Just because they created the content doesn't mean they have ownership of all IP involved. Music especially can be a PITA, see the videogame Alan Wake being unsellable because the licensing for the music used in the game ran out.
I have heard this was a problem for Top Gear. They'd include a music clip like The A Team jingle in a clip because the BBC would have a licence to broadcast that. And when they want to show that episode outside the UK, they need to patch the show to use different music instead that they have a licence to.
That's very true. I can't stream one of my favorite shows, Northern Exposure, because of the music licensing. They even had to change some music in order to release the DVDs. http://actsofvolition.com/2005/03/musiclicensing/
> Its theme song is "Love and Marriage" by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, performed by Frank Sinatra from the 1955 television production Our Town.
...
> The Sony DVD box sets from season 3 onward do not feature the original "Love and Marriage" theme song in the opening sequence. This was done because Sony was unable to obtain the licensing rights to the song for later sets. Despite this, the end credits on the DVDs for season 3 still include a credit for "Love and Marriage."
That's question to the music authors. They probably decided to sell the licensing rights to an "evil" media company.
Here I stand on "right to burn" author's side. They can do whatever they want with their music, like putting a trillion dollar price on it, or selling it to an evil publisher. It's authors's nonprescribable right. If you don't like it -- feel free to write your own music.
That game makers should have probably make a modification to the game to replace original music with something else.
It seems unwise of the game maker to purchase a music license that expires. Though, I suspect it was a calculated risk, and that they believed potential sales this late after release weren't worth paying more for. Alan Wake was released seven years ago.
I used to do work re-writing music for tv shows when they went to syndication in other countries. I did it in hopes that it would lead to bigger gigs but that was naive/silly in hindsight. It's probably been 10 years since I did one of those gigs, but I'm sure others are out there still doing it for music, movies and games.
It doesn't mean they should block VPNs since it's effectively a discriminatory (bordering on xenophobic) practice, same as rejecting foreigners in a physical store.
I think more likely by local distributors, who have too much leverage on said content providers. Local distribution is often at odds with global Internet one.
The content providers don't have a product to sell to local distributors if they don't have significant control over online distribution, so it's not like they'd be complaining if that were the case.
> The content providers don't have a product to sell to local distributors if they don't have significant control over online distribution
Why so? It only happens in unhealthy monopolized markets. In healthy competitive markets, content providers should be independent from distributors. They create something (films for instance) and distribute them as widely as possible (i.e. through all distributors), to maximize reach and in turn profit. That would include global unrestricted distribution. But when market is monopolized and there are cartels, all that becomes totally messed up and restrictions pop up all over the place.
This isn't a thing that's unique to digital content - it's a common business arrangement for some company to be allowed to be a sole distributor for a product in a market. It reduces risk for the distributor, meaning that they're able to give the product manufacturer a bigger cut.
Because it's not worth the effort to allow VPNs, but only allow content that's available globally since they can't figure out where the traffic really originates?
Honestly, if you're at the point where you're circumventing region locking to access Netflix, you should just pirate it. You're violating copyright either way.
> Honestly, if you're at the point where you're circumventing region locking to access Netflix, you should just pirate it. You're violating copyright either way.
Many people think it's an ethical requirement to pay artists for their work. So even if they're okay (arguably) violating the law, they might not be okay with just taking the art without paying at all.
I really doubt there is any per-view payout. There would be no point in their constant content churn if they were able (or wanted to) negotiate per-view contracts.
The view numbers surely get used during contract negotiations, though. When a movie's contract runs out and Netflix needs to figure out how much they're willing to bid to renew it, they'll look at the view numbers as one factor in determining how much they're willing to bid.
So even if there isn't a per-view payout, I'm sure the view numbers do contribute to the studio getting more money.
My guess is similar, except that the distributor never actually pays out royalties; instead using Hollywood-accounting to funnel the extra money away into the contract for some captive film-rights service company owned by contacts and cronies.
You'd have to imagine Netflix does more than viewing numbers since it's not ads that makes them money but subscribers to the overall service.
If a show is getting press and social media talk then they probably value that higher since new subscribers is of very high value. Retention is a different problem and not as particular to one show.
Kinda funny how a VPN - a perfectly sensible defensive/precautionary strategy for any purpose - automatically equals something nefarious to these schmoes. I use a VPN all the time, including for the most benign activities... I just leave it on all the time. So it's always weird and I never quite seem to get used to it, when some site like Netflix (not that I use Netflix) singles my IP address out. It always takes me a minute to realize, "Oh they think I'm like sup3r 31337 haxxx0r5 because of the VPN." So to protect their security and prove how trustworthy I am, I have to let down my security. Where's the give & take? It's just weird.
Because more often then not, VPN is used to circumvent something they shouldn't be accessing. Just like torrents are essentially used to download pirated software. I bet you side with pirates, because they are only trying to "test" the software first.
> more often then not, VPN is used to circumvent something they shouldn't be accessing
Who knew Cisco was selling enterprise-grade circumvention devices to the world's corporations? Somebody better notify the MPAA!
More seriously, this type of thinking is pernicious. It demands "consumers" simply "consume" is easy-to-control ways, stay in their lanes and not be suspicious.
There would be no internet if people did that. Don't get me wrong; if people want to be sheep, they can be. I will happily encrypt, tunnel, send weird packets and otherwise play on the net the way it was intended, and anyone with a problem with that can chose not to do business with me if they prefer more tractable clientele who will shut up and eat what they're fed.
And if you were on a corporate VPN you wouldn't get detected and blocked by Netflix.
Let's not be disingenuous here: we're not talking about VPN the technology -- it's impossible to detect if someone's traffic has passed though a VPN. We're talking about public 'VPN Services' which are all but billed for circumventing region locking, ISP throttling, and piracy.
Any kind of content provider would blacklist those endpoints in a second.
Don't believe I was being disingenuous. Read the comment to which I was responding.
I honestly don't care if "content providers" want to block VPNs, as I mentioned in my comment. I much more strongly object to this notion that there's something somehow wrong with users using things like this. The attitude of suspicion directed at anyone who values privacy, wants to learn how things work, or even does somewhat dodgy things sometimes is what I object to. That creates sheep, not citizens, and discourages engagement and learning.
It is up to businesses that depend on artificial scarcity (really, any business, but the legacy copyright industry is being discussed here) to make their businesses work; it isn't my responsibility to make my behavior fit their business model. And if they can't, well, they deserve to die.
You can use most (any?) dedicated server or VPS service as a VPN. I personally just create a SSH tunnel to my server in order to browse any site. You do not need to rent any shady "VPN Service".
> for circumventing region locking, ISP throttling
Circumventing either of these is a fine act.
> and piracy
If they wanted to "pirate" they would not have used Netflix.
You jest, but in fact, MPAA, RIAA, absolutely -have- in the past tried to mandate, lobby, require that enterprise devices do L7 inspection for exactly this reason. They have been more than happy to argue that their member's products should have explicit preventions in third party hardware and software (at the third partys expense, of course) to protect revenue.
And on the flip side, certain firewall providers have marketed similar features to restrictive regimes such as China for the Great Firewall. And not just 'nudge nudge wink wink', but produced marketing material saying "This will help you prevent Falun Gong material being available, and help identify end users trying to access this material."
If netflix found that the majority of VPN connections were to avoid region locking, would you agree that blocking VPNs to enforce region locking makes sense?
As if the system for compensating artists was in any way equitable for them. We're better off with piracy, at least noone is pretending to support them... right now the economics are just downright predatory.
> Many people think it's an ethical requirement to pay artists for their work.
I don't think that way. Everybody deserves a reasonable income, but what these "artists" make is totally insane. The only reason I watch their movies is because with the help of their fans, they have created an artificial monopoly around their persona and I am basically forced to watch them. In a free market with intelligent consumers, these people would not make this much.
They haven't "created an artificial monopoly around their persona". You've just created an artificial justification around your actions.
You're also not "basically forced to watch them".
HBO operates with a margin of 33% (1.7Billion income on 4.9 Billion of revenue). That's healthy, but it isn't "totally insane". There isn't much room to spare before they'd have to sacrifice quality. That'd be quite sad, considering the last decade is generally regarded as a golden age of TV.
I've watched probably more than 8,000 episodes in my life. Not because I wanted to keep up with anything (no external motivation), simply because I was addicted to TV shows (great ones, no regrets).
Now I don't watch TV anymore, or ever so rarely. I've converted the time to reading. It changed my life in dramatically good ways —pun very much intended. There's a time for everything, and quite frankly after some time it's like you've watched it all, you could predict plots and even lines (sometimes it feels as though all authors just get inspired from their peers and much of the writing/directing feels recycled).
There's no "keeping up to date" with pop culture imho, at some point it becomes anthropological. You just overgrow pop culture beyond a certain amount of experience. You could actually produce it for that matter. As it relates to the medium, thus technology, I'm thinking it will evolve once again with VR/AR/etc.
Man, if you think TV and movies is the path to wealth...
Most productions that people watch have somewhere between hundreds and tens of thousands of people working on them. Almost none of them are rich, including most of the producers, directors, and stars of your favorite shows--who are usually locked into contracts they signed before their shows got big, and shows almost never get big. The number of people who will get rich from a given TV show or movie is between zero and almost zero.
99% of show business is folks trying to get by, same as anywhere else. Most people in show business could earn more doing almost anything else. Almost all of them make less than some kid in Silicon Valley building Tinder for Dogs. Programmers at Netflix make far, far more than almost every artist and even many of the financiers, and few here would complain about that.
Movies and TV shows have become much more expensive than in the 80s, and yet I don't think they are much better. It's as if producers are throwing in money instead of creativity. I just can't support that to the extent that they expect me to.
Also, we should all benefit from economies of scale, not just the film producers.
> The only reason I watch their movies is because with the help of their fans, they have created an artificial monopoly around their persona and I am basically forced to watch them.
I have seen enough MST3K to know that an actor that is skilled at the craft is worth quite a bit more than I had previously suspected. You really don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.
In a free market with intelligent consumers, these people would not make quite so much, but it would still be a significant amount.
People that can uphold a willing suspension of disbelief are rare enough, but those who can invoke it are the ones truly deserving of that reasonable income. Those folks aren't always the actors. Sometimes it's the writers, directors, or even the make-up or foley artists. Those people that don't get face time in front of the public might not always get the recognition they deserve, and they're the ones we really want to be paid for their art. But there are a lot of people shaving money off the wad before it gets to them, so putting too much cash in their hands is a small price to pay so that those who deserve it can actually make a living.
By VPNing into content, you aren't really paying artists. You pay Netflix, but Netflix doesn't license the content. So really you are just paying Netflix for stuff you are effectively pirating. Skip the middle man.
You still have to pay for an account. Which is used to pay licensing fees.
The difference is "This dollar came from a user in the US", versus "This dollar came from a user in Eastern Europe (or wherever Netflix isn't available)".
Netflix is still licensing the content, just not for your (real) jurisdiction.
To imply that it's better, then, to just outright pirate the content is... confusing.
> Because it's not worth the effort to allow VPNs, but only allow content that's available globally since they can't figure out where the traffic really originates?
You don't really need to, you just need to say "VPN IP? Okay, you get our own global content only."
Makes me wonder if continued escalation might push more people back towards Blu-Rays. Personally, I prefer just purchasing content anyways. Then if Netflix or whoever has to pull it, I still have it.
I actually just subscribe to Netflix' DVD service. I get films in much higher quality delivered every other day, and I use MakeMKV to copy them onto my computer for when I want to watch them.
Films I can't get there, I just pirate. I'm not interested in installing DRM platforms on my computer to be able to watch very heavily compressed videos if they haven't been yanked offline yet.
A lot of initial work maybe. I rip all of my movies with MakeMKV to a Plex Media Server running on an old 2009 desktop. The setup can take a while, mostly picking through extras on the disk and naming them properly. But the interface is just as slick as Netflix and they have an app for practically every device. And if you don't care about the extras ripping the movies is essentially just pushing a button on MakeMKV.
If you're looking for a weekend project and have a movie/TV collection I'd highly recommend it. The base software is free and it runs on linux (and Windows/OSX).
Honestly, that just seems like a waste of time to me. Regardless of "much" higher quality, at best you're getting 480p from a DVD. I'll take acceptable quality 1080p over great quality 480p every day of the week. What's more, you're still pirating, so why not just download full quality BD rips if you're going to bother?
Sorry for the late response. I get BDs from Netflix, not DVDs (when possible). And I'm already pushing my bandwidth to its limit at home, so it's much easier to get the BDs delivered. Also, for a lot of the films I want to see, I can't find full-quality BD copies anywhere online, only recompressed rips.
Nitpicking intensifies: There is no PAL/NTSC in DVD as they are analog TV color encoding systems, DVD has just resolutions and frame (field) rates. So you can practically have 576p dvds in any region.
> I actually just subscribe to Netflix' DVD service. I get films in much higher quality delivered every other day
That probably doesn't help with things that aren't on DVD/Blu-Ray, such as some of their original content. I don't think you can get Stranger Things in that format yet.
> I'm not interested in installing DRM platforms on my computer
I believe the majority of people don't watch Netflix on their computer, but instead on set-top devices connected to their TV's That may also include hybrid solutions like Chromecast, where something may be installed on a local computer (likely a phone) as well, but those generally already have DRM platforms installed...
Often true, though I know a lot of people who don't own a TV and just watch Netflix on their laptops, even when watching with a large group. I personally have a dedicated Chromebox running LibreELEC with Kodi plugged into my projector, though I also sometimes television on my laptop when I don't want to set everything up.
Unfortunately, their back catalog is getting worse and worse. If it weren't for ripping what they do still have for later watching I probably would. But I've started thinking of just dropping their DVD service and putting the money toward purchases, paid streaming, and Redbox.
If I wanted to buy the BluRays of all the series I've watched on Netflix it would be way too costly. Buying the release day cost for a new seasons BluRay is even more expensive than the 14.99 or whatever I spend for HD Netflix.
I rarely rewatch seasons after more than 5 years so streaming is usually the best/cost effective option.
> If I wanted to buy the BluRays of all the series I've watched on Netflix it would be way too costly.
Ditto, but almost everything I watch is one-and-done. The series that I like enough to watch more than once are few and far between...so I tend to buy those, whenever they come up in a particularly good sale. Among things I liked enough to buy, the longer it's been since I watched it last, the more likely I am to watch it in the near future. But the longer I wait, the more likely that some contract expires, and it disappears from streaming services.
Plus the physical space cost of storing discs. Even if you remove them from their cases, which is definitely sub-optimal, they take up a decent amount of storage space.
Digital copies on iTunes are priced somewhere near "highway robbery". Because of the lack of retail-style transactions, there's no price competition on digital copies. What's funny, it's usually cheaper to buy the Blu-ray/DVD/digital copy combo packs... even if you just want the digital copy.
Recently I picked up a couple Blu-rays with digital copies for $3 at Fry's. Vudu had one of them on a huuuuuuuge sale this weekend, digital copy only, for $5. The iTunes price is $14.99. Again, I got that $15 iTunes price... for $3 as physical copy with a digital code. And if I wanted, I could sell the disc at a resale shop and get back a buck or two. Buying video on demand online right now makes no financial sense whatsoever.
> Buying video on demand online right now makes no financial sense whatsoever.
That's only if you place little or no value on convenience. I don't spend much money on video, so the occasional $10 or $20 purchase is bearable.
I don't want a physical copy and I certainly don't want to go to Fry's. For me, iTunes / Google Play / Amazon Video all make more sense.
I've actually thought about cancelling cable and buying everything on demand because I think I would save some money. We're paying more than $1000 / year for TV. That would pay for a lot of TV at $2-$3 per episode. We've never made the jump though because of live sports and the stupid blackout rules.
> That's only if you place little or no value on convenience.
I place a fair amount of value on convenience, but I weight it differently than you do. Not having to worry about my player's internet connection is a big plus. Not caring where I bought the video from is also nice. I like that it's a fire-and-forget operation to convert the video into a format that works on virtually every piece of video-oriented electronics that I own.
Bonuses: I get to choose which version of a particular video that I buy (there are often several available), often receive it in multiple formats, can loan it to a friend, and local media tends to have fewer compression artifacts than streamed media.
Of course, all this only applies to things that I care enough to buy separately. I've got Netflix and Amazon. I've got a few hundred games through a combination of half a dozen services, and it's a pain figuring out which service I bought a particular game through, and all that. I'd rather go to my wallet of game DVDs and pull it out (and I do, for services like Humble Bundle and GOG, where I can download the games and put the installers on external media).
> I place a fair amount of value on convenience, but I weight it differently than you do.
That really is the key. I get it that all those things you list go into the choices you make. I value similar things, but differently so my choices are different. There's no right or wrong.
I'd have to be pretty loaded to want to spend 500% the price for minor convenience. ;) Similar major discounts are available via Amazon Prime as well, if you can wait two days for it to arrive.
I just ordered a Blu-Ray copy of Sing off Amazon yesterday, it's $20 on iTunes and $15 on Amazon for the Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital product. Considering I can keep a high-quality archival copy of the movie in a box and still get a code I can plop into iTunes, though I'll just rip the disc into my Plex library anyway, it's a much better deal.
My list of things I want to watch is longer than I'll ever have time for. Because I'm not rewatching movies, building up a library doesn't make a whole lot of sense for me nor do I want more boxes and discs to be the caretaker of. If I can rent or buy a stream, I'm happy. I don't do it all that often, so the cost isn't really a factor.
Totally reasonable, there's a reason why Redbox/Netflix/iTunes/Amazon/Sony/etc. all offer rentals and I've used them all at one point. If you can't ever see yourself re-watching a movie or only doing so infrequently rentals can make a lot of sense.
I'm a bit of a digital packrat who likes to collect media, but a large chunk of my present movie collection is stuff for my daughter who wants to rewatch the same movie constantly so purchasing content to keep is the way I go 99% of the time.
I'm moving towards pulling the plug in terms of my money -- my subscription -- going to pay for such behavior. I've come to believe it's being used more against me (locking things down, walled gardens, artificial limits to access, culture, knowledge, and creation -- building on what's come before), than it is being used to my benefit (e.g. here, entertainment -- which with the ever increasingly balkanized for-pay libraries, is becoming more limited and more expensive).
So, like stopping paying AT&T to essentially lobby against better connectivity in my neighborhood, it's time for my financial support -- playing "by the rules" -- to these big IP rent-seekers, to stop.
P.S. I'm the guy who actually buys CD's after a show. Will cough up bucks for funding. I'm not opposed to paying for what I get, in reasonable -- even generous -- measure. However, I no longer feel that's what's going on, here.
> And Netflix is blocking VPN's. The original reason was it didn't have licenses for certain regions, but then what of original content?
This is a good point, but note that a bunch of the special "Netflix" content is actually licensed from another country. Also some of "their" content is stuff funded in concert with others, who will have retained certain restrictions (bogusly called "rights" in legalese)
So the total amount of material Netflix owns free and clear probably isn't big enough for them to bother with special-casing. If it were it would be in their interest to do so as a way of putting pressure on others.
It's a technology issue. The VPN blocking is done at a different layer than the content. It doesn't know what you're watching, so it can't allow VPN for some content and not others.
I'm tired of being used as a pawn in this bullshit game.