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Google Strikes Deal With Paramount

redletterdave writes about more movies being made available on Youtube's rental service. From the article: "Google announced a new deal with Paramount Pictures on Tuesday, which will make more than 500 movie titles available for rental on YouTube and the new Google Play platform. The deal was made even though Google is still embroiled in a four-year-old legal battle over copyrights with Paramount's parent company, Viacom. The latest deal means Google has rental deals with five of the six major Hollywood studios, including Paramount, Warner Bros., Disney, Universal Pictures, and Sony Pictures. The lone exception is 20th Century Fox, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Google will only make these titles available for rent; the search giant has not yet made a decision to sell any movies it licenses, despite pressure from major Hollywood studios looking to compensate for poor DVD sales."

5 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I'll stick with Netflix streaming, thanks by geekoid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Except netflix keep loosing content, and getting farther behind.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  2. Make your own alternative to Paramount by tepples · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The digital restrictions management was dictated by Paramount and the other major motion picture studios. So the only way to escape DRM like this in the long run is to find some way to produce and promote an independent film comparable in production quality to those of the major studios. How is this most efficiently done?

    1. Re:Make your own alternative to Paramount by Bigby · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Or buy Paramount and change their distribution

  3. Sumner Redstone by tepples · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Viacom's market capitalisation is $27B

    Are you describing a hostile takeover? I thought the publicly traded portion of Viacom was a minority stake, and Viacom and CBS were still majority owned by Sumner Redstone. As for Apple, if Apple were to buy any movie studio, it would probably be Disney, due to connections between the companies through the estate of Steve Jobs.

  4. Re:Too late for me by RyoShin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I just pirate all I can. [...] I have no intention of giving the studios any money until they stop trying to take away my ownership right

    So how about just not watching the movie? I can completely side with you on not supporting the media companies. They're an unscrupulous and greedy lot. But then you go and download the movie anyway. True, you're not depriving anyone of anything, and I'm not chastising you for pirating; but, when you do that, you completely lose any credence in what appears to be a boycott/protest. Plus, someone out there tracks torrent hits, and that goes to show some sort of interest/consumption on some manager's desk, even if it's not monetary.

    It's like saying you are going to protest/boycott the Mars company and then steal a Snickers bar or ask a friend to buy a Snicker's bar for you. Again, it's not about the method of obtaining something, it's about the hypocrisy at hand. You may want to ask yourself just why you do these things, and just how useful your position vs. actions are.

    To me, it seems like a weird reverse of the NIMBY crowd--they want cheap, local, 'safe' energy, but not when it takes up their roof or makes noise when it spins or has an extremely low risk of radiation spilling out.