Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New Arrested Development will appear exclusively on Netflix Streaming

netflixstreaming.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 153 posts

Re: New Arrested Development will appear exclusively on Netflix Streaming

#141

Post by xsmasher »

chc wrote: post #131
xsmasher wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will probably come to DVD or be distributed on another channel in your country. If not, it still doesn't grant you a moral or legal right to the content. If you pirate instead of paying then you make distributing to your country unprofitable; that sounds like the opposite effect from what you want.

Interesting that you bring up morality. A lot of people don't actually have a moral problem with free viewing of something that isn't offered for pay in the first place. There may or may not be a legal problem with this depending on your jurisdiction, but morality is precisely the area where these people gain their justification. This is similar to the popular treatment of abandonware.

I mentioned morality because I believe it trumps bad law - I have no moral issue with DVD ripping for personal use, or with region-free DVD players to circumvent region restrictions. Or with using proxies to access Netflix from outside the US, for that matter.

Re: New Arrested Development will appear exclusively on Netflix Streaming

#142

Post by breck »

mikeryan wrote: post #107
fauldsh wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better Off Ted and Firefly (as some-one mentioned underneath) are perfect examples of shows that would thrive under Netflix. They have such huge appeal to the tech savvy audience who are most likely to adopt Netflix. It wouldn't surprise me if the rights to those shows are owned by big TV companies though, who have little to incentive to sell them on.

Firefly (as some-one mentioned underneath) are perfect examples of shows that would thrive under Netflix. I have to disagree with this, Firefly is not the type of show Netflix should be focusing on. They need shows with low production costs with broad - lowest common denominator appeal. Expensive shows catering to a niche market (which they pretty much already have captured) is not what they're trying to do here. The…

Interesting. Do you know anything about the old (and predicted) production costs of AD?

Re: New Arrested Development will appear exclusively on Netflix Streaming

#143

Post by ericd »

seanalltogether wrote: post #119
ericd wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Customer base is a BIG advantage if they're going to start signing up original content. They're playing to their strengths. Amazon is large, but Netflix is massively larger in terms of watchers. As a producer, which would you sign up with?

Whoever gives you the most money.

I don't think so. A lot of producers/actors don't like playing to an empty room, even if they're being paid well. It's too demoralizing.

Re: New Arrested Development will appear exclusively on Netflix Streaming

#144

Post by bluedanieru »

keithwinstein wrote: post #140
ansy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix bought House of Cards back in March bidding against HBO and AMC [1]. Less than a week later CBS, parent company of Showtime, announced it would pull Showtime content from Netflix even though the contract wasn't going to expire until the summer [2]. No negotiation or warning to Netflix, just "FYI, we're out, thanks." HBO just flat out refuses to license any of its content to Netflix or anyone else for that mat…

Time Warner is trying to sign people up for their subscription service (HBO) -- is it really in their interest to license their content to a competing subscription service?

It's in their interest to get as many people to pay for their content as they can, and one would think that multiple channels of distribution would be a means to that end.

It's obvious why they don't want to, of course. If they control distribution, the theory goes, they can charge basically whatever they want. And of course they can control legal distribution quite easily, but that's not enough, is it?

Re: New Arrested Development will appear exclusively on Netflix Streaming

#145

Post by repsilat »

charlieussery wrote: post #105
smokinn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've already announced how they're going to pick up where they left off and it's actually a very good idea. For the first few episodes, each main character is going to get a recap episode of what they've been up to. (Now my personal opinion:) Of couse, the other characters are going to show up but I think it's a very original catching up if they do it from each character's perspective. It will allow for a deeper u…

Totally agree. Where did you read that this was what is going to happen?

There was a panel a month or so ago ("Bluth Family Reunion", maybe?) in which Mitch Hurwitz said this. I don't remember where I watched it.

Re: New Arrested Development will appear exclusively on Netflix Streaming

#146

Post by babebridou »

xsmasher wrote: post #110
babebridou wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who says anything about paying/not paying? The point is, if you're waiting for an official distribution outside of the US, 99% of the fan websites become complete spoilers. You can't be a dedicated fan of a US show outside the US and thoroughly enjoy it without pirating it first (...and then, buy the DVD). The only other option is to only watch DVDs and never talk with anyone online about the show, for fear of spoile…

"Spoilers" or inconvenience don't give you a right to the content either. The studio has to weigh the benefits of a worldwide launch (possibly reduced piracy?) against the benefits of a staggered launch (ability to pay for and schedule proper promotion, localization, and advertising in each market.) Sometimes the studio makes the wrong choice, ether the wrong economic one or the one you don't like, but that's their p…

When a particular product hits home, people feel robbed for not being able to buy it on the spot for any reason, especially when shipping and manufacturing costs are close to zero. Indeed, it really is the other way around, and it will never be otherwise, but it doesn't change the fact that some of your paying customers will be dissatisfied by your service to the point that they will take action to bypass your own faulty distribution channel, and they will even pay to be able to do that.

Heck, let's drop the masks, the majority of your paying customers even bought their very first computer just to be able to do that over the past decade.

I'm not advocating piracy, I'm explaining why it exists in the first place. When the pirated product is available immediately instead of months/years later, and with better features than the legit one, it's foolish to expect even paying fans not to pirate things nor look into piracy as a distribution channel. This is a challenge that content distributors need to deal with, one way or another.

Saying that people shouldn't pirate digital goods because it's illegal is all nice and well, but is this even enforceable? It's my own humble belief that it's not, not with the current state of the art, and that yelling at piracy is like yelling at windmills. Just deal with it and improve your product distribution in every possible way so that piracy is not exactly a better option.

It works, Apple proved it, Steam proved it.

Re: New Arrested Development will appear exclusively on Netflix Streaming

#147

Post by tomjen3 »

xsmasher wrote: post #95
tomjen3 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arrogant nationalist. Not everyone is American and and for that reason gets screwed from everything from current tv (yeah I like to see shows 3 years after they were current) to innovative things like netflix, hulu and even iTunes tv show store.

It will probably come to DVD or be distributed on another channel in your country. If not, it still doesn't grant you a moral or legal right to the content. If you pirate instead of paying then you make distributing to your country unprofitable; that sounds like the opposite effect from what you want.

If they aren't willing to sell it to me, they can't lose any money if I get it elsewhere.

But that's the error they will never realize because they are so used to think of the world in old terms.

Re: New Arrested Development will appear exclusively on Netflix Streaming

#148

Post by smokinn »

sjs wrote: post #136
chrismsnz wrote: post #68

Looks like those outside US are reduced, yet again, to grey-market solutions.

Too bad. This would have been enough for me to reactivate my Netflix account here in Canada, but instead I'll just get it via btjunkie and Transmission.

The series is netflix-owned though so it'll probably be available in Canada too. They don't have any arbitrary studio rules for regional licensing to deal with.

It's Europe, where netflix hasn't launched yet, that is left in the cold.

Re: New Arrested Development will appear exclusively on Netflix Streaming

#149

Post by tomjen3 »

xsmasher wrote: post #141
chc wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that you bring up morality. A lot of people don't actually have a moral problem with free viewing of something that isn't offered for pay in the first place. There may or may not be a legal problem with this depending on your jurisdiction, but morality is precisely the area where these people gain their justification. This is similar to the popular treatment of abandonware.

I mentioned morality because I believe it trumps bad law - I have no moral issue with DVD ripping for personal use, or with region-free DVD players to circumvent region restrictions. Or with using proxies to access Netflix from outside the US, for that matter.

That's just a silly excuse. You can't see netflix over a proxy because you need a us credit card.

Re: New Arrested Development will appear exclusively on Netflix Streaming

#150

Post by xsmasher »

tomjen3 wrote: post #149
xsmasher wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mentioned morality because I believe it trumps bad law - I have no moral issue with DVD ripping for personal use, or with region-free DVD players to circumvent region restrictions. Or with using proxies to access Netflix from outside the US, for that matter.

That's just a silly excuse. You can't see netflix over a proxy because you need a us credit card.

I'm not making excuses for Netflix - whose is, after all, financing more episodes of a show fans love. I'm sticking up for the copyright holder who is, after all, making more episodes of a show fans love and getting flack for not getting an international distribution deal set up fast enough.
Post reply on HN