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Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

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Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#12

Post by catlikesshrimp »

Maybe this helps their efforts agaisnt illegal hosting of those old movies? It is available for free for users, and they will keep attacking piracy.

They can at any time substitute the full movies with ads to buy the collection, before IP expires. It is a low cost experiment.

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#13

Post by wslh »

browningstreet wrote: post #7
timmg wrote: post #2

I assume they get "monetization" from Youtube and they don't need to worry about hosting or discovery. Probably better than doing nothing with these films.

I'm a little surprised there isn't more of this. Building a streaming service is pretty expensive.. a lot of the platforms lost money doing so and really only made it back when they merged into an umbrella of other services. I'm also a little surprised no one has yet (AFAIK) done the "viral indie release to Youtube" path. I feel like it's sitting there waiting to be exploited.

Could you please expand on your "viral indie release to Youtube" idea? I am just a YT basic user and don't know what is there and what is not beyond HN, random videos, and my relatively simple use cases (e.g. music videos, and movie trailers).

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#14

Post by elicash »

> By releasing a handful of hidden gems next to some of the worst films it ever released, WBD is doing a disservice to its creative teams of past and present

Making older movies publicly available at no cost (albeit with ads) is good, actually?

Is the suggestion that there's no bad content on Max and that's why they should put the movies there, instead, behind a paywall? Instead of Youtube, he wants these movies next to Dr. Pimple Popper?

(Ironically, I'm pretty sure this is #1 on Hacker News because people appreciate the heads-up about the free resource, and not because folks support his call to remove them from public view.)

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#15

Post by duxup »

browningstreet wrote: post #7
timmg wrote: post #2

I assume they get "monetization" from Youtube and they don't need to worry about hosting or discovery. Probably better than doing nothing with these films.

I'm a little surprised there isn't more of this. Building a streaming service is pretty expensive.. a lot of the platforms lost money doing so and really only made it back when they merged into an umbrella of other services. I'm also a little surprised no one has yet (AFAIK) done the "viral indie release to Youtube" path. I feel like it's sitting there waiting to be exploited.

I'm surprised a lot of things aren't more accessible.

So much content not making money / available ANYWHERE.

I assume, that maybe the amount of difficulty in terms of getting permission is too high to bother so nobody does?

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#16

Post by ANighRaisin »

browningstreet wrote: post #7
timmg wrote: post #2

I assume they get "monetization" from Youtube and they don't need to worry about hosting or discovery. Probably better than doing nothing with these films.

I'm a little surprised there isn't more of this. Building a streaming service is pretty expensive.. a lot of the platforms lost money doing so and really only made it back when they merged into an umbrella of other services. I'm also a little surprised no one has yet (AFAIK) done the "viral indie release to Youtube" path. I feel like it's sitting there waiting to be exploited.

There have been more niche shows that became quite popular after a YouTube release.

Re: Why is Warner Bros. Discovery putting old movies on YouTube?

#18

Post by eptcyka »

browningstreet wrote: post #7
timmg wrote: post #2

I assume they get "monetization" from Youtube and they don't need to worry about hosting or discovery. Probably better than doing nothing with these films.

I'm a little surprised there isn't more of this. Building a streaming service is pretty expensive.. a lot of the platforms lost money doing so and really only made it back when they merged into an umbrella of other services. I'm also a little surprised no one has yet (AFAIK) done the "viral indie release to Youtube" path. I feel like it's sitting there waiting to be exploited.

Movies are capital intensive, a movie is less likely to go viral than a video that is made to be viral. Thus, doing this is risky. Also, people wanting to create viral movies probably do not want to make viral videos.
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