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Netflix To Lift Streaming Limits
The AP has a story on Netflix's move to head off expected competition from Apple: the company will lift limits on streaming its movies for most subscribers. The story reports on rumors of an Apple movie-download service that may be announced by Steve Jobs on Tuesday. In the past Netflix has imposed limits on how long its subscribers could watch streamed movies; for example, those who paid $16.99/mo. could stream up to 17 hours per month. The limits will end on Monday for most subscribers (except for those paying $4.99 for two DVD rentals a month, said to be a small minority). The company has 6,000 movies available for streaming, compared to 90,000 that you can get delivered in the mail.
I'll indulge as soon as they buy me a windows machine with IE and tasty WMP DRM etc.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
DRM: Check
Low-def only: Check
Low bitrate: Check
Watch only on computer: Check
Poor selection: Check
No non-streaming option: Check
No Linux support: Check
No MacOS support: Check
I am ***so*** excited about the limits being lifted on my Netflix account!! Guess I will continue to use their old-fashioned DVD's. I *do* like Netflix, have used them for years, but this whole "Watch It Now" thing is about as interesting to me as watching grass grow.
On Tuesday at at the Macworld keynote you'll see why Mac users won't give a rats ass about watching Netflix movies, hence the timing of the Netflix announcement. As usual, too little too late.
FWIW Mac users still can't buy music from Napster, or any of the so-called "Plays Fer Sure" online outlets, and play it on an iPod.
What? I assume you're shooting for a +2 Funny or something. Copyright law doesn't make any statements about how content must be distributed ... it just says that the copyright owner gets to set the terms. Presumably they have deals with the major studios that allow them to stream content for a set fee.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Bullshit. The MPAA sells movies protected by CSS, MS's WMP, and Apple's FairPlay. What makes you think they wouldn't approve another DRM format if someone presented it to them? It is in their best interests, in fact, to have as many stores and DRM types as possible for two reasons. First, they are a cartel that makes money by being gatekeepers and having a single DRM as a choke point would give another company as much power as they have. Second, they make money when consumers repurchase content because the DRM hinders their switching to other devices.
To me this seems like a plain old case of NetFlix foolishly listening to MS and being suckered by them. NetFlix did not innovate, nor did they find a DRM scheme that is not controlled by a direct competitor (I'd look at Sun's DReaM). They simply made a stupid choice and it will probably kill them in the long run. It's too bad, in the early days NetFlix made some really smart and bold moves, innovated and listened to customers. Sadly, when companies get bigger, they tend to stop doing any of those.