I'm sick of goddamned streaming services

You paid a subscription to netflix (which you still have). Netflix paid the owners of Buffy for broadcast rights that were limited to a certain period. The owners felt they could generate more income at the end of that agreement using other channels.

Currently Amazon has it on a new service called FullScreen for $6/month. The first month is free. Fullscreen looks rather good.

I have no sympathy for your lack of respect for others' property, but this attitude seems common among people here. Why is this?

That Amazon service wasn't an option at the time. And again, I paid for two licenses to watch the media, why should I have to pay for a third? I only received access to watch 93% of the material which I paid for. I tried watching the remaining 7% on Hulu, but Hulu literally made it impossible for me to do so. Do you think it's reasonable to require someone to pay for three identical media licenses just to watch the remaining 7% of the media for which they already purchased? I paid my fair share, the property owners put unreasonable restrictions on my ability to access the content to which I was entitled, and so I pursued other options. I cannot steal something I paid to watch.

When content owners place unreasonable or arbitrary restrictions on access to their content, consumers will find alternatives. Again, the TV/movie industry should take a page out of the music industry's book and actually work to lessen those unreasonable/arbitrary restrictions. I can't honestly remember the last time I've pirated a song, and that's because I can easily access 99% of the songs I want to listen to on services that I pay for.

Boo hoo.

You paid a subscription to a channel with lots of media. If you no longer value that channel's content, cancel it.

The content owners place whatever restrictions on their content that they can negotiate with the content delivery channels.

WTF are you talking about music? You don't think they have restrictions? Try putting up a vid on Youtube with any background music that you might have purchased for personal use.

The feeling of entitlement to free entertainment from all comers to this thread is disappointing. I thought better of you.

If I pay for a service and can only watch the first 10 minutes of each episode, you don't see that as a problem? As I stated, I tried watching the remainder of the show on Hulu, but it did not work. Why should I have to pay for additional licenses just to be able to access the license I am already paying for?

To give you a more tangible example--if you purchased a movie on DVD and you couldn't watch the last 20 minutes, would you just suck it up and figure "hey this is the license I paid for--if the content owner didn't want me to watch the last 20 minutes, who am I to argue? I'll just buy a second DVD if I really want to finish the movie."

Music definitely has restrictions, but between the music services I pay for (Spotify and Sirius), I have never ran into an issue with not being able to access content. Hence my statement that I couldn't remember when I last pirated music--I haven't needed to because I pay for all the music that I could ever want to listen to. And anything not on those services is usually on YouTube as part of the artist's official channel--sure, I might have to watch a commercial, but I still have access to it. All I'm saying is that the TV/movie industry would do well to emulate the music industry's model.

yes I see a problem: your feeling of entitlement.

I'd cancel the service and ask for a refund for the current period (unless of course you feel you still receive good value for your money). If it were a DVD I'd exchange it or get a refund. I wouldn't seek the service for free from a thief.

^Can't get exchanges or refunds for dvds.

Horseshit.

Wallyworld's policy:

Costco's policy:

DVDs are not excluded from their return anytime policy.

Amazon's policy.

They'll only give 50% refunds on opened DVDs etc. But full replacement for a damaged DVD should not be questioned.

Random online DVD store "DVD Planet":

Essentially, it is just the new market reality and networks are pissing in the wind if they think it will change. Yes, I know they miss the good old days when they made money hand over fist but those days are gone. The choice is now free or paying a very marginal fee. If they choose to make their fee higher than very marginal then millions upon millions will opt for free. Fuck'em. That's their reality if they like it or not.

Movie and TV productions are many orders of magnitude more expensive than recording music and having someone lay a beat (produce it) and upload to youtube.

The distribution channels for video, movies theaters, legitimate streaming services, are many orders of magnitude more expensive due to bandwidth and facilities requirements.

The argument that piracy is a market force and will render videos free is specious. The nature of music is such that people will flock to a live performance after seeing/hearing a freely distributed music video (and making money for the artists from ad revenue on services like YouTube), or hearing it on a service like spotify/pandora (which do generate income for artists). Movies and television productions do not have live performance to fall back on; you cannot successfuly argue more people will go to movie theaters after streaming a pirated copy of the movie.

Yeah, I mean, how's an animated show going to be able to do a live show? Who'd go see that? Oh, wait...



(You knew that was coming, right?)

The simple fact of the matter is that if media creators want to stay relevant, they're going to have to change their business model and recognize that if they don't provide legitimate means for people to get content, people are going to seek out alternative means, or completely ignore them. And frankly, folks like Lucas, who only want certain versions of their content available, are walking away from money on the table. Were George to provide copies of the unretouched OT, in the kind of quality which you can find them on pirated sites, he (or rather Disney), would make piles of money, because people would buy them.

Right now, a number of the networks (not pirates) are providing 24-hour streams of some of their programs on YouTube for free. They're doing this because they recognize that it's a way to attract eyeballs to their content. The old business models are going to have to go away, the networks can't continue to put out things in the same manner, because the world is moving on. If they think that we still live in a world where they can pump out dreck, and people will watch it because it's the only thing they have available to them, they'll quickly find themselves supplanted by other creators.

Right now, there's lots of fan-produced content for things like Star Trek, which have production values close to the original series. There's even some wholly original content which is starting to come out that has production values better than what someone doing in their basement 30 years could do. It hasn't quite gained popular attention yet, but that will happen. It won't be funded by traditional methods and models, and won't be available on the broadcast or cable networks. If it's easier to get, and the quality is just as good, as what is produced by the big entertainment companies, it will wipe them from the map. That's the free market in action.

Table readings of Family Guy scripts is not a viable business for an animated series. Licensed toys might be. But this requires the concept of intellectual property. So do the table readings.

Maybe money isn't Lucas' sole inspiration. Oh wait, he sold the franchise to disney.

Kilometres already gave an example of Buffy, and how he was forced to resort to pirated streams to view the last episodes. I demonstrated how this wasn't necessary.

Joss Whedon has not stayed relevant by giving his content away for free. He has stayed relevant by bringing in revenue.

Yes, some content is provided for free; it's called marketing. Similarly Netflix will have the early seasons of a series but for the later seasons it's often necessary to go to Amazon and buy seasons a-la-carte.

Have you got a meaningful example of something you weren't able to see for a reasonable price other than free?

This feeling of entitlement you have for others' property, what does it stem from? Do you believe as K does that intellectual property rights don't exist.

Me getting ready for Star Trek: Discovery exclusively on CBS All Access tonight:

For now. In the '70s, the only TV show cast you could expect to see touring around the country and putting in personal appearances at events were the TOS members. Now, lots of shows are doing it. (Erin Grey of Buck Rogers fame runs a booking service that arranges many appearances for sci-fi actors, BTW.) This trend is going to continue, simply because the only way you can beat out the other guys, is by offering people something they can't get anywhere else. It's one thing to sit at home and watch a TV series/movie (legally or not), it's quite another thing to go to an event where you can hang out with like-minded folks, and meet the people who produce the content you love.

Even if there were no such thing as piracy, you'd still see movements towards this, because as movie theaters are discovering, when more and more people have big screens in their home, and don't have to pay $75 for a coke and a tub of popcorn, while screaming babies yowl beside you, they're opting for that. If you want butts in seats, then you have to give the people what they want.

For $8 billion, and then used a tax dodge on the profits from the sale. You can argue that the films are Lucas' (or Disney's) to do as they wish, but then you also have to condemn the movie O' Brother Where Art Thou? for playing fast-and-loose with The Odyssey by Homer. After all, Homer created it, so he should have the right to determine how it's used. The fact that he's dead doesn't matter, as intellectual property laws continue to control content after the creator has died. Some things become cultural touchstones to a society and grow beyond anything that their creators ever imagined or intended. At what point do you say that a creator has the right to control everything? Intellectual property laws haven't remained stagnant in this country, they have changed over the years. Remember, the networks and movie studios tried to block the introduction of the VCR, because they were worried it would destroy their business model. Yet, look at all the money they were able to make because of it. Had they won, we'd be stuck in the same dismal world we were before things like home video and the plethora of streaming services we have now.

And Andy Weir became relevant by giving away his content. There are hundreds of podcasters who give away their content, and yet, are still able to make a living from doing so, thanks to things like Patreon and conventions where they make personal appearances. This is the beginning of the new business model, and the only thing we can say for certain is that in 20 years, it'll look nothing like anything we see now. Twenty years after that, it'll have changed again.

And it wasn't too long ago that such a model was unthinkable to the suits. They wanted you to either buy it on DVD or watch it on TV. If they made it available at all. Why'd they change? Because they realized that what they were doing wasn't working, and if they provided the content to people in the way the people wanted it, they could make money off of it. You know, serving the customer. Strange concept for a business to operate under, I'll admit, but it's one that seems to work.

I already did.

I'll even throw out some more examples: Between about '94 and '01, the only way you could see Koyaanisqatsi was if you found a used copy of the VHS tape, or a bootleg of it. Godfrey Reggio, the creator of the film (and its sequel, Powaqqatsi), didn't have control of the distribution rights, and the corporations which controlled them, were unwilling to sell them to him at a price he could afford. Because of a loophole in the law (and a drop in the price of what it cost to be able make DVDs) he was able to "sell" (ie, you agreed to cover the cost of the DVD, plus give him a "donation" on top of that cost, in exchange for him autographing the paper sleeve the DVD came in) enough copies of the DVD to not only buy the rights back to the films, but complete Naqoyqatsi, the third film in the trilogy. I know this, because I'm one of the people who plunked down $200 to get the autographed DVD. BTW, that DVD is effectively worthless now, because the picture quality on it pales in comparison to the legally available version of the movie. I'm not upset by this, as if I hadn't paid for the film, it might never have gotten released, or the final film might never have been made. Sadly, it doesn't seem to have been released on Blu-Ray in the US. It's possible to find German Blu-Ray versions, but it's probably easier just to pirate it, than it is to deal with the hassles of unlocking the region protection on my player, if they've region locked the discs.

Another example is the PBS American Masters program on Buckminster Fuller, Thinking Out Loud. You can buy a used VHS copy of the program, but why bother? There's a cleaned up version, without all the artifacts caused by videotape, that someone's uploaded to YouTube.

I'll also mention the original The Lathe of Heaven, which aired a couple of times on PBS back in the early '80s, and then wasn't available to people. If you wanted to watch it, you had to know someone who had a copy which they taped off TV (or a copy of a copy). When it originally aired, the home video market wasn't seen as a big deal, and PBS didn't secure the distribution rights to it, so when PBS realized that they could make money off of it, they had to struggle to get those rights, as well as find copies which were viable enough to use to produce the disc.

More examples can be found in the back catalog of Filmation, which started out producing live action and animated kids shows in the '70s. The did Star Trek TAS, Jason of Star Command, Space Academy, The Adventures of Isis, and lots of other shows. In the merger and acquisition madness of the '80s, they were bought and broken up by L'Oreal, with Hallmark ending up with the rights of the back catalog. One of the execs at Hallmark swore that so long as he was at the company, he'd never release them on video. Why? Because he hated them. So, if you wanted to see them, you had to rely on a pirated copy. Until a few years ago, when they were released on DVD, and then added to Hulu for a while. (The DVDs aren't still being produced, and only some of the catalog is available via streaming services, for whatever reason.)

I don't know, why does intellectual property law have the right to dictate how I listen to music? Where and when I watch a movie or a TV show? If I pay for a recording of a song, shouldn't I be able to listen to it where I want, when I want, and how I want? For a long time, the music industry refused to make that possible, they wanted me to pay for a copy that I could listen on my stereo, then pay again, for a copy I could listen in my car, and so on. I have no problem paying for content, I do it all the time. Shit, since I started subscribing to streaming services, I can't recall when I've bothered to pirate something. If what I wanted wasn't available, I've generally said "Fuck it," and just watched/listened to something else. So, the people who're holding back their content, aren't hurting me at all. They're hurting themselves.

I believe that highly restrictive copyright protections do more harm to creators than they do good. When content was expensive and difficult to produce and distribute, nobody really noticed copyright laws, now that the costs have fallen, people are noticing that there are problems with them. And these problems can be difficult to solve, even when everybody wants to make the content available. Case in point, there's a machinist's textbook that's no longer availble, because nobody can figure out who owns the rights to the book. The author died, and the original publisher has gone bankrupt. Other publishers would love reprint the book (used copies sell for thousands of dollars on eBay, you can buy a copy on Amazon for $10K), but they don't dare, because they're worried about what will happen if someone who owns the rights shows up and sues them. How is the public being served by this? How is the estate of the author (assuming he had an estate) being served by this? That book won't become public domain until almost the 22nd century, and by that time, the information contained in it will only be interesting to historical reenactor types (because 3D printing will have supplanted it). Who's rights are being protected by this work being out-of-print? How does this enable the creator (or his estate) to benefit from such laws?

And while such extreme examples might be rare, for the moment, they're only going to increase as more and more content is being produced by more and more people. Hell, even the rights for established properties like Star Trek aren't all that clear to the people in charge of the material. Roddenberry sold anything and everything he could that was connected to the show, and the studios (Paramount, CBS, etc.) basically have a "gentlemen's agreement" that they won't sue one another over the material.

When content was expensive and difficult to make copies, everybody noticed copyrights. Ownership had to be protected because of the costs. Without property rights being honored, no producer would be willing to invest. No publisher would print a page. Maybe you weren't aware of them.

The business model for rock stars has changed. The market and technology did affect this. Pressing a vinyl record required hugely expensive equipment and engineering costs, not to mention the cost and risk of stockpiling inventory and distribution.

Book publishing has changed. Self publishing was very expensive before the days of Kindle. The market and technology did affect this. Manufacturing, distribution, and inventory costs were a drawback.

The production costs for music and print are low. Manufacture and distribution used to be the squeeze. It's not anymore.

The difference between music, print and visual media is visual is still expensive to make. A cheap movie costs $20million in production costs. Crowdfunding won't make those happen often. As copying becomes trivial, in as good quality as the original thanks to digital media, copyrights are more important or no one will invest in new productions.

I hear a lot of rationalization why pirating and downloading stolen media is good. Sounds like rationalizing a sense of entitlement to me.

Oh, I was aware of them, but they didn't impact me, because there were few avenues for me to get around them.

Right, it's the monopoly of the publishing houses, where you have to pay as much, or more, for a Kindle version of a book as you do a dead tree version, even though the Kindle costs a fraction to produce and distribute as the dead tree edition does. That's starting to change, as big name authors are ditching the publishers to directly publish their works via Kindle. Jerry Pournelle said he was making more from his back catalog that you could only get via Kindle, than he made when he originally sold the stuff. And he was charging $3 a copy. Other authors are starting to follow. It's a trickle right now, but soon, it'll be a flood.

Iron Sky, is a crowdfunded movie released in 2012 with a budget of $10 million. The sequel, Iron Sky: The Coming Race is another crowdfunded movie with a budget of $17 million. Giving the two films a combined budget of $37 million. Both films are wholly original properties, and not fan films. If the major studios won't produce content that people want to see, then the people will produce their own. That's how it works, that's how it's always worked. The difference is now that instead of toiling away in community theater, local bars, or 'zines, they now have access to a global audience. An artist creates whether they get paid for it or not.

And a good story doesn't require a $20 million budget to be compelling. YouTube is filled with videos done for next to nothing that have viewership numbers as high as many big-budget films do ticket sales.

Legend has it that Ferruccio Lamborghini was disappointed with the Ferrari he bought, and when he made some suggestions to the salesman he'd bought the car from, the salesman said, "Well, Mr. Lamborghini, if you don't like it so much, why don't you build your own car?" I wonder if the salesman thought that Lamborghini was being "entitled" when he tried to make suggestions?

Personally, I don't care what the studios do. They want to make it so that the only way I can see a movie is go to a theater? Fine. It's a two hour walk for me to go to the theater, if they want my ass there, then they're going to have to make one goddamned good movie for me to do that if they want me to see it. Otherwise, I'll stick to things like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, and free services (where I can watch stuff legally). It's their funeral, not mine. After all, I shouldn't have to pay for a movie I don't want to see, so why should I be expected to pay for a format I don't want to use?

It is worth noting that around half of the people who watched Game of Thrones originally pirated it yet many ended paying for HBO GO or other services

That is the type of innovation which is needed. The old model is dead and the networks will either make it super cheap and super convenient for customers or customers will just tell them to fuck off. There is no effective way to stop this.

Customers are flocking to legitimate streaming services. This doesn't justify piracy and avoiding paying a few dollars for media.

Spotify and Pandora are advertising supported or subscription services. They pay property owners and safeguard the media from easily being copied. The owners of the media must agree to have it streamed on these services.

Hulu and Netflix are advertising supported or subscription services. They pay property owners and safeguard the media from easily being copied. The owners of the media must agree to have it streamed on these services.

What type of innovation are you looking for besides more free stuff from pirates?

I was hoping you'd bring this up. Iron Sky has iron-clad intellectual property rights spelled out on their website. Even the website displays copyrights in effect on each page (not necessary, but I understand their concerns).

needless to say, some of the contributors are annoyed.

source.

I enjoyed the movie, forget where I watched it but it's available on most streaming services for a fee. I'm sure if you don't think it's worth paying for it, that it's available as pirated bit-torrents.

Like I said, people are willing to pay a very small fee for these services provided they are convenient enough. The problem arises when the fee is higher than very marginal or when every fucking network wants you to pay for its own seporate streaming service so that customers end up payong even more than cable on a monthly basis. At that point most people say fuck it and just get it for free.

How much do you pay for cable TV? Forbin eloquently pointed out (actually it was his wife) that they were paying $160 for cable TV. That would pay for 16 typical subscription streaming channels per month.

I pay $10 to netflix, $15 to HBO, and $10 to showtime (I'm about to cancel since I never watch it except for Twin Peaks). I pay $99/year for amazon prime that gets me free shipping and a bunch of video.

Whenever there's a series or movie I want to watch, and it's not on HBO, Netflix, Showtime, or free on Amazon Prime I pony up the $3-4 to see the movie or $20-30 to see the series using Amazon a-la-carte. No commercials. All on demand.

Your "very small fee" must be commensurate with how much you're willing to pay to watch something. If it's too much, then you don't want to see it very much.

I looked at CBS All Access (or whatever it's called) at $10. I'm not sure what they'd have I want to see. Might try it. The cool thing is you can add and drop subscriptions monthly. No paying for what you don't use.

Sean Spicer must work for TF's PR dept.

And yet, were it not for piracy, those sources wouldn't exist.

Yup. And which came first? Piracy or them? Hint: If you think it was them, you're dead wrong.

Oh, lots.

Let's look at the history of the entertainment industry since the invention of TV. In the early days, the movie studios wanted nothing to do with TV, and blocked the TV networks from showing old movies. Later on, the studios realized that they could make money from TV, so they struck a deal with the networks.

In the 1960s, cable TV was invented. The networks tried to block that but eventually learned to embrace it. In the '70s, the networks and the movie studios fought against the introduction of the VCR. Lo, and behold, they managed to find ways to make money off of videotape sales. They then went on to sue video stores to try and get money off of rentals (while ignoring the fact that you could borrow movies on VHS from libraries). They lost that battle.

Then came MP3s. The record labels did everything they could to shut down sites that shared them, and it wasn't until Steve Jobs and Apple dick slapped them, that we got things like iTunes, where you could buy individual tracks you liked.

The studios and networks sued Netflix over their DVD by mail idea but lost that case. Then they gave Netflix content they thought no one would care about to stream, only to find out that folks were more than happy to watch it. Then they gave Netflix the more recent stuff, and saw that folks were happy to stream it. At which point, they decided to get greedy, and start creating their own streaming services.

The simple fact of the matter is that if it weren't for piracy, we wouldn't have iTunes or the various streaming music services. If it wasn't for video rental stores and video by mail services like Netflix, we wouldn't have streaming video content.

In 1964, when Ford introduced the Mustang, it was a "secretary's car," you know, one aimed at women. The largest engine you could get was a 6 cylinder, not a V-8, because it was thought that women couldn't handle the power of a large engine. The execs at Ford quickly noticed that lots of folks were buying Mustangs and dropping V-8 engines into them. If Ford had been ran by the same kind of narrowminded folks that are in charge of media companies, they would have developed measures to prohibit you from installing a V-8 into their car. Instead, they recognized an opportunity and began selling Mustangs with a V-8. Thus, a legend was born.

Your arguments might bear weight with someone who knows nothing about the entertainment industry, but I have followed both the creative and business side for some 30+ years now. I know creatives, who make the art we consume, and I know the people who push to make it popular. I've heard the horror stories about media companies who've gone out of their way to shaft the artists who make them money, and I've heard what it's like to deal with someone who's so talented that everybody at the record label is afraid to tell them no.

To sum up, it wasn't because the folks at the various media companies recognized the power of the internet that we have things like iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, Netflix, etc. It was because of people not connected to those companies that we have the various streaming services, and that folks like Andy Weir are able to become parts of the popular mindset. You can bitch all you want about piracy, but if it weren't for sites like Napster, we wouldn't have iTunes, Amazon Music, and any of a number of sites you care to think about.

And I notice that you still haven't proposed a solution to the problem of how we deal with the case of Elmer's Engines, where nobody knows who controls the copyright, yet the demand for the material is so high that people can get thousands of dollars for copies.

Red Room, dude. You know math ain't allowed in here.

Your argument rests on: if people weren't pirating media, Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, and Pandora wouldn't exist. Therefore pirating is good.

This would be the same if I claimed: if it weren't for shoplifting, Amazon and other online retailers wouldn't exist. Therefore shoplifting is good.

All of these services exist because of individuals' ideas (that they patented or copyrighted) with technology as the enabler. In the case of Netflix, broadband internet (10Mbps or faster) is the enabler. All require CDN technology in order to serve client requests in real-time. They have thrived as demand built for online services instead of physically shipping CDs, DVD,s and books. They have annihilated brick and mortar stores. They cannot compete with piracy.

Piracy has always existed. Before the Internet it was bootleg tapes and CDs, VHS tapes for movies. The only advances I'd credit piracy for are copy protection and encryption. There will always be a subset of people that choose not to pay, whether it's shoplifting or pirated downloads. I bet you can come up with examples of piracy driving technology to prevent theft going back thousands of years. hmmm?

Your argument about customers wedging V8s in their Mustangs motivating Ford to offer them is just wrong. V8s were a thing before Mustang on the Falcon platform it was built on. 1963 for Falcon sprints (these were discontinued in '64 to avoid competition with the Mustang). 1964.5 Mustings were available from the factory with V8s.

source.

Factory muscle cars may be the result of hot-rodders over generations, but I wouldn't credit car theft as a factor for anything except better locks.

I'm not sure where you're going with the model steam-engine example. Something about intellectual property I suspect. Build on it if you wish, but your argument that an artist "creates whether they get paid for it or not" is laughable.

Artists either A) sell it; B) have a patron; or C) a day job. If they could do A or B they definitely wouldn't do C. Using Iron Sky as an example is even funnier given the copyright notices spelled out on their website, along with lawsuits artists have brought against them for unfair compensation.

As a demographic, wordforge surprises me. Seemingly built on a libertarian platform with a dash of conservative and liberal ideals, I don't understand where the idea that theft is a good thing comes from. Unless this is just a front for pirates.

Aaaarrrr, matey.

So... I'm trying out the CBS All Access service. And I'm finding that alternate methods are preferable to paying to watch something. I just watched the 4-5 commercials 4 times because it freezes at the end of the ad, then I have to restart the episode I'm watching. So basically I spent 10-12 minutes on a "commercial break". Using alternate methods, I can watch the same episode, commercial free. I can also watch the same episode using the on demand feature through Xfinity. So two methods that I require me to pay a monthly fee, or just watch it commercial free.

And just did it again, it froze again after the second commercial break. So restarted, and it went back to the first commercial break and froze again after it. Yeah fuck CBS, and fuck on demand. I'm less frustrated using alternate methods.

Doesn't sound like they're ready for primetime. What are you streaming through?