Claiming to be the largest online DVD retailer in Australia – not that he has a lot of competition in this oddly online-shopping-averse country – Ezy DVD founder Jim Zavos is facing off against Telstra Bigpond with his very own movie download service.
EzyDownload.com.au will offer its new customers the option to both ‘download to own’ (DTO) or ‘download to rent’ (DTR, presumably), making it the only company to do so when it launches in September.
If you’re thinking you’ve heard of this kind of thing before, you’re right. ‘Reeltime’, coming first but failing to establish the business it needed, is a service that has now been wholly acquired by Zavos and forms the basis of his new enterprise.
While no pricing is available yet, a key element of the venture will be Zavos’ attempts at partnering with Australian ISPs to convince them to remove the (unfair and antiquated) download ‘cap’ limits. This, along with the inflated broadband premiums that are grossly out of step with the rest of the world, are likely to be Zavos’ biggest obstacles to success.
