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Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

reuters.com

641–650 of 844 posts

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do the "bad movie night" with family too. I suggest Titanic 2 on Tubi. It's amazing in sheer awfulness.

Why do you spend time watching bad movies?

Have you ever watched MST3K? I think I have several dozen MST3K movies in my collection.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#642
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piracy was the Easiest/Only way to get content until ~2008ish. Since then; Netflix and (...x streaming platform) made it easier/better to Pay for the content than pirate it. It does feel like we're approaching a tipping point now in the other direction with all of these streaming fiefdoms. My household has Netflix, Hulu, D+, and Prime streaming now - that's already too many and needs pairing IMO.

Cable providers were charging you $80/mo for commercial laden network aggregation. You cut that cord and complain when paying less for more content, without commercials, and is on demand, because it is unbundled and you need to manage each $5-15 "network" fee individually, instead of a single itemized bill. This is like complaining you have to pay for NBC to watch Friends when you'd much prefer to watch it on ABC so…

> You cut that cord and complain when paying less for more content.

For a few years there; it felt like I could watch ~anything i wanted on Netflix or Crunchyroll. Now it feels like I need 10 services. Maybe my viewing habits have changed; but I haven't started a torrent in a decade and I've been tempted recently.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#643
post #49
post #26

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I started watching SG1 again (I saw it incomplete as a kid). It’s incredibly good. It pushes rationalism and feminism in a sane way that I’m not sure would happen in today’s environment. It’s incredibly rich in historical references and concepts. It’s rarely dumb and often preempts cliches. It’s still worth watching imho (and is much less known that Star Trek in US).

I consider it hands down better than any Star Trek except possibly TNG. And that's giving TNG some grace due to being a bit older; take that away and I'll give SG-1 the prize. I will agree that people can reasonably disagree about Deep Space Nine vs SG-1. But that's the level of quality we're talking about, in my opinion. It's top tier, and much less well known. Also strongly recommend binging the first season in par…

>Also strongly recommend binging the first season in particular; they did a very good job of conveying the feeling of humans blundering about not really knowing what they are doing in the big new universe, and it really comes across when watched relatively quickly on top of each other.

One thing I've never enjoyed about Star Trek is how the Enterprise/DS9/Voyager and its crew are the ones that always save the day/week/universe.

I've never watched Stargate, but I do know that occasionally the show shows other exploration teams enter/exit the gate. Does the franchise go further than that, and implicitly/explicitly state that the Stargate team that the show focuses on is just one of many doing comparably cool things?

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#644

So what we're seeing is a repeat of the film industry from 1930's-1950's. You want to see a Paramount movie, you must go to a Paramount theater. Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD. We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Better stuff gets made in this kind of ecosystem.

>So what we're seeing is a repeat of the film industry from 1930's-1950's. You want to see a Paramount movie, you must go to a Paramount theater.

Or the TV business throughout all of TV history. You know, if you want to see an HBO show, you can only watch it on HBO. If you want to watch _new+ episodes of Seinfeld, you have to watch it on NBC.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#645
post #512

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> No it isn't. It's a workaround. Sure, but it's a trivially easy workaround. Our focus of attention on matters of regulation ought to be in those areas where working around the problem is not nearly as dead simple as a torrent client, a NAS, and a Plex server.

It's really not. I'm a computer geek, and I'm LONG past the point where setting up safe VMs and signing up to half a dozen services like newsgroup server and directories and search engines and what nots, download software with impossible names like sabnzbd (I'm waiting up for somebody to scream how nobody uses sabnzbd anymore, it's been replaced by jidwiaj and iqerqip, which are super easy, and that just proves my po…

On a Mac TPB + a decent VPN + BiglyBT = trivially easy torrenting. I have certainly never encountered any of the hardships you describe.

I have been using that same setup for… 10+ years? With BiglyBT replacing Vuze after Vuze was purchased and turned in to garbage.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#646
post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe as well, although of course if you subscribe to prime for movies and TV you're probably more likely to use it for free deliveries as well. But if the plan is to make Prime more popular there seem to be many, many simpler and probably cheaper ways to do that. It's as if McDonalds started a movie studio in order to sell Movie + Big Mac bundles.

Not quite McDonald’s, but KFC released: - a limited edition gaming console in partnership with Cooler Master (with integrated chicken heater): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KFConsole - a Lifetime mini-movie starring Christian Slater as Colonel Sanders in “A Recipe for Seduction”: https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/kfc-colonel-sanders-mario-l... - a dating sim video game, “I Love You Colonel Sanders”: https://store.st…

Ok I rescind my previous comment then. This is amazing.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is to break up big tech. Amazon shouldn't be ten companies in one. Google shouldn't be able to set web and mobile standards, then reap ad monies by forcing everyone to accept their anticompetitive changes. Apple shouldn't be the sole guardian of iPlatform. You can't have a protection racket on 50% of all commerce (phones >> gaming consoles) and enforce what gets put on the device. These companies don't h…

I prefer Apple controlling their platform thank you very much. I remember Verizon controlling what I could use to connect to an old flip phone, not allowing me to use bluetooth but some service they charged for. I remember Verizon controlling what OS version was installed and what firmware and what updates were even supported by them. Remember when Cell Service providers charged us PER SMS text? I do.

You're presenting a ridiculous dilemma between phones that are controlled by the network, and phones that are controlled by the manufacturer. Turns out, there's a third option that you are handily ignoring, where phones are controlled by the owner.

Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B

#650
post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like there should be a similar mechanism for VOD. Although, VidAngel tried to do that and was sued almost to death by big media.

It's not possible to lend digital media out without making a copy(remotely streaming it still copying), which isn't protected by the first sale doctrine. Redbox isn't making a copy. That's the big difference.

Assuming that is true that seems like yet another place where the law isn't well adapted to a digital world.
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