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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?

#61

Post by xhkkffbf »

vanderZwan wrote: post #51

> Anyway, Waiting for Guffman still holds up, and you can watch it on YouTube, for free. On top of that it never was released outside of the US before! As a European fan of Spinal Tap I'm quite excited to finally be able to see this film. Also: no mention of The Mission, which is also in the list? That's quite a critically acclaimed one. Just look at these opening paragraphs from its wikipedia page: > The Mission is…

Certainly "The Mission" is a great film. Absolutely top notch. And with one of Morricone's better scores.

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

#62

Post by xhkkffbf »

Why are some great films mixed with some duds? This is classic Hollywood accounting. They sell N files for $M and then split the revenue evenly. The great film gets $M/N and so does every dud.

In practice, the great film's revenues have already "earned out" any advances so that $M/N must be shared with outsiders. Often, the duds haven't made enough so the studio gets to keep all $M/N.

I don't know that's what they're doing here. Certainly, they have enough data to accurately allocate revenues. But it's what's been done in the past.

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

#63

Post by vel0city »

pwg wrote: post #53
tombert wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is storage space for this significant? I doubt they're deleting the master copies or the master renders or anything, so the only thing that would be offloaded would be the "consumer" renders. A Blu-ray movie with no additional compression added is between 15-40 gigs. A consumer like me has a 300 terabyte storage array, presumably Warner Bros has even more than that (and certainly could afford more than that), so it f…

The 'offload' might be "building an entire streaming infrastructure". This way, they get to ride Youtube's streaming system rather than have to build one out.

They already have built one out, it is called Max.

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

#64

Post by dark-star »

Within the last 2 or 3 months, I have noticed that a lot of old movies are popping up on my YouTube feed. This includes full movies from the 30s to the 90s, and some are even in other languages. They are being uploaded, often with a small watermark in the corner, and they are not taken down.

I am rather curious as to why this is happening now (and happening across multiple countries, apparently) but I kinda like it.

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

#65

Post by delecti »

illwrks wrote: post #26
browningstreet wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Movie rights will be a big factor also. Events like TIFF, Cannes etc, while being a platform to show films is also where deals are done, distribution rights are signed always for different territories etc. YouTube is essentially international which may invalidate some pre-existing licence and distribution agreements.

Youtube has the ability to limit videos to certain markets. One example is that the entirety of Mythbusters was uploaded in the past couple years, but isn't available to view in the US.

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

#66

Post by soupfordummies »

This is cool!

I do get it, these movies are most likely basically "worthless" for WB at this point.

Hell, I remember seeing Deathtrap and True Stories in the Wal-Mart $5 DVD bin 20 years ago.

This is still better than letting them basically be completely lost/unavailable and the ad revenue makes it a positive cashflow proposition I bet.

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

#67

Post by spunker540 »

realce wrote: post #60
akovaski wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A link to just the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7Eup7JXScZyvRftA2Q5h... From IMDb: The 11th Hour (2007, Documentary, 7.2) The Wind and the Lion (1975, Adventure Epic, 6.8) Mr. Nice Guy (1997, Martial Arts Dark Comedy, 6.2) City Heat (1984, Buddy Cop, 5.5) Michael Collins (1996, Docudrama, 7.1) The Adventures Of Pluto Nash (2002, Space Sci-Fi Comedy, 3.9) Chaos Theory (2007, Comedy Drama Romance,…

> Return Of The Living Dead Part II (1988, Zombie Horror Comedy, 5.7) My favorite zombie flick, if you've not seen it you need to!

Do I need to watch part 1 first?

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

#68

Post by tombert »

meinersbur wrote: post #54
tombert wrote: post #20

It would be great if they started putting the canceled and removed cartoons on YouTube as well. Stuff like Final Space, Close Enough, and Infinity Train, which AFAIK has no legal way of watching anymore, could get a new audience on YouTube.

The problem here (and problably the reason why they were removed from paid streaming services) are residuals [1]: Even if nobody watches them, studios still may have to pay actors, directors, writers, etc. a share. I assume the movies put on YouTube don't have any residual agreements. [1] https://www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-tv-and-theatrical-residua...

Yeah, and I suspect also potential weirdness with tax law and writing off TV shows as a loss makes it hard to release again.

I actually do have legit copies of Infinity Train, I bought all four seasons on Amazon before the huge purge a couple years ago, but I would like legit copies of Close Enough.

I genuinely don't know what Warner Bros actually wants us to do? Is their official stance "it's ok to pirate it"?

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

#69

Post by crashingintoyou »

illwrks wrote: post #26
browningstreet wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Movie rights will be a big factor also. Events like TIFF, Cannes etc, while being a platform to show films is also where deals are done, distribution rights are signed always for different territories etc. YouTube is essentially international which may invalidate some pre-existing licence and distribution agreements.

Have you never gotten an error about something being unavailable in your region on Youtube?

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

#70

Post by a_imho »

browningstreet wrote: post #25
duxup wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I have a list of movies you can't find anywhere, not even for pay, not even on on obscure services. I check every once in a while to see if they pop up (JustWatch.us is great for this, IMDB is copying). Example: "Amateur" by Hal Hartley, though it's easy enough to buy copies on DVD. The problem is once the rights for a title end up in a library, the accessibility considerations operate at the library level, not the t…

Not sure how obscure you are willing to go, but a quick look on private trackers do list the movie.
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