Ryan writes, "I was a backer of the Veronica Mars movie, one level of backer got you a digital download of the movie. They ended up going with Warner Bros owned/backed Flixster. So for me I have an apple TV and a Roku. Flixster doesn't support appleTV or airplay, the Flixster channel for the Roku will crash anytime you try to watch anything. Flixster also will not allow you to watch the movie on a computer that has dual monitors."
The studio will allow you to buy a better experience on a non-Flixster service, send them the bill, and get a refund (but only if you complain first).
There's a copy of the movie on The Pirate Bay with more than 11,000 seeders, which means that this Flixster business is doing precisely nothing to deter piracy, and is only serving to alienate megafans who voluntarily donated money to see this movie made, and to subject the studio itself to potential millions in administrative costs and refunds to investors who were forced into the retail channels.
The studios can't conceive of an "audience" that has an active role in, or any right to, the media they enjoy: not even when that "audience" is more properly viewed as the product's investors. What's more, they're the angel investors who bought in when the product was highly speculative and assumed 100% of the risk; the studio is just the VC who came along to put in a round of safe money after the project had proven out. In any real business-setting, the angels would be suing the pants off of the VCs and winning.
DRM has become a cult-belief among some studio execs, a point of pride without recourse to rationality. When your religious dogma causes you to lock the movie's investors out of the movie itself, perhaps it's time to reconsider your dogma.
They claim this is all studio restrictions but I find that laughable being that the movie is a Warner Bros movie Flixster is a Warner Bros service and If I purchased the movie on iTunes or Amazon or downloaded via a bittorrent I could watch it on my AppleTV in HD
Many unhappy comments regarding this choice on the kickstarter page also.
There's also no GNU/Linux version of Flixter, so your reward for being a GNU/Linux user who gave your personal, actual money to make this movie is a kick in the pants.
Warner Brothers to “Veronica Mars” Backers: Okay, Okay — Use iTunes or Amazon if You Want
