8 ms·

Personally I think the entertainment industry is approaching the pirating issue the wrong way. They should all be looking into expanding their web tech. Serve

• adrianN 10y ago
  I don't understand what's so hard about putting their whole film catalog online. Let me pay a buck to download any movie your studio produced in some simple format without any crapware or subscriptions or region-locking and I will do so every time instead of pirating. The marginal cost of offering a movie for downloading must be pretty close to 0. Why can't studios simply tap the opportunity of cheap hassle-free downloads?
  • martin-adams 10y ago
    I suspect they value the offering higher if it's in limited supply. Disney do this with the Disney Vault[1]. Each Disney film is available for purchase for a limited time, after which it is put "in the vault" and not made available in stores for several years until it is once again released. However, Disney may be the exception here. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Vault https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Vault
  • tajen 10y ago
    Like, I pay $5, I get the official .torrent link legally? This is pure fiction!
    • adrianN 10y ago
      Have them set up private trackers with dedicated seedboxes and add a "tip a buck for this movie" button with some a convenient payment processor. Technologically it's a weekend project for a small team and I really don't see what they lose financially.
      • pc86 10y ago
        > I really don't see what they lose financially Uh, a lot of money? There is no way that a torrent with a $1 tip function would make the same amount of money they make through all the distribution deals, advertising, $6 24-hour HD rentals through cable providers and Amazon, etc. > Technologically it's a weekend project for a small team Famous last words.
      • squeaky-clean 10y ago
        On top of top of pc86's reasoning, a lot of small payment methods like this get abused for credit card fraud. Get a list of a thousand CC numbers from somewhere shady, and test them all out on small $1 donations like this. If it succeeds, the card is valid and the owner likely won't notice anytime soon. Eventually, when they do cancel the card and order chargebacks, the company has to pay a large flat fee to refund that $1. This is also why a lot of OSS projects don't have donation options.
      • r00fus 10y ago
        It's also a liability magnet. The MAFIAA already wants to nuke free-for-all pirating, but if you make money off that? Easier to find, and prosecute.
  • KevanM 10y ago
    Does it make sense financially for them to divide markets and then play the broadcasters off for exclusive rights to show films on scheduled TV.
  • chatmasta 10y ago
    Studios sign different distribution deals in different regions. These include box office release and "DVD" (web) release schedules. These regional licensing contracts are often in the range of 5-7 years. As a result, studios cannot simply offer a film or TV series online at the same time for everybody. As the regional contracts expire and the studios restructure them, I expect to see more direct distribution via online channels.
    • Klathmon 10y ago
      As much as I'd like to believe that it's going to get better, in my experience it's getting worse. Instead of consolidating and simplifying their terms, they are digging deeper and getting more complex. It's not uncommon to see a setup like: * Show airs during primetime * Available the next day on on-demand (not that same night) * Expires from on-demand after 30 days * Last 5 episodes but not the most recent episode available for purchase per-episode on something like google-play or amazon. * Large gap between the last 5 episodes and the previous season where it's literally impossible to buy or watch an episode legally. * second-to-most-current season available on Hulu-Plus * All seasons previous to that available on netflix or amazon prime (not both) And that's just in one country, not even taking into account the various restrictions and petty limitations like no HD and no ability to rewind or even pause in some cases. Not to mention the hardware you'd need to watch all of that on a regular TV. You are looking at least at a Fire-stick, Roku or chromecast, a STB from the cable company, and in some cases a PC that can HDMI over to the TV.
  • Cthulhu_ 10y ago
    It's not hard, it's just not maximized profit. There's a lot of brain power invested in how much they can charge and how much advertising they can cram into content, finding the most profitable balance between acquiring, retaining and losing viewers.
    • andy_ppp 10y ago
      This isn't canonically true is it; if more people consume more media at $1 per go you could make back much more than you loose by charging £25 that very few people pay for new Blu ray disks.
      • prebrov 10y ago
        It's also about effort per buck earned. A single exclusive deal for a season of Game of Thrones for a specific release window with a local/regional PayTV provider brings in, say, ten million bucks. And you make this deal in a nice 3 Michelin Star restaurant. Compare that with actually delivering 10 million streams to end users, on iPhones, iPads, Androids, AppleTVs, Chromecasts, [edited: with] payment gateways and support for technically challenged people.
        • andy_ppp 10y ago
          Delivering 10m streams to the end user is a solved problem; just pay to transcode your video. The point is to avoid even streaming - let people download films, no drm, for a buck (maybe 2 bucks for 4k) and trust most people not to steal.
      • rhino369 10y ago
        How sure are you that more than 25X people will pay for a 1 dollar movie? Because that sounds way high to me. Do you know anyone would watch 25X more content if it were cheaper? I wouldn't. And the movie industry taps this demand in other ways. They eventually sell the movie to netflix/amazon/tv station.
        • collyw 10y ago
  • lifty 10y ago
    I would love to have the possibility to be able to hassle free download movies, and I would be willing to pay up to 5 bucks (for certain movies) to do so. But I don't have that option, so instead I have other ways of getting my movies.
  • e12e 10y ago
    They've made this web for themselves, by lobbying for longer and more restrictive copyright. The most pathetic irony here, is Disney, who made a small fortune milking public domain fairy-tales and yet have fought to prevent their extremely popular figures to become part of that same public domain - even after they clearly are part of a common world-spanning culture - much like 1001 nights, or the Greek mythos.
• ascorbic 10y ago
  Just get Now TV. Seriously. It's loads cheaper than regular Sky, is more flexible in its packages, and has no ads.
  • LaSombra 10y ago
    I keep considering this but I don't want to add another streaming box on my living room or bedroom. I have a Fire TV precisely because of this.
    • satysin 10y ago
      Can't you get the Now TV app on your Fire TV?
      • LaSombra 10y ago
        Nope.
  • djaychela 10y ago
    I'd second this, up to a point - my GF has it (she changed from Sky), and it's half the price - £40 for her a month including broadband, etc. My only gripe is that it seems a bit fragmented to me when using the box - there's not a universal UI which allows you to just access all the on demand content that's available, so you have to go into BBC, C4, or the NowTV app, etc.. If it was unified (somehow, I appreciate that's not easy or probably even possible) then I think it would be really hard to beat.
• ssharp 10y ago
  The entertainment industry isn't stupid. They are doing their best to maximize revenues from their products given the current landscape of cable networks, streaming providers, on-demand, etc. The ability to make bolder strategy choices is also hampered by the need to enter into distribution contracts with the above-mentioned providers. If you do the math, I'd guess revenues would be higher doing what the entertainment industry currently does than what you propose. While this will lead many people into pirating, it's still likely a pretty small percentage. Netflix did $8.8 billion in revenue last year. U.S. domestic box office receipts were around $11.3 billion and were around $30 billion globally. In the US alone, given Netflix' current subscriber base of 49 million, it would cost each subscriber would have to pay a little over $19 per month extra just to make up for domestic box office revenues. When you factor in that Netflix needs to make some money on top of that, as well as whatever scaling is necessary, that number needs to go up even further. And then you need to makeup all the additional money that comes from rentals and distribution deals outside of Netflix. There is a reason why Netflix only gets a small portion of quality movies -- because companies can make more signing deals with companies other than Netflix. Would most people be willing to pay over $100 per month for an all-you-can-eat movie service? I doubt it, considering that doesn't even account for all the television programming, which takes up a much larger portion of people's screen time than movies do. First-run television content earns a lot of revenue, as do live shows, particularly sports. ESPN alone costs cable companies $7 per subscriber and that's with lots of ad-supported content. Without ad support, that number would be closer to $12 and that doesn't account for the additional production costs to make up for all the additional airtime that needs filled. I think to truly create an all-you-can-eat, comprehensive entertainment streaming service, you'd be look at several hundred dollars per month in subscription fees. And you'd still have to figure out some sort of way to incentivize content producers to continue producing the same level of content they currently do and support competition so there is a continued push towards higher quality.
  • Hello71 10y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZadCj8O1-0
  • adrianN 10y ago
• TarpitCarnivore 10y ago
  > Personally I think the entertainment industry is approaching the pirating issue the wrong way. I think the big problem going forward will be peoples willingness to pay. Just look at the current landscape of OTT services and people are beginning to get annoyed over paying for so many. I personally don't think the individual OTT market will keep pushing forward the way it is because at some people will get fed up with paying for so many different services. And while you can cancel at anytime, who wants to deal with remembering to sign up and cancel every time a new show comes along? Never mind the annoyance of traversing in and out of services to watch different shows or watchlists -- this by the way is where I feel TiVO got it right by combining regular recordings with online. My hope and likely dream scenarios is we begin to see a shift away from TV distributed over COAX and proprietary boxes, and instead consumed through services like Vue / SlingTV. These platforms advance to being more than traditional delivery mechanisms by allowing integration of OTT services to be consumed like a regular channel.
• mabramo 10y ago
  Vimeo has a great platform that I think could be expanded to big budget / Hollywood film. They already abide by what seems to me a Bandcamp-meets-Spotify model but for video. I really think getting on a service such as Vimeo is the next logical step for film to take. Although, some in the industry may not be thrilled.