Live data from Hacker News

HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

medium.com

1–10 of 153 posts

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#2
Similar shenanigans are the reason I cancelled Disney+.

I’ll pay a monthly fee for your entire back library. Otherwise, no thanks.

Also, what’s the ethical issue with pirating content that is not for sale? I’d love to see a copyright overhaul that formalized abandonware and extended it to back catalogs of film and music.

That way, people could legally torrent everything currently missing from these streaming platforms. (Offline-only distribution would count as “abandoned” in this regime.)

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#3
post #2

Similar shenanigans are the reason I cancelled Disney+. I’ll pay a monthly fee for your entire back library. Otherwise, no thanks. Also, what’s the ethical issue with pirating content that is not for sale? I’d love to see a copyright overhaul that formalized abandonware and extended it to back catalogs of film and music. That way, people could legally torrent everything currently missing from these streaming platform…

> Also, what’s the ethical issue with pirating content that is not for sale?

There isn't one and never has been :)

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#5
post #2

Similar shenanigans are the reason I cancelled Disney+. I’ll pay a monthly fee for your entire back library. Otherwise, no thanks. Also, what’s the ethical issue with pirating content that is not for sale? I’d love to see a copyright overhaul that formalized abandonware and extended it to back catalogs of film and music. That way, people could legally torrent everything currently missing from these streaming platform…

Purely devil's advocate would be someone along the lines of -- just because it isn't for sale now doesn't mean it might never be. Pirating it now deprives the owner of some amount of ability to make money from it in the future.

Pretty flimsy, imo.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#7
post #2

Similar shenanigans are the reason I cancelled Disney+. I’ll pay a monthly fee for your entire back library. Otherwise, no thanks. Also, what’s the ethical issue with pirating content that is not for sale? I’d love to see a copyright overhaul that formalized abandonware and extended it to back catalogs of film and music. That way, people could legally torrent everything currently missing from these streaming platform…

> Also, what’s the ethical issue with pirating content that is not for sale?... (Offline-only distribution would count as “abandoned” in this regime.)

Let's say I author a book and sell it as a paperback, but decide for whatever reason that I don't want to sell an e-book. Would you apply the same reasoning there? Is it ethical for you to torrent an unpaid for e-book copy because you've decided that's more convenient for you?

I'd personally argue that it's not. However if you previously paid for the book and you want to read it on your kindle and i don't offer an ebook, that would be different in my mind. Same thing if you purchased the Tom and Jerry's DVDs and decided you prefer to stream.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#8
post #7
post #2

Similar shenanigans are the reason I cancelled Disney+. I’ll pay a monthly fee for your entire back library. Otherwise, no thanks. Also, what’s the ethical issue with pirating content that is not for sale? I’d love to see a copyright overhaul that formalized abandonware and extended it to back catalogs of film and music. That way, people could legally torrent everything currently missing from these streaming platform…

> Also, what’s the ethical issue with pirating content that is not for sale?... (Offline-only distribution would count as “abandoned” in this regime.) Let's say I author a book and sell it as a paperback, but decide for whatever reason that I don't want to sell an e-book. Would you apply the same reasoning there? Is it ethical for you to torrent an unpaid for e-book copy because you've decided that's more convenient…

Some of the content actually isn't available for sale in any format. From the article:

> While there has never been a complete Hanna-Barbera DVD collection courtesy of Warner Bros. in the US, both the Gene Deitch and Chuck Jones shorts have had complete DVD releases. In addition, the whole Deitch collection shows up on the other Warner streaming app, Boomerang. Because of this, it is baffling that HBO Max does not provide a complete collection of any one era, despite drawing on all three.

(emphasis mine)

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#9
I propose the following paradigm which I'll call "RickRoll UIs."

The developer builds a beautiful interface for searching, curating, and organizing media in a given genre. Everything down to the moment of streaming works as you'd expect, at which point some boring public domain content is looped for the given duration of that stream.

Users would get the benefit of having the curated data accessible through the GUI-- e.g., you could search all the Tom & Jerry cartoons, get/sort by metadata, etc. Perhaps even view a screenshot (not sure about Copyright law around that).

Fringe benefit is that this creates a reference UI against all the streaming services may be judged, and gives new users some idea of what it was like to search and use "completist" services like what.cd, etc. Not to mention how thinking about the potential existence of such services can change the options we think we have for how to spend our time-- compare writing a blog in 2021 complaining about a commercial streaming service's faults vs. "completing" some private tracker's Tom and Jerry offerings with the missing cartoons from your own collection.

Re: HBO Max is failing the classic Tom and Jerry

#10

Anyone else annoyed with how buggy the HBO Max apple tv software is? vs binging on Netflix, the experience has way more weird UI bugs and hangs. Finding we're constantly restarting the app/apple tv because it keeps hanging or erroring out.

I haven't had to restart it, but the app does seem flaky. My biggest issue is the UI; every time I use it I have to relearn how to find the section I am looking for. With that said, I do like how they curate and surface movies based on different themes.

I'll be curious to see where it is 6 months or so from now.

Post reply on HN