes the music business made nearly a decade ago when it attempted -- and failed, quite spectacularly -- to squash unauthorized downloading of music by destroying the dreaded Napster Web file-sharing service.

At some point we'll have a longer, perhaps more intriguing discussion about why so many people have gone from buyers to renters.