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Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

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Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#491

Post by arthens »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #242
bryanlarsen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney has admitted that they will lose money at their current price level. Which implies strongly that they'll be increasing prices substantially in the future.

How do you lose money on content you already own? This is just Hollywood accounting in effect.

Disney is currently making bank by licensing their catalogue to various streaming/cable services. This stream of revenue will dry up as they take back their IP. It might take them a long time to have enough users on Disney+ to cover the lost licensing revenue.

Netflix has ~150M paying subscriptions. Let's say that $0.20 of your Netflix subscription go to Disney (you can adjust it to whatever you think it might be). That's 30M a month. At $10/m, Disney+ would need 3 million users just to break even with what they used to make from Netflix.

How many active users (or what price point) will Disney need to justify the investment?

https://redef.com/original/nine-reasons-why-disney-will-succ... Towards the end of the article it talks about the challenges they will face.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#492

Post by bestnameever »

LeoNatan25 wrote: post #131

No worries, I'll just use the torrent sharers. I bet those will give me a constant 4K quality on all my devices, no ridiculous DRM, get to keep them once I terminate my "subscription", etc. Oh and it's free, not 10-15$ USD for each service.

I think thats the point? From what it sounds like, you are not paying for the services now but yet they are incurring costs every time you use it. This change is not going to force paying subscribers off their services.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#493

Post by ghemsley »

aptwebapps wrote: post #443
catalogia wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's quite simple: mass market content is made for the lowest common denominator. See also, Jack of all trades, master of none. It's not a phenomena unique to movies, or the modern international economy, it's a pattern that pops up all over the place. Look at multi-tool pocket knives: capable of doing many things, but mediocre at everything.

And as you expand to a global audience, the lowest common denominator gets lower.

That doesn't necessarily follow.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#494

Post by soledades »

DanBC wrote: post #61
maxsilver wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The entitlement people feel to steal is always surprising. It's not stealing when you already paid in full . Sharing my Netflix password with my wife and/or child is not stealing , I paid in full for that account, and have now for many many years. My Plex server is full of DVDs and BluRays I paid full retail price for (that's $20 to $30 USD each), it's not stealing to use it, and it's not stealing to let some frien…

You're ignoring the history. Disney for years resisted selling films on videos because they had no way of controlling how many people would be in the room watching the content. And they investigated single-use tapes (these had a latch that prevented rewinding, you'd have to send the tape back to the factory to be re-wound) and 24 hour DVDs (these would be sealed in an oxygen free case and would start oxidising on con…

> This short time we’ve had of “owning content” has been an anomaly

Have you ever heard of books?

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#495

Post by aptwebapps »

ghemsley wrote: post #493
aptwebapps wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And as you expand to a global audience, the lowest common denominator gets lower.

That doesn't necessarily follow.

I mean, mathematically it certainly does, but maybe the metaphor is getting a bit strained.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#496

Post by golover721 »

Sebguer wrote: post #268
golover721 wrote: post #257

These threads are always interesting on HN. I'm not going to pass judgement on folks who think they its ok or not ok to pirate media based on cost or sometimes how difficult it is to obtain "legitimately". What I do think is interesting is that folks seem to solely place the blame on the large media distributors and seem to place no blame on the content creators. Creators have a huge influence on the industry, from t…

Do you blame individual engineers for the business decisions that their companies make?

That’s somewhat different. Individual engineers are more analogous to the crew working on a particular production. They for the most part are not in a position to use their authority to sway the production. Unlike say a famous writer, actor or director would be.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#497

Post by monocasa »

diminoten wrote: post #486
monocasa wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You do not have an entitlement to intellectual property, our entire society is built on top of that concept. Our society is based on the idea that the public in fact does have an entitlement to all IP except trademarks. The Constitution is pretty clear that it's a limited monopoly that was originally 14 years for copyright. When that's been perverted so that "forever minus a day" is a limited copyright, then I don'…

No it's not and no it doesn't. You are 100% wrong.

[citation needed]

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#498

Post by nannal »

rovr138 wrote: post #297
nannal wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone want a docker compose file? Would take about 30 minutes to actually get everything up if you have most of an idea of what to do and a sloppily written guide.

Sure, post a GitHub/Gitlab link.

https://github.com/nannal/Tortuga

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#499

Post by Daishiman »

comeondude wrote: post #372
kempbellt wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may (or may not) have built my own Netflix competitor. It had more content than all of the major providers combined. Legal buffer: I will not say what the content was. It may have all been non-copyrighted cat videos ;) The service was available cross region. Stored videos in multiple resolutions for streamability in low-bandwidth situations. No DRM bs. It cost me under $400/month to run the whole service, and I cou…

Dude ... This comes off as incredibly self-entitled and arrogant. That piece of art? It takes years and tremendous amount of people hours to bring these films into existence your enjoyment. I grew up in Hollywood, in family of filmmakers. My friends are actors, producers, and well anybody else who is involved in the business - and we all dedicate unbelievable hours of love and labor into the “non copyrighted cat vide…

You come off as self-entitled for believing that everyone should adhere to your system of values which includes the particular expectations for compensation of your work.

I grew up around musicians. Musicians steal and pirate themselves all the time. Nobody will bat an eye if you pirate their music. Being poor themselves most know that affording a concert or paying for legal music can be a hassle so they don't bust people's balls.

I've pirated tons of music myself. I've also spent thousands of dollars in vinyl, potentially tens of thousands in festivals with their associated costs and merch, and have spend more money in building a sound system for parties that I have no possibility of ever recovering.

Art doesn't entitle you to a livelihood. If you don't like the level of compensation, get a day job and do it for kicks like the vast majority of people do.

Re: Netflix, HBO and Cable Giants Are Coming for Password Sharers

#500

Post by shmerl »

thephyber wrote: post #210
shmerl wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could for years do something about it. I.e. start offering DRM-free video for sale. They never cared, so the conclusion is that they don't want to do anything proper about it, they will only spread the DRM paranoia.

To be fair, iTunes and Amazon do/did offer DRM-free for some music selections. I think blaming the distributors is misplacing the blame. The problem is that the distributors don't have the legal right to do that without contractual buy-in from content owners who fear that their golden goose will dry up if content is offered without DRM or if digital content can be kept and used in perpetuity by consumers.

Music yes, and you can still buy it DRM-free today. I'm talking about video specifically.
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