Live data from Hacker News

Netflix takes gamble with Epix film cull

bbc.com

61–70 of 77 posts

Re: Netflix takes gamble with Epix film cull

#61
post #14

I feel so sad for people forced to use the legal distribution channels - it must be such a chore to have to be informed which movie or series is available on which channel, have to switch between different apps / recommendation engines and have pay to every single middle men his toll, when their part could very well be free. Using pirate solutions seems such a great experience in comparison - a global free peer to pe…

Piracy fails the "what if everyone was doing it?" test. So you shouldn't feel sad for people using legal channels, you should thank them for subsidizing your consumption.

You're welcome!

Re: Netflix takes gamble with Epix film cull

#62

Epix holds the broadcasting rights for PPV/VOD/Streaming for Viacom-Paramount, MGM, United Artists, Lion's Gate, Disney's Marvel Franchise... Yep that's a big gamble indeed.... All these streaming services are becoming pretty much Cable TV 2.0. Today (UK) if you want to watch most things well it's Netflix (with DNS/IP region hacks to get US and UK content), Amazon Prime Video (probably the poorest of the bunch at lea…

The UK also has iPlayer, which is worth the VPN subscription fee I pay every month to use it.

Re: Netflix takes gamble with Epix film cull

#63
post #61
post #14

I feel so sad for people forced to use the legal distribution channels - it must be such a chore to have to be informed which movie or series is available on which channel, have to switch between different apps / recommendation engines and have pay to every single middle men his toll, when their part could very well be free. Using pirate solutions seems such a great experience in comparison - a global free peer to pe…

Piracy fails the "what if everyone was doing it?" test. So you shouldn't feel sad for people using legal channels, you should thank them for subsidizing your consumption. You're welcome!

>Piracy fails the "what if everyone was doing it?" test.

Yup, which is why TV didn't exist before pay TV, because if everyone viewed content for free over the air then it would be massively unprofitable. Oh, wait...

Re: Netflix takes gamble with Epix film cull

#64
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what you want is the service to be very cheap and have a massive amount of content available.

I think I'd be willing to pay more to offset higher content costs for more theater/blockbuster type movies. If Netflix was say 14.99 instead, I wonder what that would do to help? Perhaps splitting the content between tiers? It would shrink their "user base" for the purposes of streaming, allowing higher per-user payments on a title-by-title basis. Sad part is, I know they are trying to lower that amount, and show tha…

An idea for NetFlix would be to have a higher tier package that has access to content for longer. So if the average agreement for access to material is six months, people with the higher tier package have access to it for six months and people without it have access for four months. Higher tier customers get it a month early and a month after it rotates out for lower tier customers.

Re: Netflix takes gamble with Epix film cull

#65
post #14

I feel so sad for people forced to use the legal distribution channels - it must be such a chore to have to be informed which movie or series is available on which channel, have to switch between different apps / recommendation engines and have pay to every single middle men his toll, when their part could very well be free. Using pirate solutions seems such a great experience in comparison - a global free peer to pe…

> and full catalog of most of human produced media, one click away.

There's a bunch of stuff that just isn't available on torrents. If it's American there's a much hetter chance of it being seeded, but anything foreign over a few yews old tends to drop off.

Re: Netflix takes gamble with Epix film cull

#66
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piracy fails the "what if everyone was doing it?" test. So you shouldn't feel sad for people using legal channels, you should thank them for subsidizing your consumption. You're welcome!

>Piracy fails the "what if everyone was doing it?" test. Yup, which is why TV didn't exist before pay TV, because if everyone viewed content for free over the air then it would be massively unprofitable. Oh, wait...

Profitable OTA TV was (and is) not free, the content creators are paid by the content deliverers out of money the content deliverers get paid to provide advertising.

With piracy, even if the deliverers are getting paid by advertising (which is certainly true in some cases), the content creators aren't getting paid (because if they were, it be legal delivery, not piracy.)

Re: Netflix takes gamble with Epix film cull

#67
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. I also always laugh at those suckers standing in line at the grocery store. The customer experience of just picking out my Mountain Dew and ice cream sandwich and just walking straight out of the store without paying -- it's cheap, it's easy. You don't have to deal with pesky middle-men trying to take their cut. Astonishing. Such comfort.

Oh please ... spare us. You're comparing physical goods that have to be physically transport, stored, distributed, etc. Goods where some (admittedly minimal in your Mt. Dew example) scarcity is involved. The parent is talking about goods where there is effectively no (or again, minimal) cost for transport, storage, or distribution. And absolutely no scarcity. Nobody is saying we refuse to pay for digital content. We…

Netflix doesn't have bandwidth costs?

Re: Netflix takes gamble with Epix film cull

#69
post #24
post #14

I feel so sad for people forced to use the legal distribution channels - it must be such a chore to have to be informed which movie or series is available on which channel, have to switch between different apps / recommendation engines and have pay to every single middle men his toll, when their part could very well be free. Using pirate solutions seems such a great experience in comparison - a global free peer to pe…

I agree completely. I also always laugh at those suckers standing in line at the grocery store. The customer experience of just picking out my Mountain Dew and ice cream sandwich and just walking straight out of the store without paying -- it's cheap, it's easy. You don't have to deal with pesky middle-men trying to take their cut. Astonishing. Such comfort.

In your example, the grocery store will do inventory and discovery they are short 1 ice cream sandwich and 1 mountain dew. They write the cost of those goods off as shrinkage/stolen goods.

What exactly is warner bros missing at the end of the month when they do inventory? What item comes up 1 short when they go to grab it, because 1 person downloaded a copy? What do they write off on the balance sheet as shrinkage?

The answer is nothing, because copyright infringement is not theft. They may have commonalities, but they are separate and distinct. If they were the same there would be no legal definition for copyright infringement, because it would be already covered under existing theft laws.

I wish people would retire this ridiculous argument. There are legitimate arguments to be made against piracy without having to misrepresent the issue.

Re: Netflix takes gamble with Epix film cull

#70
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree completely. I also always laugh at those suckers standing in line at the grocery store. The customer experience of just picking out my Mountain Dew and ice cream sandwich and just walking straight out of the store without paying -- it's cheap, it's easy. You don't have to deal with pesky middle-men trying to take their cut. Astonishing. Such comfort.

In your example, the grocery store will do inventory and discovery they are short 1 ice cream sandwich and 1 mountain dew. They write the cost of those goods off as shrinkage/stolen goods. What exactly is warner bros missing at the end of the month when they do inventory? What item comes up 1 short when they go to grab it, because 1 person downloaded a copy? What do they write off on the balance sheet as shrinkage? T…

> They may have commonalities, but they are separate and distinct.

Yeah, that's how comparisons work. Read my comment again in light of the commonalities, not the differences.

seer: "It's so much easier if you break the law."

chasing: "Everything's so much easier if you break the law!"

I was commenting on seer's statement by extending what I considered to be flawed logic into a situation that would expose the flaw. I could've chosen a completely unrelated crime:

"I feel so sad for people forced to not drug women to sleep with them - it must be such a chore to have to get them to consent to sex."

See, I'm not comparing the act of pirating a movie to rape. They're obviously very different. One is heinous and one's a fairly minor transgression, all things considered. I am commenting on the absurdity of comparing the "user experience" of doing something legally instead of breaking the law.

Post reply on HN