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Starz To Pull Content From Netflix
tekgoblin writes "Starz plans to remove all of its movies and TV shows from the Netflix streaming library after negotiations failed. Starz, which is owned by John Malone's Liberty Media, said they have ended talks with Netflix to renew a deal that ends February 28th. Netflix stands to lose a large amount of content, as Starz has licenses for first run Sony and Walt Disney movies."
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Wearing pants should always be optional.
This will surely hurt business after splitting the Instant plan. Some of their best (some of their few blockbuster/A titles) were available through the STARZ offerings. I'm a huge fan of netflix instant, but between only carrying half-series of Shonen-jumps for months before completion(if they do get completed) and now this, I'll seriously be reconsidering my membership.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
I've seen lots of good titles disappear from instant streaming with little or no advance warning. Now they're dropping all the Starz-provided material? I'll have to - at the very least - go and record all the 30-second-bunnies clips.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
To watch the 100 or so episodes of "Have Gun - Will Travel" that are left in my queue.
It took a real world war to end the airplane's patent wars. - Fâché Rouge -
Netflix is a wonderful supplement to piracy.
If it isn't on Netflix, it is popular enough for a torrrent. If you cannot find it through nefarious means, it is old enough to be on Netflix.
Most Canadians were hoping that the catalog offered to us would become more on par with the US catalog. This isn't the way to go about it though.
When Netflix raised their 1+streaming plan to $16, I went to the 2DVD plan. This was based on the very limited streaming selection, plus my wife's first language is not english so she needs subtitles. Despite our owning a Roku and a Toshiba TV that support Netflix streaming, neither of these devices support the Netflix streaming. Netflix is really screwing the streaming customers. I feel pretty validated with my decision after hearing this.
I haven't heard many people going to a DVD-only plan. Most people were planning on canceling, or doing the streaming plan +Redbox. Does this change anyone's plans?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
And you know how that this is all Netflix's fault?
I've been thinking about getting a Roku. But not supporting subtitles for streaming would be a deal breaker for me. Which generation Roku do you have?
Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey said the company was "confident we can take the money we had earmarked for Starz renewal next year, and spend it with other content providers to maintain or even improve the Netflix experience."
Good luck with that. What content would that be exactly? Losing access to Sony and Disney will be a fairly large void to fill, especially for the amount Netflix has "earmarked" for it. On the other hand I wonder how much of a "bonus" Starz might be receiving from cable or satellite providers to play hard ball with Netflix?
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Who gives a shit whose "fault" it is?
It makes the Netflix streaming service useless, so as far as I'm concerned, if Netflix wants me to pay to stream, they have to have content I want to watch.
They already have next to nothing interesting on streaming, their streaming clients universally suck ass and routinely crash, and now they're going to reduce the available content even further?
I don't care if it's "Starz's fault," it's Netflix that has to keep me as a customer, and right now, their streaming service still isn't worth paying for.
Although the content offered by Starz on Netflix was good, I was always disappointed the encodings were not high definition or even with a 5.1 surround sound channel. I won't be missing Starz ( too much ).
Everyone seems to be commenting on how this is bad for Netflix, but I'm kind of wondering how the Starz brass thinks leaving anywhere between $250-$300 million on the table is a good idea, or who they're going to receive better offers from. The content is OK, but I somehow doubt their stuff is as premium as they like to think it is...
Well, it's more likely that Starz wants more money for its content than Netflix gets out of its subscribers. According to the article, Starz wanted $300 million a year for the rights to show the same content that four years ago it was passing along for $30 million a year. Netflix has 22 million subscribers. Stars wanted more than $10 per subscriber per year, which would probably be fine if Netflix _only_ had Starz content and no other significant expenses.
But for my $8/month streaming account, I can say without a doubt that I do not watch more than 10% of Starz content.
Netflix just signed a streaming deal with Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM for about $200 million a year — and those three have more and better content than Starz, which suddenly thinks its worth 1/3 more than those others. Not likely.
Netflix basically just said, "Meh, we'll take the money we were going to give to you and give it to someone else for their content." Starz is not the only game in town. It's not even the best game in town. And now everybody knows how much is too much. It's just hardball.
I'm glad that now I know my extra money for the recent fee increases goto Netflix themselves, not to pay for content. I've been a NetFlix member for more than 10 years now, but I'm not so sure how much longer thats going to last.
Because it's easier. Honestly, if I could find a dependable source, with as broad a selection of US *and* foreign material as, say Pirate Bay, at a reasonable ($1.99 per title?) price, I'd sign right up. But no, that source doesn't (legally) exist...due to the seemingly constant bickering over licensing, and who gets how big a cut of the rapidly diminishing pie. Maybe one day the media companies will get a clue, but apparently that day isn't here yet.
Here,here. If Netflix wants to be rewarded for their good intentions, they should join a religious order. If they want to be rewarded for effort, they should get a government contract. If they want to keep me as a subscriber, they better deliver some high quality content.
Is there a list somewhere of what exactly is in the Starz catalog? I see it includes Disney movies but what about Disney Channel or ABC Family? What else is in that catalog?
So you blame Netflix? There are two parties in this contract; we won't know which one is at fault without knowing how much Starz is demanding, and how little Netflix is offering.
Of course, the real villain here is copyright. Not the law, but the idea that it gives publishers complete control over their works (rather than just being a way to help them make a reasonable return). It means that publishers like Starz feel entitled to demand whatever price they want for their content, or flat-out refuse to license it - particularly if they'd rather you spent $10/mo on their service (even though you only want to watch the odd show), rather than paying Netflix $x/mo, of which only a fraction will end back at Starz.
The same issue is gradually making itself known with computer gaming; particularly the current Valve/EA fight, with contract negotiations breaking down as both parties want to push their own distribution systems (Steam/Origin resp.) with their products (notably Crysis2, Dragon Age 2, and soon SW:tOR).
This is bundling, it occurs when you have publishers, distributors and copyright owners all mixed together, and is anti-competitive and evil. This is what led to the EU fining Microsoft €899m in 2008, for bundling WMP with Windows (and made MS give EU users a choice of web browser, by default).
Sadly, the only way around this (short of having very strict and rigorously-enforced anti-trust laws - which take a long time to work; the initial complaint against MS above was made in 1994 - an appeal is still pending) is compulsory licensing. This would mean we could get dozens of Netflixes and Hulus, iTuneses and Spotifies, Steams and Origins, all offering competing services to access the same content - giving consumers the choice for which service to go with (rather than the copyright owner), depending on the terms ($n/mo for streaming v $m per download etc.) - with copyright owners getting paid a 'fair' amount, and not having to worry about endless contract negotiations.
Of course, this will never happen in the US/EU etc. as it would involve the big copyright owners (Disney, Warner Bros, Starz etc.) giving up control, and their refusal to allow these sorts of services already (or reliance on excessive DRM) shows how tightly they cling on to this. Plus it would probably have to involve registering copyrights, a state-run scheme, international co-operation and a significant change to the big copyright treaties (such as TRIPS or the Berne Convention).
But one can dream...
Exactly. Netflix is designed so people can watch DVDs and streaming content. I don't care who's fault it is that I can't watch what I want to watch. If Netflix doesn't have what I want to watch, why should I subscribe to them? Between this and their spin on rate increases that somehow it is a /good/ thing I'm paying more, I'm not sure if it is really worth the price.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Also with the slow death of video rental stores, the only place to get their content will be torrents.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I just pulled the plug on my Netflix account 2 days ago. I had the 2 DVD + Streaming plan, and we used it a lot, but they pissed me off with the rate increase...so I voted with my wallet. It's the only way to make an impact at all.
They recently "upgraded" their DVD model as well.
DVDs by Mail - First Born Male Child
I8-D
I got Netflix in the first place because my most reliable option for high speed internet is wireless 3G, thanks to the crappy wiring in an inaccessible alley behind my house. And it's capped at 5 Gb/month, and video stalls frequently during periods of high usage. So I did the same thing, switched to 2 DVD's, and I'm getting a lot more content for just a little more money. Thanks, Netflix!
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Same here. I like Anime and the B-Movies. And an A -List movie just means the actors are overpaid. It says nothing about the quality of the story or how much I will enjoy watching it.
It is more profitable for the content provider to charge you a lot more money for crap you don't want that happens to include something you do.
True on-demand content would essentially impose a free market on the system, which does not benefit the copyright cartels.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Thank you for this post. "Netflix just signed a streaming deal with Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM for about $200 million a year" This right here just saved my streaming account. Sound's like my selection is going to get better. Screw Starz.
Netflix has been doing great and I've been of the mind that they could charge me triple what they do now and I'd still feel like it was a great deal.
Unfortunately, it seems like 50% of the content is from Starz. If they're going to lose all of that, there's less reason for me to remain subscribed.
If this occurs, I'm sure we'll see torrent traffic rise, again.
Didn't Netflix make like more than two billion dollars last quarter, alone? It seems like $300m isn't too unreasonable. Of course it was only $30m several years ago. Netflix wasn't nearly the huge deal it has become (streaming-wise).
What I don't get is - why does Starz have all this content? Why doesn't Netflix just buy the rights to the content from whoever it is that Starz is buying the rights to the content from?
How can you have this story without Netflix's response? Google it for a good read.
Spoiler: Basically Netflix said thanks for what they had, but with all their other studio agreements, Starz only accounts for 8% of what people watch now. Not much of a loss, and they'll spend that on deals with other studios.
This is what you people get for paying for your content. Suckers.
Last quarter, they had revenue of $788 million with income of $110 million. I'm more of a letter guy, but I do believe that's less than $2 billion.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
$2B in revenue but $160M in profit. So with no other changes, Netflix stands to lose money next year if they accepted the deal. Unless they get a lot of subscribers, or they figure how to significantly cut costs, or they raise prices again.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It’s not Netflix fault or Starz – because – gosh – it sounds one of them is doing something sinful or illegal Think about it this way
Starz is a monopoly – in so far that that they are the only people selling first run streaming Disney movies.
Netflix is a quasi-monopsony [Technically not, but it’s the largest streaming video company, and if Starz want’s Netflix consumers they have to go through them]
What is the “fair” price that Netflix should pay Starz? There is $X of profit for 1 year for steaming videos that needs to be split between these two. [I am not ignoring that there are substitute products (DVDs, ITunes, Bit Torrent’s, etc – it just limits the profit to $X – not $X + more)
I don’t think there is one in the sense that there is a moral division of profits in this case, nor does game theory help much.
Protracted negations often happen when you have a Monopoly/Monopsony dynamic going. As a comparison, look at the negations that occur between Somali pirates and ship-owners. Everybody knows that in the end the ship-owners will pay the pirates. The pirates can’t sell their stolen ship to anybody else and it is the ship-owners best interest to get there ship and crew back as fast as possible. On the other hand, neither has much leverage over the other to force negations forward – other than brute force. . Thus the negations can last for months over a few million dollars.
Sadly, the only way around this (short of having very strict and rigorously-enforced anti-trust laws - which take a long time to work; the initial complaint against MS above was made in 1994 - an appeal is still pending) is compulsory licensing. This would mean we could get dozens of Netflixes and Hulus, iTuneses and Spotifies, Steams and Origins, all offering competing services to access the same content - giving consumers the choice for which service to go with (rather than the copyright owner), depending on the terms ($n/mo for streaming v $m per download etc.) - with copyright owners getting paid a 'fair' amount, and not having to worry about endless contract negotiations.
It would also require someone to decide what is "fair". Is an hour of "big brother" or "american idol" worth the same as an hour of "planet earth" or "mythbusters"?
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Starz isn't "buying" the rights. They "own" the rights for a period of time. Until that time period is over, they are the only source.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
Also with the slow death of video rental stores, the only place to get their content will be torrents.
C'est la vie; torrenting is still the easiest and most convenient way to get the content anyway. Sooner or later these companies are going to realize that if people want to see something, they're going to see it...especially digital media. The more difficult they make it to get the content legitimately, the more people turn to The Pirate Bay and they get nothing.
Case in point, HBO Go...I recently tried to sign up for this service since I'm supposed to be eligible to get it due to being a cable subscriber (Charter), after about 6 steps into the process requiring me to use the Charter email address I've literally never touched in my 10 years as a subscriber I said "fuck it" and just download the shit illegally like I always did. I shouldn't have to do that, I'm a paying customer, but the legal process is so retarded that they make it impractical.
They'll learn, just like the record labels did. It's only a matter of time...
Beauty of copyright: they ARE the only game in town when it comes to movies that they own copyright to.
I've never had Netflix streaming client crash on me. Not on WinXP, not on Win7, not on the Wii. It handles network traffic well and I get a decent DVD quality picture 95% of the time. We disagree on the "nothing interesting on streaming". I've been able to watch a lot of tv shows that are either unavailable or that I like. I've been able to watch a lot of documentaries or science shows that are never or no longer aired. I've been able to watch a lot of movies I've either never heard of or was not interested in spending $7 - $12 to see at a theater (sure, I have to wait a half year, but so what).
You are correct, Netflix does have to keep customers. But it seems to me that the movie industry is doing their best to kill the cash cow.
You forgot to add the WD TV Live series, Samsung devices, and Vizio TV's to that list. They all support subtitles as well.
I've been using Netflix streaming since it came out, and I hated seeing the Starz label on anything (it got to where I wouldn't put anything from them in my Queue). Why? Because none of their stuff was in HD and all their prints were for shit. That's all fine if you're watching Netflix streaming on your old 4:3 Philco, but their stuff looked like shit on HDTV or a decent computer monitor. So, while I hate losing ANY content on the great Netflix streaming service, I can't say I'll be too heartbroken to see that it's Starz.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch the first season of Louie and the entire run of Battlestar Galactica, both in HD, on my $7 a month service that people complain is overpriced.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Starz is a monopoly? What kind of twisted logic is that? By that definition, Ford is a monopoly because they are the only ones selling Ford vehicles. Toyota is also a monopoly, as they are the only ones selling Toyotas. And let's not forget the juggernaut monopoly of Bentley.
This is a simple case of buyers and sellers negotiating a price. If they can't agree, the deal is not done.
Oh, investors expected this deal to take place? Oh so I guess that takes priority over the millions of Netflix users who expected it to take place? This is a big deal to me. My wife is a stay at home mom, and yeah she spends a lot of time with my boy playing outside and inside away from the TV, but when they finally sit down for a minute -- the same as when I get off of work, I want to sit down and enjoy a good selection of content. Now without those Disney movies, well, I will honestly probably go right back to piracy since I can't afford to buy every Disney movie that comes out. (I know not every movie was on Netflix) Sure, I can rent discs from Netflix, Redbox, Blockbuster, or I can rent and copy them. Yes, this attitude I have towards making illegal backups of their movies I thought was long gone. Thanks Netflix. Hopefully they strike a deal with another large company to bring us some better movies or I'm cancelling. We mostly use it for Disney movies anyway.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
If anyone wants to let Starz know what they think, Liberty Media's contact information is here. Netflix was willing to offer up to 250 million...yet that was not enough to Starz who previously was providing their library for 30 million. Seems blatantly obvious who is at fault for the lack of renewal here.
And yet, as a Netflix subscriber, my first thought at reading this was "good riddance". But then I'm one of those people that insists on getting uncropped content (while I've not browsed the entire Starz library that was available on Netflix, any movies/shows that I did watch that Starz had provided would be cropped so that there would be no black bars on my 16:9 screen).
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Because it involves technology and stuff people are interested in which drives views to /. and its advertisements.
This already happens; in the UK we have a little-known thing called the Copyright Tribunal, which acts as a sort of mini-court/dispute resolution thing. It's job (by law) is to dictate the terms of licence agreements (mainly between collective licensing bodies and end users) in cases where the parties can't agree on them themselves.
Historically, this comes from part of the original Copyright Act 1709 (8 Anne c.21, often simply called the Statute of Anne) which gave a cause of action against booksellers etc. who were charging unreasonable prices for their works. Early copyright law is very much focussed on being paid a fair amount, not on control.
and those three have more and better content than Starz, which suddenly thinks its worth 1/3 more than those others
Not 1/3, but 1/2 - they want $100 million more, which is 50% of what Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM are charging. I.e. it's actually *worse* than you said.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I refuse to install Silverlight on my computer and I get almost all my movies for free anyway. Sony/Disney can just suck it.
How is your fear of Silverlight and admission of media theft relevant to this discussion?
Starz' content was poor quality, and old movies that you'll find on TBS or some other cable channel if you really cared.
Good riddance. It sucked having to page over their junk, and if it frees up money for places with real content, more power to Netflix.
The funniest thing is that Starz seems to think their "brand" has any value.
It's very simple, really. If they don't have what you want to watch, don't subscribe.
Personally, the last thing I want is for Netflix to cave in and end up securing content the way cable companies secure content, such that I have to pay $80/mo to get the 3 tv shows I watch.
They're an alternative source of entertainment. If you want Starz content, go pay your cable company the $10/mo for Starz. I liked the Netflix service just fine before the Starz deal. The cost hasn't gone up for me, and I imagine I'll like it the same now.
Angry much?
I, for one, am endlessly entertained by Netflix's streaming content and the DVD service is crazy convenient. The loss of Starz (if the deal is truly dead) is unfortunate. Some of the content I watch comes from there, though to be honest not a lot.
The Netflix clients are phenomenal, as is the streaming quality. I have never seen it crash once, so I suspect your anger at Netflix is misplaced here.
If you don't like the service, cancel your subscription and pay 2 - 3 times more elsewhere for less content. The choice is yours. God bless competition.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
Sadly, the only way around this ... is compulsory licensing.
Coming soon: Officially-licensed porn of every Disney character!
Compulsory licensing eliminates any control over how a work is used or presented. If you're forced to license your content you can't object to situations that devalue the work you've produced. If a major cinematic element of a movie is its detailed scenery, would it really be fair to run it through a streaming service that cuts out 75% of the detail? Or what about one that surrounds a dark suspenseful movie with flashing ads? Content owners would lose the basic ability to say "no".
Compulsory licensing is also unlikely to actually improve competition. The arbitrator (or whatever entity decides what's "fair") adds yet another layer of bureaucracy, easily swayed by overstatements (and understatements) of value. Think of the value, according to the RIAA, of a pirated song. Contract negotiations would be even longer and more expensive, because the owner couldn't back out, so they have to continue investing time and people to dealing with the negotiations.
Compulsory licensing assumes that everyone has a price at which they'll abandon any attempt at art, and that said price can be determined by some third party.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
On the other hand, think of what it costs to produce a TV episode, and then try to imagine how much it would cost if it was only pay per episode, with no advertisements. Let's just take the example of the Friends TV Show. Each of the 6 main actors was getting paid $1 million an episode at it's height. This means it would cost at least $6 million just for the main actors salary. Throw in salaries for writers, producers, directors, and you are probably easily at $10 million. The finale, was watched by 50 million people. Now, assuming 2 people per TV (i'm averaging here), that's about 25 million paid views. which would bring the cost per episode somewhere around 40 cents, just for a single half hour show. and that doesn't even count any money going to service providers like NetFlix. So while I think the model could work, we're going to have to see the amount of money that actors, directors, and others make decrease by a significant margin if we ever want to be able to only pay $10 a month for all you can handle streaming TV.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Just because the Starz logo comes up in 4:3 does not mean that the rest of the show does. Every film I have watched on Netflix from Starz has been in HD (except when my bandwidth cannot keep up with it temporarily).
Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
I've never had any issues with their streaming client; I have watched online, using my Roku device, and using my Wii device. All performed well. Perhaps the problem is on your end (network)?
Starz is a monopoly? What kind of twisted logic is that? By that definition, Ford is a monopoly because they are the only ones selling Ford vehicles. Toyota is also a monopoly, as they are the only ones selling Toyotas. And let's not forget the juggernaut monopoly of Bentley.
You are confusing the content monopoly with the distribution system monopoly. Yes, Ford has a monopoly on the manufacture Ford cars, but they're not the only ones selling them. You can get them second-hand, through a dealer, through a distributor etc.. Imagine, instead, if Ford could prevent people from selling a Ford car without a licence - they could then insist that the only way to buy a Ford would be from them, and when you did that, you had to get 5 cars at once, and agree to buy cars from them for the next 10 years...
Of course, if they tried to do that, no one would buy Ford cars; they'd move to Toyota or Bentley (now part of VW) - but when the top half-dozen manufacturers control over 50% of production (rough estimate from here), such a practice could easily become standard.
The other major point is that a car is a car, and what makes a Ford a Ford (v a VW or Skoda) is the Ford logo on the front. While there are significant variations, and individual companies may hold design rights and patents on certain elements, very few substantial designs are restricted to one company. This means that while Ford have the monopoly on Ford cars, Toyota could, if it wanted to, make a car very similar to a particular Ford model, but stick their logo on. This makes the market much more competitive and gives consumers much more choice.
In contrast, while the contrary could be argued in some cases, each TV show/film is unique. There is no other way to get an episode of, for example, the recent Camelot series, or Torchwood: Miracle Day without going to Starz (or their partners). The very essence and purpose of the object (the show) is protected by copyright etc., whereas with a car, it is only the specifics (the logos, design, possible patented parts) that is unique to any one manufacturer.
So while I think the model could work, we're going to have to see the amount of money that actors, directors, and others make decrease by a significant margin if we ever want to be able to only pay $10 a month for all you can handle streaming TV.
OK
Not too long ago I was thinking to myself, "You know, I haven't really pirated anything in a while. Most of what I want is on hulu or netflix." I also noted that many of the things I watched on Netflix started with the Starz logo. Perhaps very soon it will be time to go back to TPB. Why don't media companies get it? I don't *NEED* to buy their product, I can have it for free because there is no scarcity in a world of 1s and 0s.
Starz also streams their content, Netflix is their competitor. I had friends that used stars, because it allowed overnight download of a video, then watching the next day on their crappy DSL, they didn't have cable.
I think Starz wants more money, or direct subscribers, I don't expect that this will work for them though.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Coming soon: Officially-licensed porn of every Disney character!
Firstly, "officially-licensed" would quickly lose its meaning and appeal under a compulsory licensing scheme. If you look at Creative Commons stuff (where all relevant uses are "officially-licensed") the equivalent phrase appears to be "creator endorsed" (which is 'better' in many ways, as it involves the creator rather than a mere licensor). Also, it would be interesting to see if current copyright laws could be used to stop porn of Disney characters... particularly given the expression/idea divide. Plus once the works are out of copyright, it ceases to be an issue (and most Disney characters are based on public domain ones, so you can do what you like with them).
Compulsory licensing eliminates any control over how a work is used or presented.
And? Maybe I wasn't clear (I'm not a great writer), but a large part of my original post was emphasising that this "need for control" is a bad thing. It has crept into copyright over the last 100 or so years, and has no real place there, being responsible for much of the evils that copyright has caused. If I build a house or a table, I don't get any control over how it is used once I've sold it, why should a creator have control over their work once published? Yes, of course they should receive fair compensation for the use, but control?
From my understanding, most European copyright law has a separate section for "moral rights" including the protection from degrading or defamatory use. I'm all for keeping that (and, if anything, strengthening it), but that's not the same thing as control - that's part of defamation law.
Compulsory licensing is also unlikely to actually improve competition. The arbitrator (or whatever entity decides what's "fair") adds yet another layer of bureaucracy, easily swayed by overstatements (and understatements) of value. Think of the value, according to the RIAA, of a pirated song. Contract negotiations would be even longer and more expensive, because the owner couldn't back out, so they have to continue investing time and people to dealing with the negotiations.
As discussed above, State-run licensing does exist, and does seem to function (at least on a small scale). A large part of it is that it eliminates the contract negotiations entirely - one doesn't need a contract if one can go straight to a readily available licence. But yes, there is the big issue of valuing work (which is partly why most copyright laws long-abandoned a requirement of something being artistic). It will be interesting to see if anything happens with the UK's Digital Copyright Exchange, if it ever gets set up...
Perhaps the simplest way to get around this is just to cut back copyright to 5 years, restrict it to artistic works and give up on licensing? Only something like 5% of US-registered copyright works are commercially viable after 5 years, and copyright covers considerably more stuff than is ever registered - it wouldn't have a major affect on the vast majority of copyright owners...
So in other words, Netflix streaming will soon be no better than Amazon Prime? I subscribe to Prime for the shipping services, but almost never use the streaming. If Netflix doesn't go back and kiss Starz's ass, why should I not go to a disc-only subscription, buy a Roku XS and use Prime instead?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Starz content on Netflix Streaming has always been horrible quality. Fire up Tangled, skip to the scene where the dam breaks, and listen in horror to the audio compression artifacts. I've got pretty low standards of quality, and even I'm embarrassed for Starz.
Simple - the insanity of paying someone a million dollars for a single weeks work. I know plenty of people who could have pulled off Friends for 1/1000th the price.
Just like US Elections, our entertainment is getting way too expensive.
Same here as far as the client. I did have it crash a couple of years ago but for at least the last two years it has been perfect. I am hoping this recent incident holds them on changing their prices. At least I don't think they have switched yet as my wife takes care of all the bills. uggg...im useless.
What do you think copyright is designed to do? It is designed to give a monopoly on the distribution rights of certain works. Yes, Ford has a monopoly on selling Ford stuff, but that's because of their monopoly on the use of "Ford" enforced through trademarks. The difference is that the products offered by Ford and Toyota under their monopoly brands are not different enough to create significant switching barrier. However, copyrighted works have to differ significantly to be able to be sold - if they don't, it's copyright infringement.
So yes, there is a monopoly at work here.
It's also a case of buyers and sellers negotiating a price, but realize that the market in which the negotiation takes place is not a free market. One side has significantly less bargaining power than the other.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
It's actually not that hard to get your charter account I'm sure. And that is the last step of setting up your account. Give HBO Go a shot, it's like Netflix, but free (sort of). And they have quite a bit of content. I chose it over the illegitimate sources several times. I'm all for going the easier route with piracy if need be, but have some realistic expectations about what's "impractical".
I've never had the client crash either no matter what browser I use or on the Wii. I can always find something to watch and more often than not it's not the "Starz" content. This is not an issue as far as I'm concerned. You have to take Mohammed to the mountain not the mountain to Mohammed in this case. Starz is a pretty minor player in the grand scheme of things.
I got here through a series of tubes
Starz streams, but to be able to stream natively to the TV is why I have netflix. Now I have to do some sort of media server thing to get that content onto my TV rather than a computer screen.
If it's not broken, let's fix it till it is.
sounds like Netflix and HP CEOs are drinking buddies after all. Talk about corporate suicide. Hp and Netflix both haha.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
Netflix pisses me off. We used to do the snail-mail CDROM but then got a boxee box so cancelled the CDROM delivery. Found out later you can't get the same titles streaming as you can through the mail (WTF!?). Then, I find out about Starz but most of the offerings are grade-b crap that was out prior to 1996.
I know Netflix is trying to stay above water and offering a lot of titles for a low price but c'mon. I can drive down to the video store in 5 minutes and pick up a newer title than what I can get off Netflix. If Starz leaves, it's not like the selection is going to get any worse.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
I ALMOST cancelled my Netflix account when the price for disc & streaming went up. Then I found Starz had a live stream of their network channel on Netflix. I really started to get into Torchwood Miracle Day and decided not to cancel Netflix. Now I'm pretty sure I will be closing my account, and go to a "friend" to get the show for me online for free.
The cry against cable providers is 'arggg, give me a la carte, I don't want to pay for all the crap'
But the prospect of that becoming a reality 'tiered pricing' is met with equal amounts of rage.
Yes, the obvious difference is in the former, cable overcharges by a ton and in the latter it means a price hike, but it seems amusing.
I presume it can't be as simple as "They were willing to pay $300 Million for continued access. Starz wanted them to use tiered pricing". Starz probably wouldn't accept $300 million and proposed tiered pricing as a recovery mechanism for netflix to afford whatever Starz wanted, or Starz was willing to assume the risk for the chance of that extra revenue topping $300 million.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
I think it's a great job. Starz has crap content anyhow, they can take it and go home... home with $0. Content providers complain that they are losing money, and yet they make enough to burn $300 million a year without a second thought? Lol! Good job netflix, please keep the content providers from raping you (and us by forcing you to raise prices to compensate). In fact, I agree with your stance so much, I just doubled the stocks I own in NFLX this morning.
Just like you can get a car second hand, you can get a Disney movie on DVD (new or used, or rented). Starz does not have a monopoly on Disney films. They had an agreement with Disney for pay cable TV distribution. Somehow they found a loophole that allowed them to claim Netflix as one of their customers. Disney has now closed that loophole, and said anyone who wants to stream must negotiate directly with Disney.
As to your last point, so what? Do you some sort of inherent right to get a recent episode of Camelot? No, you do not. Anti-trust regulations are meant to protect consumers from harm - no-one is being harmed by being unable to stream Disney movies. If Starz (or anyone else) had a monopoly over the entire entertainment industry then there would probably be a reasonable reason for anti-trust action. But they don't.
Yes, Disney has a monopoly on it's properties. Completely immaterial to the subject at hand. Your choice of Ford vs Toyota is exactly the same as Disney vs Universal. If you like one product more than the other, that is the one you want. And what the hell is a switching barrier? Do you mean that if you stream Disney movies there is some huge expense or technical thing preventing you from watching Universal movies? No - it is just a matter of your preference, and no-one is forced to make your wants a reality.
Please explain how one side has significantly less bargaining power in this case. If anything the consumer has way more power than Disney. Disney needs consumers. Consumers do not need Disney.
No surprise here. Netflix has been getting an incredibly cheap deal on the Starz content, and the whole deal was a little "creative" in the first place from a legal point of view.
Hollywood wants money for its content...Netflix may need to double prices to be able to sustainably offer the kind of content that its users demand.
I couldn't even activate the email account over the internet, I had to call customer service and talk to a live agent so they could set it all up before I could even begin the process of signing up for HBO Go, and due to the fact that I already have to deal with their customer service 3 times a year minimum due to service problems on a this "ridiculously overloaded node" (the level 2 tech's term, not mine) I was not going to spend another 30 minutes on the phone with them in order to do something I can do already, albeit illegally.
Why do I even need my ISP email anyway? Why is my ISP account number, name, and address not enough to sign up for the service, can they not even do the fucking verification themselves, they need me to do that for them , too, by accessing my ISP-given email account? Hell, the link on HBO's site didn't even work with my ISP's web site, I had to click through about half a dozen links just to find out what I needed from Charter in order to verify I really pay for HBO. Even if the process had worked, it's still a whole lot easier to just get the shit via torrent, and I get to keep it when I'm done watching to boot.
Yes, consumers do not need Disney. They also don't need the Internet, cable, a fancy house or even clothes. Let's just dispense with the discussion of need and say that someone wants something, and they have roughly identified what it is they want.
In this case, just for the sake of argument, let's say that that's a well-written animated movie that was released in the last 5 years, appropriate for kids and adults of all ages. Shouldn't be hard, right? Well, for a very large section of population, that's Pixar, and therefore Disney. For a lot of people, this means that a Netflix contract with Starz is the only way that they're going to get what they're looking for through Netflix. The switching barrier is that only one distributor has the story that they're looking for, and switching distributor is completely pointless.
Can you settle for something else? Sure. I mean, I can watch Star Trek for a couple of hours without noticing time go by. But I will have changed product. It's like walking into a hardware store looking for a hammer, and walking out with a saw because no one within 100 miles carries a hammer. Sure, they're both handy tools, but I'm changing my woodworking plans.
You can argue that the movie situation is similar to Ford versus Toyota, although I would say that you're missing the visceral connection that people have with stories, as opposed to with things. No one says "That Ford truck speaks to me". Many people say "That movie speaks to me".
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
In his defense he said effort, not results.
Because Netflix is evil because they don't support linux (and $OBSCURE_OS_TWO_PEOPLE_IN_TOTAL_USE) and they make you pay for it, whether you want it or not!
They should totally eat any increased cost of operations and not pass it on to us poor customers! Once they set their prices they should never have been allowed to change them, ever!
"Netflix basically just said, "Meh, we'll take the money we were going to give to you and give it to someone else for their content." Starz is not the only game in town. It's not even the best game in town. And now everybody knows how much is too much. It's just hardball."
I'd argue that Starz cut an incredibly cheap (and perhaps stupid) deal with Netflix that allowed Netflix to start an unsustainable business model with pricing to the consumer that is too low. Everyone in Hollywood felt the Starz/Netflix deal was too cheap.
Look at the cable retrans fees, ~$4/sub/month for ESPN, ~$1/sub/month for many broadcast networks. It is not surprising that Starz wants ~$1/sub/month for their movies.
and i JUST canceled starz from my cable service as it was available via netflix.
...
Roku supports both subtitles and closed captioning.
Apparently, Netflix doesn't support either on the Roku.
Just because a device supports feature x does not mean that a third party service supports feature x on that device.
The biggest difference is that Netflix can say, "Ah, but only X number of our subscribers watched your content." That is, they can probably look Starz right in the eye and say, "Only two million of our 22 million subscribers actually looked at your content." Which I think would be about right.
Cable makes some assumptions about how much various services get used. Netflix can point to actual data, not assumptions. It changes the negotiations quite a bit.
And I know that as a Netflix subscriber, when I see that something is from Starz, I tend to avoid it. It tends to be low quality. If I wanted low quality, I'd watch it on cable.
The netflix clients are phenomenal? How does a 'phenomenal' client max out my 2.8GHz processor to display a *paused* video? That and it routinely takes over a minute for the Silverlight-based client to even load itself, let alone start loading the content.
If it's not on Netflix I probably won't bother.
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
And it is short sighted fighting like that which makes piracy so attractive. I think with a lot of consumers, it is not about the cost, but about getting a consistant service with the content they want and the knowledge that said content will still be there tomorrow. All of this 'well, maybe you will be able to finish watching that series IF someone we don't control says it is ok' just drives people away.
Wow, sucks to be you I guess. I've been watching tons of anime off crunchyroll for the past few months and haven't had any problems. It even works well on my phone and tablet. I loves me some crunchyroll...
Their Android client is flaky as anything. PS3 client works ok (though their UI redesign is atrocious). When it does handle network traffic at all, it tends to handle it well (though I wish it could be configured to wait for better quality from the get go instead of starting crappy and then upping the quality). They have been afflicted by EC2 outages more than I would like.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The deal expires in 2012. February 28th, to be exact. They now have 5 months to play out the drama, point fingers, etc. In the mean-time, Netflix will sign other deals. When Starz realizes their stock value will also go down after losing Netflix's potential revenue, they both kiss and sign a new contract.
And in the end, nothing will be different.
In the business world, many enemies work together for the common good of money.
Bearded Dragon
The original deal with Netflix and Starz was negotiated for $30 million a year four years ago. Now with a new deal between Netflix and Starz analysts would expect it to cost around $200-300 million.
10 times the cost from previously?! doubling the cost would be a bit much but 10 times the previous amount?! saying you will go as low as seven time the previous amount is really shitty negotiation tactics. i'm glad Netflix turned them down because this level of greed is INSANE.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
A minor quibble, but most hotel internet has been pretty poor in my experience, often to the point of being almost unusable, especially in the evenings and early mornings when everyone is using it.
And Netflix streams well enough that "crappy DSL" can handle it on my TV.
MSIE: The world's most standards-complaint web browser.
Toss in ads to that model, a la HuluPlus.
Say for the 23 minute episode, they insert 4x 30 second ads, bringing the show to 25 minutes total.
they can now auction off a 30 second spot for a show THEY KNOW is being purchased by 25 million viewers.
Instead of charging a company 400K for that 30 second spot, they could do a few unique things with it:
- Split up the stream into demographic niches, allowing one company to purchase the 30-50yr old single male viewers, and maybe advertise eHarmony, etc.
- Charge on a per view basis to the ad companies. @ 400K, the one company was only paying $0.016 per view. They could increase that to $0.10 per view, while offering the tighter niches, and even if they only sold 5 million of those views, they already beat the 400K they made from the bulk sale.
You misunderstand. Say for example a movie on DVD has black bars at the top and bottom, because it was shot in a wider format than 16:9. Were I to load that movie on Netflix, and it was being provided by Starz, the left and right sides would be cropped in order to display the movie in a 16:9 format without any black bars.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Like the 60 billion wasted of the 240 billion given to private contractors in Iraq and Afganistan. That has been the largest fraud perpetrated on we taxpayers so far.
Government contracts aren't so much a joke as are the thieves who steal from the taxpayers and the government officials too embedded with multinational corporations to look after the interests of the taxpayers. We need better oversight for the citizens.
Ford does have a monopoly - on Ford Focus – nobody else can make them. But you are right – Toyota makes the Corolla which is a close substitute for a Focus – both are small cars that will get to where you need to go. If you go to a rental agency hoping to rent a Focus and all they have are Corollas - most people would not complain too hard and would rent the Corolla instead. I know few people who pine for a Focus. Bently is another matter.
Starz’s has a monopoly on streaming Pixar’s Nemo. Netflix could go and steam Dreamwork’s Shark Tale – another children’s animated movie. Is this a close substitute? I think not. If I want to watch Nemo and they offer me Shark Tale I would decline.
Is Starz a monopoly? For our perspective - the consumer - no. We have choices – other steaming services, a new DVD, a used DVD, etc. Or, heck, different entertainment options.
From Netflix? Yes – it is. They can’t buy used DVDs of Nemo and steam them. They can negotiate a deal with Starz or try to convince their customer’s that Nemo is just not that important.
Which takes me back to my original point. Is Netflix / Starz a monopoly / monopsony? No – but their relationship share characteristics of one.
That's OK. They aren't losing high-quality content.
Just commercial superfluity from Disney and Sony.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The problem is that people are using the term 'monopoly' with some even going so far as suggesting government action for something that is in no way a monopoly. Let's take the example of a real monopoly - Standard Oil. Time was, if you wanted oil, you had no choice but to buy Standard Oil. Not if you wanted 'Esso Oil', or '93 octane gasoline', or 'oil delivered directly to my house', or anything like that. Just oil - all of it. They got that way by various means designed to eliminate any competitors, such as buying and dismantling them, pricing deals with railroads, etc. This meant it was virtually impossible to be in the oil business if you were not Standard Oil.
Now look at what we are talking about here: Are you complaining about Starz controlling the entire entertainment industry? No. The entire movie industry? No. The entire well-written, family movie industry? No. The entire well-written, family, animated movie industry? No. The entire well-written, family, animated Disney/Pixar movies industry? No (you can watch them on TV, buy or rent DVDs, etc). The entire well-written, family, animated Disney/Pixar movies delivered via the internet industry? (No, Amazon carries Disney/Pixar movies). The entire well-written, family, animated Disney/Pixar movies delivered via the internet on Netflix industry? Bingo!
And what anti-competitive actions did Starz take to cause their big monopoly? None. Netflix is free to negotiate their own deal with Disney, they just don't want to.
Do they have good benefits over there?
401k? What's parking like?
-- Sig under construction...
first the price increase and now less content? frustrating...
makes pirate bay and/or cable seem more appealing.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Wow, a lot of bullshit in there, isn't there? Let's start with the "need to control" thing that has "crept in" to copyright. Yep, that is brand new alright. I mean there is nothing even vaguely like ability to control in this statement "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;", is there? If 'exclusive Right' doesn't mean ability to control, what the hell does it mean?
Since all of the rest of your bullshit arguments stem from that error, they are all meaningless.
Of course, the real villain here is copyright. Not the law, but the idea that it gives publishers complete control over their works (rather than just being a way to help them make a reasonable return). It means that publishers like Starz feel entitled to demand whatever price they want for their content, or flat-out refuse to license it - particularly if they'd rather you spent $10/mo on their service (even though you only want to watch the odd show), rather than paying Netflix $x/mo, of which only a fraction will end back at Starz.
Sadly, the only way around this (short of having very strict and rigorously-enforced anti-trust laws - which take a long time to work; the initial complaint against MS above was made in 1994 - an appeal is still pending) is compulsory licensing.
Actually, I was thinking: another equitable way might be if they set some kind of limit on how long an individual or party can hold copyright on a work. Like instead of the current system, where the copyright holder has exclusive control over the work in perpetuity, maybe copyright could be limited to 10 or 20 years... That way, content distributors would at least have plenty of older material to run. Copyright owners would still have some leverage with their new and recent material, but with competing material out of copyright, and limited time for them to profit on their new material, their position would be reduced from one of absolute power to something more reasonable.
Bow-ties are cool.
To watch the 100 or so episodes of "Have Gun - Will Travel" that are left in my queue.
That is not a sentence.
Bow-ties are cool.
i guess its because of the large volume of content that one of the largest digital distributors is loosing right? Help me out here. Otherwise its just a content retailer loosing the right to content. Netflix lost its novelty to me after youtube started distributing movies.
Just like you can get a car second hand, you can get a Disney movie on DVD (new or used, or rented). Starz does not have a monopoly on Disney films. They had an agreement with Disney for pay cable TV distribution. Somehow they found a loophole that allowed them to claim Netflix as one of their customers. Disney has now closed that loophole, and said anyone who wants to stream must negotiate directly with Disney.
So Disney is enforcing its distribution monopoly on its content... which is the problem, caused by copyright, that I was identifying as being at the heart of this issue. As for the renting issue, renting and streaming are legally very different (at least in the US) - renting is perfectly legal (provided the DVD was legally bought in the first place), but streaming requires a licence. This is why Netflix was able to set up in the first place; it just needed to buy a load of DVDs, no need to worry about getting licence agreements with Hollywood et al.. This contrasts with the EU, where renting *is* covered by copyright, and does require a licence, so legally I can't rent a Disney DVD without Disney licensing that.
However, Starz (the cable company) does have a monopoly on Starz (the film company) films. That's where the issue of competition comes in; you have one company acting as both publisher and distributor, meaning it gets favourable distribution deals, and will do what it can to block other distribution methods.
As to your last point, so what? Do you some sort of inherent right to get a recent episode of Camelot? No, you do not. Anti-trust regulations are meant to protect consumers from harm - no-one is being harmed by being unable to stream Disney movies. If Starz (or anyone else) had a monopoly over the entire entertainment industry then there would probably be a reasonable reason for anti-trust action. But they don't.
I certainly didn't wish to imply the existence of any inherent rights... but look at it from the other point of view; the episode exists, it is published, it can easily (almost without effort and expense) be made available to the public - the only thing stopping this is the government-given restriction, saying that only Starz (et al.) can do so. Similarly, I don't have any inherent right to drink water, but if a government decided to grant a certain company an exclusive right to give people water (outlawing any other way of accessing) that would certainly raise eyebrows...
The anti-trust comment was more aimed at the issue of bundling; i.e. to watch film A you must subscribe to service B (or to play game C2, you must use service O); where a company abuses its monopoly over distributing certain content (to which it owns the copyright or has appropriate licenses) by restricting the legal ways of accessing that content to specific services. Now, some people would say that that's fair enough, and their right; my point was the emphasise that this entire issue stems from an "unnatural" set of laws, which aren't doing their job properly any more (discussed further below).
""Only two million of our 22 million subscribers actually looked at your content." Which I think would be about right."
I suspect every one of the 22 million subs with kids has streamed "Toy Story 3"....the Starz deal provided new Sony and Disney movies. In fact, Starz accounted for half of the top 50 streaming movie titles for Netflix in 2009 and 2010.
Just like you can get a car second hand, you can get a Disney movie on DVD (new or used, or rented).
But you can't watch them via a streamed connection as the case against Zediva has shown. Zediva bought individual discs and streamed them on a one-to-one basis to users. For all intents the user had rented a real physical disc but because it was streamed over a network the courts deemed it a violation of copyright. So no, streaming companies cannot just buy used or new discs from just anyone. This would be the same as requiring all used car lots to buy their cars from the licensed dealer (no car auctions, no trade-ins, no private purchases).
Ok, now we're confusing "means" and "end". So, let's start with the US Constitution:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
The "end" of copyright is to "promote ... useful arts". The means for doing so is by giving "for limited Times" certain "exclusive Right[s]." It doesn't say "To give authors control over their works..." That's a hint that this isn't about control.
Looking at pretty much any modern copyright law, there are three very clear ways to spot that the laws aren't about control. Firstly, they're time-limited. If copyright was about giving creators control, it would either last indefinitely, or as long as the creator lived - so they could control their work. This is particularly obvious in the early copyright laws were the duration was anything from 14 years to 5. In fact, in the Constitution quoted above, there's that "limited time" part, highlighting this.
Secondly, copyright isn't absolute. While the early copyright acts (the British Copyright Act 1709, US Copyright Act 1790) didn't contain them, defences to copyright cropped up fairly quickly (with "fair abridgement", the precursor to "fair use" being created in 1740, in Gyles v Wilcox. These days they tend to be enshrined in legislation (fair use is in the 1976 US Copyright Act and the UK's Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has a whole host of "permitted acts"). Again, if copyright was about control, why would there be exceptions and defences? This takes away control from creators.
Thirdly (perhaps the weakest argument) copyright is transferable or revocable. It can be bought and sold like any other intangible property (at least, in some jurisdictions; some or all of it in others are bound to the creator); this gives creators control over their works by allowing them to give up control over it. That seems a rather odd way of doing so.
Of course, when I wrote that comment I didn't have the US Constitution in mind; I was thinking of the original Copyright Act 1709 (8 Anne c.21, often referred to as simply the Statute of Anne), or to give it its full title:
An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned.
Again, this is about "encouraging learning", not about giving authors control. In fact, if you read the text (which I recommend, it's a good read; particularly comparing it with modern copyright laws) the purpose it gives (along with the above) is to prevent booksellers and publishers from printing works to the "very great Detriment" of authors and the "Ruin of them and their Families." In order to fix this, it gives authors (or those who would become known as copyright owners) the "sole Liberty of Printing and Reprinting" their books for 14 years (subject to some qualifications about price and registration). [If it helps, the 1790 Act was mostly copied (ah, the irony) from the 1709 Act.]
To me, this implies that copyright was originally about money, not control. It was a means to ensure that authors had the first chance at getting a reasonable financial return on their books, not a means to give them complete control over their works.
Anyway, I hope some of this will help convince you that copyright isn't entirely about control (or wasn't originally), but by giving copyright owners some limited control (as a means to an end), has led them to feel entitled to greater control. Perhaps that might encourage you to revise your opinion of my post...
How is Disney enforcing it's rights a 'problem'? It is the whole freaking point of copyright law. Disney (and the other studios) create those movies (which people apparently absolutely MUST have) for one and only one reason - to make as much money as possible. Do you really think that they would have made those movies (or will continue to make movies) if they don't have the ability to sell them for whatever price the market will bear? If so, you are incredibly naive.
I don't really care if Starz appears as a monopoly to Netflix or not. My discussion of DVD buying and renting was meant to rebut the case that Netflix/Starz have some sort of monopoly on Disney movies as far as the consumer is concerned.
Starz makes exclusive content? So what? So do ABC, NBC, CBS, HBO, etc. The fact that SOME of them may decide to license SOME of their content to SELECTED outlets doesn't change the fact that none of the have to do that. Your idiotic proposal would mean that NBC should be forced to allow CBS to air its shows, thereby negating the whole point of NBC existing in the first place. Netflix is perfectly capable of creating it's own content and not licensing that to Starz or Amazon if it so desires.
You are using loaded words like 'monopoly' and 'anti-trust' and 'abusing position' entirely inappropriately. First, to 'abuse your position', you must have an actual position to abuse. That is you must be completely dominant in an industry. No-one that is being discussed counts. No, having a so-called 'monopoly' on your own products does not count, ever. Abuse of position occurs when you use your dominant position in one area to engage in anti-competitive behavior in another area. If Starz was the ONLY TV network, then it could abuse it's position by only allowing it's own content to be shown, locking out other studios.
I am not talking about what some company can do, I am talking about what consumers can do. And you can stream them, Amazon does it.
How is Disney enforcing it's rights a 'problem'? It is the whole freaking point of copyright law.
Disney enforces its copyrights => Starz removes all its content from Netflix (a) => A large number of people lose their primary access to Starz (and related content) => Fewer people view said content, (b) => Starz makes less money => Starz is able to fund less new content.
So if, like me, you think that copyright should be about encouraging the creation and dissemination of artistic works... it's failed rather spectacularly.
Disney (and the other studios) create those movies (which people apparently absolutely MUST have) for one and only one reason - to make as much money as possible. Do you really think that they would have made those movies (or will continue to make movies) if they don't have the ability to sell them for whatever price the market will bear?
Which is, again, getting means and end the wrong way around. Copyright is about encouraging creation of works by giving creators the chance to make some money out of it, not about making it easier for companies to make more money (or it is in those places where art is about art, rather than a mere investment). Whichever way you look at it, here Starz have chosen to *not* make money from their content. The market (in this case, Netflix) isn't willing to bear the price they're offering, and so rather than offer a lower price, they're simply shutting down that revenue stream. This is an example of copyright failing utterly.
Starz makes exclusive content? So what? So do ABC, NBC, CBS, HBO, etc. The fact that SOME of them may decide to license SOME of their content to SELECTED outlets doesn't change the fact that none of the have to do that. Your idiotic proposal would mean that NBC should be forced to allow CBS to air its shows, thereby negating the whole point of NBC existing in the first place.
And again I find myself needing to note the difference between producers and distributors. I admit it is confusing as often (with TV) they are the same - which is why issues with competition arise. It's slightly different over here, where TV tends to be made by production companies and then sold to the broadcasters (we don't really have "networks"). Allowing CBS to show stuff created "for" or "by" NBC does not negate NBC; it means that you split up producer and distributor. The networks still get to choose what to show, when to show it, how to charge for it, how to package it etc., and so have to offer a competitive service to both producers (if they want 'better' deals than the compulsory licence) and to customers (who aren't forced into buying a package with a hundred channels if they want to watch a particular 30-minutes-a-week of programming).
First, to 'abuse your position', you must have an actual position to abuse. That is you must be completely dominant in an industry. ... having a so-called 'monopoly' on your own products does not count, ever.
This would be where I disagree; but as this is a disagreement in definition, and I'm not an expert in business terminology etc. or anti-trust law, there doesn't seem to be much point in pursuing this as I'm likely not using the terms in the correct, legal context and manner.
Since I had never, EVER heard of Starz before this article, I thought it was rather trivial. Interesting to know how many licenses they apparently own.
I am not devoid of humor.
Starz might switch to another CDN such as XBox or Roku, or maybe both (like Hulu is doing now). Epix, the subscription movie channel currently available through Roku, would most certainly leave and then make itself available via cable TV (it actually is however, just not widely available).
Funny...it doesn't do that on any system in my house. That's two main boxes, 1 X-box 360, 1 Wii, and a laptop. My wife's box is a bootcamped i3 iMac running Snow Leopard and Windows XP, my box is an i7 running Linux and Windows 7 (mostly Linux). Not a single crash, not a single problem.
Don't know what to tell you, but I have had nothing but good experiences with Netflix streaming.
"We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be." - Joss Whedon via Angel
Wait, let me amend that: I can't stream natively in Linux, I have to Wine it up or use a VM.
"We live as though the world were as it should be, to show it what it can be." - Joss Whedon via Angel
Hear, Hear.
Sorry, I don't know you, but I've just seen this "typo" (which it isn't, hence the quotes) too many times today. What, did someone on Cracked or Slate or something just print an article with this same mistake? Nothing personal. Just trying to clean the place up a little bit.
Fair enough. I was typing faster than I was thinking. Apologies.
Buy a multicore computer? Why are you stuck in 2007?
I have never seen the Netflix client max out even a single core on my C2Q.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Comcast purposely makes Netflix into shit on their network, so he could be a Comcrap customer.
Comcast refuses to allow a Netflix server on their internal network, and has perpetually maxed out internet uplinks which would make Netflix utter crap. They do this to avoid the competition with their premium streaming.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Disney has now closed that loophole, and said anyone who wants to stream must negotiate directly with Disney.
If that is the case, why was Starz trying to negotiate a deal with Netflix to stream Disney stuff for $300M? If Starz can't do that...you better let Disney know that they were trying, as this is what the story is about.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?