Slashdot Mirror
YouTube Now Streams Free Ad-Supported Movies -- Including 'The Terminator' and 'Hackers' (techcrunch.com)
YouTube's "Movies & Shows" page added a "Free to Watch" section last month. They're trying to compete with free ad-supported online movie offerings from Roku, Walmart, and Tubi, while "Amazon is rumored to be working on something similar," reports TechCrunch:
Before, YouTube had only offered consumers the ability to purchase movies and TV shows, similar to how you can rent or buy content from Apple's iTunes or Amazon Video.... Currently, YouTube is serving ads on these free movies, but the report said the company is open to working out other deals with advertisers -- like sponsorships or exclusive screenings.
YouTube's advantage in this space, compared with some others, is its sizable user base of 1.9 billion monthly active users and its ability to target ads using data from Google.
The 99 free movies include the first five Rocky movies, and four movies in the Pink Panther series (all from the post-Peter Sellers era, including the forgotten 1993 film in which the title theme is sung by Bobby McFerrin), as well as Pauly Shore's dreadful 1996 comedy Bio-Dome (which received a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Also available is James Cameron's original 1984 film The Terminator, the 2010 documentary With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story and the 1995 film "Hackers" starring Angelina Jolie.
"In this cyberpunk thriller, a renegade group of elite teenage computer hackers rollerblade through New York City by day and ride the information highway by night. After hacking into a high-stakes industrial conspiracy, they become prime suspects and must recruit the best of the cybernet underground to help clear their names."
YouTube's advantage in this space, compared with some others, is its sizable user base of 1.9 billion monthly active users and its ability to target ads using data from Google.
The 99 free movies include the first five Rocky movies, and four movies in the Pink Panther series (all from the post-Peter Sellers era, including the forgotten 1993 film in which the title theme is sung by Bobby McFerrin), as well as Pauly Shore's dreadful 1996 comedy Bio-Dome (which received a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Also available is James Cameron's original 1984 film The Terminator, the 2010 documentary With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story and the 1995 film "Hackers" starring Angelina Jolie.
"In this cyberpunk thriller, a renegade group of elite teenage computer hackers rollerblade through New York City by day and ride the information highway by night. After hacking into a high-stakes industrial conspiracy, they become prime suspects and must recruit the best of the cybernet underground to help clear their names."
Because they just demonetized every MGTOW channel in existence.
Trying to compete with Kodi and the Pirate Bay?
No, because it looks like these are 480p.
Reliving my 1980's childhood with low quality video, complete with ads isn't really my thing.
For the public, this could mean finding lost classics
archive.org already has been filling that need. They archive classic movies for posterity, without ads and other nonsense youtube foists.
"Hey, that Stan Lee thing seems interesting." :-("
"Oh, not available.
"I wonder if there is a torrent...."
Obligatory Link: I tried to watch Game of Thrones and this is what happened.
I don't know of an XKCD link, sorry about that.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
Out of curiosity I wanted to see if YouTube would let me watch one of these videos the other day. While not surprised even these old movies YouTube is requiring me to install a digital management restriction component for. I obviously turned down the demand. This component would have compromised the security of my computer and I wasn't about to go down that path. For those who aren't aware you are giving an untrustworthy entity full control of your system and they can pretty much do whatever they want with it. There is no source code or oversight. If something doesn't work nobody can fix it either. Only the company that wrote the proprietary component can fix bugs, add features, etc.
Fortunately there are alternatives to YouTube that seem to be working pretty well. I tried out LBRY.io the other day and it worked nearly exactly the same as YouTube. The main difference is lbry.io is a free software application that requires installation. It's also decentralized and enables people to upload content for sale or to offer wise offer up on the network for free. It worked great and doesn't require any DRM.