6 ms·

A friend works in TV and film and deals with the licensing for this kind of thing. It seems like a colossal disaster at best. It's complicated, convoluted and g

by iamben 11y ago

A friend works in TV and film and deals with the licensing for this kind of thing. It seems like a colossal disaster at best. It's complicated, convoluted and greedy. We've discussed it many times before, but it doesn't look like the TV/film industries will ever get themselves to a Spotify-esque point. Which is a shame, because it'll be to their own detriment (as it will be for the music industry again, if 'stars' persist in exclusivity for streaming rights) when people revert back to torrents (as one comment here has already stated). The fact is, most people are prepared to pay for a VOD and/or music service. We just don't want to pay for 3 of them. Money aside, it just isn't convenient. "Can we listen to The Beatles? Yes, I'm not sure whether it's on cassette, CD or vinyl, so search through all three collections, then make sure the appropriate player is plugged in. If it's not there, we'll need to look at buying the minidisk. Or shoplifting it." Anyway, I appreciate the point of the article wasn't purely a rant about VOD/DVDs, and it was a point well made.

draw_down 11y ago
I doubt anyone in entertainment thinks that avoiding the fate of the music industry would be a shame. Spotify is great for us users but there's no money in music anymore (not that that is specifically Spotify's fault).
- edraferi 11y ago
  I wonder how much of that is simply due to an explosion of supply driving prices down. It's so much cheaper to record and distribute music that there's no scarcity at all.
  - slang800 11y ago
    I'm inclined to agree with this - I've got a backlog of albums to listen to, either recommended by friends, new releases by artists I already know I like, or from monthly playlists like BIRP. According to Banshee, it would take me about a month of 24/7 listening to hear all of it once. By the time I polish off that backlog, I'm sure that I will have found another couple hundred albums to replace it. So, right now my biggest problem is search and categorization by mood, rather than supply or even discovery.
dkfmn 11y ago
There are two fundamental problems: 1) What's good for the consumer isn't necessarily good for the creators. In other words, they have an incentive to fight the future rather than embrace it. 2) The extra efficiency of distribution created by technology is hell on legacy business models. Streaming media is an example of disruption shrinking the whole pie. Craigslist wrecked the classifieds business and became wildly successful but it did so NOT by moving 90% of the industry's revenue to Craigslist; it did so by capturing 10% of the revenue and destroying the rest.
- mkesper 11y ago
  Creators != content industry
  - dkfmn 11y ago
    I tend to agree but this is really a separate conversation. These days, the struggling musician will give away music for extra exposure in the hopes of becoming famous so they can make money touring. That's the best they can do because nobody sells 50 million vinyl records anymore, although that's probably more likely than selling 50 million CDs (note I didn't say albums). Still, regardless of where these dollars flow, to creators or the "industry," it's fewer dollars.
    - makapuf 11y ago
      well, digital sales only (which are still less than CD and I think streaming/radio + public performance make much more now than by then) are currently worth more than total music sales in the seventies, which I don't think were a particularly bad time for music creativity. (http://publicradio2.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2014/02/units-vs-dollars-riaa.jpg http://publicradio2.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2014/02/un...)
      - amouat 11y ago
        1) I don't think that graph is adjusted for inflation. 2) I haven't done it, but I'd be willing to put a few quid on the 1970s having the largest proportion of albums in the best of lists e.g. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-20120531 http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-... Also 1970s rockstars seemed to have a lot more money than their 2010s equivalents.
qznc 11y ago
> it'll be to their own detriment Yes, I think we see this happening now as the streaming part of the industry (Netflix, Amazon, etc) start producing their own content. They will slowly supersede the old industry. It seems to take longer than for the music industry, though.
thirdsun 11y ago
As others already indicated I'm not sure if music in general, or Spotify in particular, should be a role model for other industries. Sure, it's convenient for the user but artists and labels (I'm not talking majors, but small, caring labels) can't survive with these rates. What the movie / TV industry could learn from music is how to sell their content conveniently and without DRM in a digital, high quality format. I'm not interested in physical discs, yet have no option to legally buy a digital 1080p copy of [insert almost any movie here] and play it in Kodi or wherever I want. Meanwhile I've been buying at least 10 lossless albums monthly for years - so it's not aas if I'm not willing to pay for my content.
- iamben 11y ago
  But you can't put the genie back in the bottle. I suspect you're in a minority buying lossless albums. Most of the 'youth' I know don't buy at all. They do pay for Spotify, or at worst use it ad supported. I used to buy lots and lots of CDs. I had a few years of iPod, but now I'm pretty much exclusively Spotify. I might buy a vinyl if I go watch a band. It goes straight on the shelf and never gets played. Spotify may not be the ideal, but it's better than Napster or Limewire. If you grew up getting music for free, it's a logical stepping stone. It's easier than stealing it, and it's legal. Giving addicts methadone may not be a cure, but it's better than the heroin trade and all the risks attached. Until we can find a cure, or in this case, a better(/fairer?) way for the artists and industry, that's where we're at. As per my parent post, unless the 'cure' is as least as good as the substitute (or you can fundamentally change how people think), the user will go back to what they had before. It's a funny old world, isn't it?
  - thirdsun 11y ago
    I understand that I'm a minority but the point remains: Why would the movie industry follow the streaming model when Spotify shows that nobody's earninng a living with that solution?
    - iamben 11y ago
      Because we're not going to go back to DVDs. And eventually, something like popcorntime will just become the ubiquitous, go to solution that ultimately hurts them further, because it'll do what can't be done legally.
dwaltrip 11y ago
I wanted to watch "Wild" (2014) the other day. My only option is to pay $13 to buy it, from either Amazon or iTunes or one of the other online legal video sites. I find this very frustrating.. I'd like to pay 3 or 4 bucks to rent it for a single viewing, but even though it is from 2014 none of the sites offer to rent it. I'm probably going to torrent it.
- jimbokun 11y ago
  Or wait 2 days for Netflix to mail you a Plastic Circle.
  - rblatz 11y ago
    I have 3 different boxes hooked up to my tv that can stream video from multiple sources. I do not have a BluRay or DVD player hooked up. Plus at this point DVDs seem like a hassle[1], they have previews, government warnings, and a lot of other crap before you even get to the movie. [1] I'm probably not the best judge of this though, I have an Echo so I can voice control my lights instead of getting up and flipping a switch...
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      Your choice not to have a dic player is what is limiting your options then. That's not the future coming to fast, that's you cutting off the present too fast for your own interests. For that, only one person is to blame.
hammock 11y ago
>The fact is, most people are prepared to pay for a VOD and/or music service. We just don't want to pay for 3 of them. Money aside, it just isn't convenient. Sounds like an opportunity for a Dogpile-type[1] service to come in and build an app that sits on top of your Netflix, Hulu and HBOGo subscriptions and allows you to discover/search/launch from one place. It would probably be hacked up and functionality could be broken by one of the VODs at will, but if it lasts long enough to get some traction it would have done its job as a proof of concept to the media dinosaurs and you could make an exit. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogpile https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogpile
- funkaster 11y ago
  You can already do that with several streaming devices: roku, wii u, and I'm pretty sure many others.
- Tactic 11y ago
  www.canistream.it does some of this data aggregation. I believe the problem you would encounter if you put all of this into one slick interface and it became popular is that the VOD services would fight you. They don't want you discovering what they don't offer. They want you to user their service. Otherwise you may find yourself using the other service more than theirs and cancel. Plus this doesn't ultimately deal with the pain of dealing with multiple bills and, essentially, paying for the same thing multiple times where there is overlap.

by iamben 11y ago

draw_down 11y ago

I doubt anyone in entertainment thinks that avoiding the fate of the music industry would be a shame. Spotify is great for us users but there's no money in music anymore (not that that is specifically Spotify's fault).

edraferi 11y ago
I wonder how much of that is simply due to an explosion of supply driving prices down. It's so much cheaper to record and distribute music that there's no scarcity at all.
- slang800 11y ago
  I'm inclined to agree with this - I've got a backlog of albums to listen to, either recommended by friends, new releases by artists I already know I like, or from monthly playlists like BIRP. According to Banshee, it would take me about a month of 24/7 listening to hear all of it once. By the time I polish off that backlog, I'm sure that I will have found another couple hundred albums to replace it. So, right now my biggest problem is search and categorization by mood, rather than supply or even discovery.

dkfmn 11y ago

There are two fundamental problems: 1) What's good for the consumer isn't necessarily good for the creators. In other words, they have an incentive to fight the future rather than embrace it. 2) The extra efficiency of distribution created by technology is hell on legacy business models. Streaming media is an example of disruption shrinking the whole pie. Craigslist wrecked the classifieds business and became wildly successful but it did so NOT by moving 90% of the industry's revenue to Craigslist; it did so by capturing 10% of the revenue and destroying the rest.

mkesper 11y ago
Creators != content industry
- dkfmn 11y ago
  I tend to agree but this is really a separate conversation. These days, the struggling musician will give away music for extra exposure in the hopes of becoming famous so they can make money touring. That's the best they can do because nobody sells 50 million vinyl records anymore, although that's probably more likely than selling 50 million CDs (note I didn't say albums). Still, regardless of where these dollars flow, to creators or the "industry," it's fewer dollars.
  - makapuf 11y ago
    well, digital sales only (which are still less than CD and I think streaming/radio + public performance make much more now than by then) are currently worth more than total music sales in the seventies, which I don't think were a particularly bad time for music creativity. (http://publicradio2.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2014/02/units-vs-dollars-riaa.jpg http://publicradio2.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2014/02/un...)
    - amouat 11y ago
      1) I don't think that graph is adjusted for inflation. 2) I haven't done it, but I'd be willing to put a few quid on the 1970s having the largest proportion of albums in the best of lists e.g. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-20120531 http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-... Also 1970s rockstars seemed to have a lot more money than their 2010s equivalents.

qznc 11y ago

> it'll be to their own detriment Yes, I think we see this happening now as the streaming part of the industry (Netflix, Amazon, etc) start producing their own content. They will slowly supersede the old industry. It seems to take longer than for the music industry, though.

thirdsun 11y ago

As others already indicated I'm not sure if music in general, or Spotify in particular, should be a role model for other industries. Sure, it's convenient for the user but artists and labels (I'm not talking majors, but small, caring labels) can't survive with these rates. What the movie / TV industry could learn from music is how to sell their content conveniently and without DRM in a digital, high quality format. I'm not interested in physical discs, yet have no option to legally buy a digital 1080p copy of [insert almost any movie here] and play it in Kodi or wherever I want. Meanwhile I've been buying at least 10 lossless albums monthly for years - so it's not aas if I'm not willing to pay for my content.

iamben 11y ago
But you can't put the genie back in the bottle. I suspect you're in a minority buying lossless albums. Most of the 'youth' I know don't buy at all. They do pay for Spotify, or at worst use it ad supported. I used to buy lots and lots of CDs. I had a few years of iPod, but now I'm pretty much exclusively Spotify. I might buy a vinyl if I go watch a band. It goes straight on the shelf and never gets played. Spotify may not be the ideal, but it's better than Napster or Limewire. If you grew up getting music for free, it's a logical stepping stone. It's easier than stealing it, and it's legal. Giving addicts methadone may not be a cure, but it's better than the heroin trade and all the risks attached. Until we can find a cure, or in this case, a better(/fairer?) way for the artists and industry, that's where we're at. As per my parent post, unless the 'cure' is as least as good as the substitute (or you can fundamentally change how people think), the user will go back to what they had before. It's a funny old world, isn't it?
- thirdsun 11y ago
  I understand that I'm a minority but the point remains: Why would the movie industry follow the streaming model when Spotify shows that nobody's earninng a living with that solution?
  - iamben 11y ago
    Because we're not going to go back to DVDs. And eventually, something like popcorntime will just become the ubiquitous, go to solution that ultimately hurts them further, because it'll do what can't be done legally.

dwaltrip 11y ago

I wanted to watch "Wild" (2014) the other day. My only option is to pay $13 to buy it, from either Amazon or iTunes or one of the other online legal video sites. I find this very frustrating.. I'd like to pay 3 or 4 bucks to rent it for a single viewing, but even though it is from 2014 none of the sites offer to rent it. I'm probably going to torrent it.

jimbokun 11y ago
Or wait 2 days for Netflix to mail you a Plastic Circle.
- rblatz 11y ago
  I have 3 different boxes hooked up to my tv that can stream video from multiple sources. I do not have a BluRay or DVD player hooked up. Plus at this point DVDs seem like a hassle[1], they have previews, government warnings, and a lot of other crap before you even get to the movie. [1] I'm probably not the best judge of this though, I have an Echo so I can voice control my lights instead of getting up and flipping a switch...
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    Your choice not to have a dic player is what is limiting your options then. That's not the future coming to fast, that's you cutting off the present too fast for your own interests. For that, only one person is to blame.

hammock 11y ago

>The fact is, most people are prepared to pay for a VOD and/or music service. We just don't want to pay for 3 of them. Money aside, it just isn't convenient. Sounds like an opportunity for a Dogpile-type[1] service to come in and build an app that sits on top of your Netflix, Hulu and HBOGo subscriptions and allows you to discover/search/launch from one place. It would probably be hacked up and functionality could be broken by one of the VODs at will, but if it lasts long enough to get some traction it would have done its job as a proof of concept to the media dinosaurs and you could make an exit. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogpile https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogpile

funkaster 11y ago
You can already do that with several streaming devices: roku, wii u, and I'm pretty sure many others.
Tactic 11y ago
www.canistream.it does some of this data aggregation. I believe the problem you would encounter if you put all of this into one slick interface and it became popular is that the VOD services would fight you. They don't want you discovering what they don't offer. They want you to user their service. Otherwise you may find yourself using the other service more than theirs and cancel. Plus this doesn't ultimately deal with the pain of dealing with multiple bills and, essentially, paying for the same thing multiple times where there is overlap.