6 ms·

This blows my mind. How on earth does Netflix not have the rights to show their own show in Switzerland? I understand their hands are sometimes tied in getting

This blows my mind. How on earth does Netflix not have the rights to show their own show in Switzerland? I understand their hands are sometimes tied in getting content from the studios, but they own House of Cards... I'm so confused how they could end up in that situation...

detaro 11y ago
Simple: They sold exclusive rights in quite a few countries to TV networks before they expanded there.
- michaelbuckbee 11y ago
  Not disagreeing, but it still seems odd as the Netflix Original Content is the big carrot to get people hooked into their ecosystem.
  - detaro 11y ago
    I can only assume they didn't plan to expand this quickly and would have lost a lot of money by adding "in case we are in this market by then" clauses to the contracts. But yes, it certainly leaves a strange impression.
  - messick 11y ago
    "Netflix Original Content" doesn't really mean anything anyway. Better Call Saul is "Netflix Original Content" in every country but the United States, even though they had nothing to do with getting it made. They just bought the non-US rights: http://promo.xfm.co.uk/bettercallsaul/images/970x250_backup_UK.jpg http://promo.xfm.co.uk/bettercallsaul/images/970x250_backup_...
    - talmand 11y ago
      They do the same thing here in the US or I guess Netflix is creating a large number of foreign movies and TV shows.
    - boyter 11y ago
      Not in Australia. Better Call Saul is on a Netflix competitor called Stan.
  - sdm 11y ago
    Just because something is "Netflix Original Content" in one country doesn't mean it's "Netflix Original Content" in another. For example "The 100" is "Netflix Original Content" in Canada but in the US it's not -- it's distributed by some TV network.
majormajor 11y ago
IIRC Netflix purchased the streaming rights for House of Cards from a studio, but the studio sold rights to others for medias/locations Netflix wasn't in at the time. E.g. you can buy House of Cards on disc from Sony, or on various on-demand services. Or possibly for streaming, Netflix had those rights but sublicensed them before expanding (oops, if that's the case).
- rhino369 11y ago
  Netflix doesn't even have an exclusive liscense for the USA. IIRC House of Cards S1 is on comcast xfinity streaming.
mschuster91 11y ago
> How on earth does Netflix not have the rights to show their own show in Switzerland? One often-overlooked point is soundtracks. This is why there's no official Cold Case DVD/BD set - it would be prohibitively expensive to license all the music for distribution outside of TV.
- semi-extrinsic 11y ago
  Another case in point: House MD doesn't have Massive Attack's "Teardrop" as the intro theme anywhere outside the US.
- tracker1 11y ago
  Same thing with "Wonder Years" it's all about licensing... hell "Daria" had to replace significant portions of the music (thankfully they had the original separate tracks to work from).
mikeryan 11y ago
Netflix doesn't "own" House of Cards. Media Rights Capital "owns" House of Cards, Netflix distributes the show. Even then MRC's rights are probably limited because they bought the rights to the concept from the BBC who originally did House of Cards as a mini-series.
maruhan2 11y ago
Because Netflix (or other companies) just simply do not have the resources to manage the duty of distributing content all over the world. Hence, there exists regional distributors. Allocating duties to those regional distributors means that you'll need to sign a contract that gives those distributors special rights.

detaro 11y ago

Simple: They sold exclusive rights in quite a few countries to TV networks before they expanded there.

michaelbuckbee 11y ago
Not disagreeing, but it still seems odd as the Netflix Original Content is the big carrot to get people hooked into their ecosystem.
- detaro 11y ago
  I can only assume they didn't plan to expand this quickly and would have lost a lot of money by adding "in case we are in this market by then" clauses to the contracts. But yes, it certainly leaves a strange impression.
- messick 11y ago
  "Netflix Original Content" doesn't really mean anything anyway. Better Call Saul is "Netflix Original Content" in every country but the United States, even though they had nothing to do with getting it made. They just bought the non-US rights: http://promo.xfm.co.uk/bettercallsaul/images/970x250_backup_UK.jpg http://promo.xfm.co.uk/bettercallsaul/images/970x250_backup_...
  - talmand 11y ago
    They do the same thing here in the US or I guess Netflix is creating a large number of foreign movies and TV shows.
  - boyter 11y ago
    Not in Australia. Better Call Saul is on a Netflix competitor called Stan.
- sdm 11y ago
  Just because something is "Netflix Original Content" in one country doesn't mean it's "Netflix Original Content" in another. For example "The 100" is "Netflix Original Content" in Canada but in the US it's not -- it's distributed by some TV network.

majormajor 11y ago

IIRC Netflix purchased the streaming rights for House of Cards from a studio, but the studio sold rights to others for medias/locations Netflix wasn't in at the time. E.g. you can buy House of Cards on disc from Sony, or on various on-demand services. Or possibly for streaming, Netflix had those rights but sublicensed them before expanding (oops, if that's the case).

rhino369 11y ago
Netflix doesn't even have an exclusive liscense for the USA. IIRC House of Cards S1 is on comcast xfinity streaming.

mschuster91 11y ago

> How on earth does Netflix not have the rights to show their own show in Switzerland? One often-overlooked point is soundtracks. This is why there's no official Cold Case DVD/BD set - it would be prohibitively expensive to license all the music for distribution outside of TV.

semi-extrinsic 11y ago
Another case in point: House MD doesn't have Massive Attack's "Teardrop" as the intro theme anywhere outside the US.
tracker1 11y ago
Same thing with "Wonder Years" it's all about licensing... hell "Daria" had to replace significant portions of the music (thankfully they had the original separate tracks to work from).

mikeryan 11y ago

Netflix doesn't "own" House of Cards. Media Rights Capital "owns" House of Cards, Netflix distributes the show. Even then MRC's rights are probably limited because they bought the rights to the concept from the BBC who originally did House of Cards as a mini-series.

maruhan2 11y ago

Because Netflix (or other companies) just simply do not have the resources to manage the duty of distributing content all over the world. Hence, there exists regional distributors. Allocating duties to those regional distributors means that you'll need to sign a contract that gives those distributors special rights.