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."

Comments

Makes cord cutting that much easier

[Crashmarik]

Content with adds is most of what you pay the cable company twice for.

Re:Makes cord cutting that much easier

[markdavis]

>"Content with adds is most of what you pay the cable company twice for."

No, because I record everything on a TiVo and skip whatever I want. I haven't been forced to watch ads for 25 years and won't start now. Perhaps some people can tolerate it, I can't. This is why "streaming" is particularly dangerous- it is easy for a service to start adding ads that can't be skipped or fast-forwarded through.

Haven't listened to ad-laden radio for just as long.

Re:Makes cord cutting that much easier

[Tom]

I haven't been forced to watch ads for 25 years and won't start now.

This is how I feel about the Internet. I cringe every time I sit on some computer that doesn't have an adblocker installed, and I wonder how the heck do these people get anything done and not get seizures or something?

Once you get rid of ads in a part of your life, you understand just how much of an annoyance they are and you don't want to go back. In fact, I'd like to get rid of them in many more ways. Someone invented a prototype of glasses that filters out billboards. I'd buy that if it became available.

Not available in your country

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems Google didn't make these available after all.

Re:Not available in your country

[j-beda]

Seems Google didn't make these available after all.

I wonder if this is likely to increase piracy of the movies in question that are "video blocked in country".

"Hey, that Stan Lee thing seems interesting."

"Oh, not available. :-("

"I wonder if there is a torrent...."

Re:Not available in your country

[grep -v '.*' *]

"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.

Re:Not available in your country

[JaredOfEuropa]

Of course it does. In my case it does so for ebooks, or rather it used to do so.
"We're sorry but this ebook is not available in your country (but we are happy to ship a hardcopy)"
Oh well maybe I can fool it by paying with credit card... Nope
Ok, maybe I can fool it by using PayPal and entering the address of some random US hotel... Nope
Oh look, the Pirate Bay has the torrent.

I do try to buy my stuff legally. Music is generally available these days, legally, with decent terms, no DRM, at a decent price... the last time I actually pirated music must be 15 years ago. And it looks like the ebook publishers - unlike the movie industry - are learning hard lessons in a hurry. But if you refuse to sell to me in my country, for whatever messed up reason (I don't really care what it is), then I will pirate your stuff, with a hearty f*ck you and a bottle of rum. And guess what: that was the position my government held as well, until the EU forced them otherwise.

Video not available.

[Hamsterdan]

And content producers are probably still wondering why people download stuff

Trying to compete...

[b0s0z0ku]

Trying to compete with Kodi and the Pirate Bay?

Re:Trying to compete...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

In the meantime

[bobstreo]

Criterion Collection (AKA WarnerMedia) has announced their plans to make their entire collection available for $9.99 a month or $89.99 for a year (for charter subscribers) to replace FilmStruck. It will be known as the Criterion Channel.

https://www.criterion.com/curr...

Bio-Dome? I don't even think they play that on cable.

Not Available On Your Country.

[martiniturbide]

Take that "Rest of the World" !!!!

Hmm.

[Presence Eternal]

Hackers, heh, I need to watch that again now that I know better.

I was pleased while rewatching Wargames though. It has aged well since it was pretty good about using actual hacking techniques.

Rewatching Manhattan Project was...weird. Totally fine film in and of itself, but man, the world is a very different place now.

...by country

[Tom]

Not everyone gets to watch. They are all blocked in my country. Maybe some of the 99 aren't but I didn't try them all. Those I checked are all marked as "not available in your country".

*sigh*... ok, here comes the VPN. Why they do such nonsense to us?

Need to fix the ads first

[hackertourist]

In about 50% of ads I see on YouTube, the player fails to return to the video I want to watch at the end of the ad. I have to reload the page.

Please combine them.

[kaoshin]

We need a terminator+hackers crossover sequel where the believed to be crashed Gibson is acquired as an asset of Cyberdyne Systems, and naked people come from the future to hang out with Mac PowerBook users who are mankind's last hope.

Re:They Need More Revenue...

[Anonymous Coward]

And don't forget the POQZMQ channels and the HJMQZGG channels, not to mention the ever popular GIOWWE channels.

Re:If applied intelligently, it could be great

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

“Rocky” was a great movie

[93 Escort Wagon]

Thank goodness Stallone and his team didn’t succumb to avarice and produce any cookie-cutter sequels.