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Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

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Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#351

Post by pbhjpbhj »

wildmusings wrote: post #340
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only copyright material you aren't licensed to use that is potentially tortuous. "Big Buck Bunny" out whatever is copyright but the free and open license allows you to download it and consume it. Seems pedantic but IMO it's an important point. Copyright is automatic, restrictive licensing isn't.

> Copyright is automatic, restrictive licensing isn't. You're wrong there. The "default" state of affairs for copyright is that the author retains all rights.

Rights aren't a license. If the creator adds a license they have free rein on the form of license. They don't have to offer a license of course.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#352

Post by ArkyBeagle »

bcrescimanno wrote: post #304

TL;DR: A former Netflix employee isn't surprised because films very little business sense for Netflix. Former Netflix employee here--though I left in late 2013. I remember sitting at a company meeting and Reed Hastings explaining that AAA film content was never going to be the bread-and-butter for Netflix for several reasons. Most importantly: Between traditional, "linear" television and Netflix, the experience that…

"Bread and butter" - there's no differential income stream from anything on Netflix. It's just two bits' worth - streaming yes/no, DVD yes/no.

I'd be hard pressed to find the link to support this, but my understanding is that DVD/BluRay sales are the mechanism by which the "last mile" of movie finance is accomplished.

My wife and I recently made the decision to stop Netflix. We'd kept a tally and Amazon Video was used more than 10:1 than Netflix. We do have Amazon Prime ( which I suspect Amazon cannot keep up forever ). But for movie movies, we still DVR them from cable.

The Netflix experience is like giving up on the new releases portion of Blockbuster and trolling through the back of the store for older titles, leaving disappointed. From here, it smells like artificial scarcity. But I'm not buying too many more titles on physical media - I don't want to store them and if I ever get a buyer figured out, I'll sell a lot of what we already have.

Most of what we'd buy are the TCM offerings of classic movies.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#353

Post by karpodiem »

paol wrote: post #318
bcrescimanno wrote: post #304

TL;DR: A former Netflix employee isn't surprised because films very little business sense for Netflix. Former Netflix employee here--though I left in late 2013. I remember sitting at a company meeting and Reed Hastings explaining that AAA film content was never going to be the bread-and-butter for Netflix for several reasons. Most importantly: Between traditional, "linear" television and Netflix, the experience that…

If that's the case, that leaves the problem (from the consumer's point of view) of where to get access to a complete(ish) catalog of films. Netflix actually achieved this back in the disc-by-mail days. So we're actually moving backwards. I'm not particularly ashamed to say I turn to unlicensed torrents for this purpose, but I would prefer if it weren't necessary.

'I'm not particularly ashamed to say I turn to unlicensed torrents for this purpose, but I would prefer if it weren't necessary.'

No studios will collectively give a tech company the majority of the licenses to make this possible - so torrents it is.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#354

Post by GavinMcG »

dragonwriter wrote: post #328
bcrescimanno wrote: post #304

TL;DR: A former Netflix employee isn't surprised because films very little business sense for Netflix. Former Netflix employee here--though I left in late 2013. I remember sitting at a company meeting and Reed Hastings explaining that AAA film content was never going to be the bread-and-butter for Netflix for several reasons. Most importantly: Between traditional, "linear" television and Netflix, the experience that…

Do people not binge watch movies on Netflix because of something inherent in the form, or because Netflix doesn't make continuous play of related sets of movjrs, especially serial franchises (where it would make sense just as it does for TV series) possible, both because it doesn't support it as the default (or even an optional) mode in the UI as it does for TV series and because it also rarely has whole franchises i…

There aren't that many film series or sets where you can easily jump in and out of attentiveness, like you can with a TV show once you're familiar with the characters. I do remember having the James Bond marathons on TV all day, but anything less formulaic means having to make a substantial investment of attention when starting a new "chunk".

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#355

Post by MarkMc »

sgeisenh wrote: post #148
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I'm not sympathetic. The alternative to finding (and failing to find) a service to watch the show could possibly be - not watching it? The conclusion 'naturally we then had to steal it' isn't entirely justified. Shoplifting is easy and convenient too. Next time you forget your wallet at the corner store. Just sayin.

Piracy and larceny are entirely different crimes. Nobody "stole" anything, in this particular situation. In order for something to be "stolen", the victim must lose something that they already had. You might try to argue that streaming services lost a sale, but they never had the sale and they make the process so arduous that they would never get the sale. To be clear, I am not promoting piracy, it does pose ethical…

> they make the process so arduous that they would never get the sale

It's all too easy to make such a claim - particularly if you are the one benefiting from piracy.

If the couple chose not to watch the movie, they aren't going to sit and stare at a blank wall for two hours. Maybe they would have watched a movie on regular TV with ads - thereby benefiting the businesses who placed the ads. Maybe they would have watched a movie on Netflix who therefore gave a small percentage of the Netflix subscription fee to the movie studio. And maybe a month later Google fix the technical problems and the couple decide to pay to watch the original movie.

The point is that if the couple hadn't downloaded the movie illegally, somebody somewhere would probably have been financially better off.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#356

Post by wildmusings »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #351
wildmusings wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Copyright is automatic, restrictive licensing isn't. You're wrong there. The "default" state of affairs for copyright is that the author retains all rights.

Rights aren't a license. If the creator adds a license they have free rein on the form of license. They don't have to offer a license of course.

Sorry, you're just wrong here. If I publish a video online, it is a copyright violation for you to redistribute it without my permission. I don't need to put a license or even a copyright marking.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#357

Post by pbhjpbhj »

wildmusings wrote: post #344
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may know a friend who torrented a film they had on DVD because their DVD player broke and it was faster and cheaper than ripping it themselves. This is a tort again in the UK, it wasn't then. Also, most people would be happy to pay the actors and crew a very healthy wage but baulk at paying to add DRM and several layers of executives whose function appears to be to make it as hard as possible to actually watch the…

> Also, most people would be happy to pay the actors and crew a very healthy wage but baulk at paying to add DRM and several layers of executives whose function appears to be to make it as hard as possible to actually watch the content without paying again and again and who extract far more than their share of the revenue. Sure, all of the people torrenting are really just protesting as the unjust profits made by stu…

First point taken, I overstretched.

What's your second point? That just because it only costs a week's groceries to buy a DVD player it was wrong to torrent a work that has been paid for and only can't be consumed due to DRM? Do you find that use immoral?

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#358

Post by hathawsh »

A tip for movie lovers: VidAngel has 100 of the IMDB Top 100. (I'm not sure about the top 250.)

VidAngel costs $1 or $2 per movie after sell-back. They filter the movies, but you choose your own filtering, so it's not censorship.

(No, I don't work for VidAngel, nor do I have any ties with them; I'm just a happy customer who wants to see them continue to grow and thrive. I'm aware they are being sued, but I think VidAngel will win due to the Family Home Movie Act of 2005.)

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#359

Post by chx »

paol wrote: post #318
bcrescimanno wrote: post #304

TL;DR: A former Netflix employee isn't surprised because films very little business sense for Netflix. Former Netflix employee here--though I left in late 2013. I remember sitting at a company meeting and Reed Hastings explaining that AAA film content was never going to be the bread-and-butter for Netflix for several reasons. Most importantly: Between traditional, "linear" television and Netflix, the experience that…

If that's the case, that leaves the problem (from the consumer's point of view) of where to get access to a complete(ish) catalog of films. Netflix actually achieved this back in the disc-by-mail days. So we're actually moving backwards. I'm not particularly ashamed to say I turn to unlicensed torrents for this purpose, but I would prefer if it weren't necessary.

Do you seriously think there'll be a legit service which can replicate the arthouse, cult and alternative films selection of a certain tracker with four A in the name? I think we would sooner see a blanket fee making it legit.

Re: Netflix Now Only Has 31 Movies from IMDB's Top 250 List

#360

Post by dimino »

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #352
bcrescimanno wrote: post #304

TL;DR: A former Netflix employee isn't surprised because films very little business sense for Netflix. Former Netflix employee here--though I left in late 2013. I remember sitting at a company meeting and Reed Hastings explaining that AAA film content was never going to be the bread-and-butter for Netflix for several reasons. Most importantly: Between traditional, "linear" television and Netflix, the experience that…

"Bread and butter" - there's no differential income stream from anything on Netflix. It's just two bits' worth - streaming yes/no, DVD yes/no. I'd be hard pressed to find the link to support this, but my understanding is that DVD/BluRay sales are the mechanism by which the "last mile" of movie finance is accomplished. My wife and I recently made the decision to stop Netflix. We'd kept a tally and Amazon Video was use…

It's $10/month, peanuts considering what you're getting. Your careful analysis of a purchase that's doable using the literal change falling out of your pocket is not representative of the folks who purchase Netflix (not representative of any purchasing group, really).

They're not catering to the folks like yourself.

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