Netflix Streaming Genre Alert Thread

[Professor Zoom]

Apologies everyone, it's a long post. Skip if necessary....

Intellectual property is a government sponsored monopoly. The rationale is that monopoly pricing enabled by patents, copyrights enable higher profits, motivating invention and creation. If you remember that trademarks and logos are also intellectual property it is immediately obvious that the rationale and the practice are not the same thing.

How is copyright a monopoly when ANYONE can get a copyright on their own product?

Unless you believe anyone should be able to take anyone else's work and make it their own. Do you think you should have the right to exploit my creative work without permission or payment? Because that's the only way your idea of monopoly makes sense.

Otherwise: copyright is what it is, protection for the copyright holder.

Intellectual property laws as currently written permit producers, whose creative functions are distinctly secondary to writers (the conventional unwisdom is directors, but that's another can of worms) to seize the larger share of monopoly profits as well as manipulate availability of their legally entailed products from being available.

I don't think you understand how intellectual property laws work.

In TV and Film, yes, the copyright is held by the studio, as the writers are generally on a work for hire basis. For which they are generally paid QUITE well. But work for hire isn't true for all things.

A writer of novels holds their copyright and has licensed it to the book publish. A playwright holds their copyright and licenses productions. And so on.

They are still holding onto their own copyright, and they are partnering, if you will, with others, in order to exploit it. Generally there's a contract that lays out the terms of exploitation, both have to agree to it.

So, really, your complaint isn't about "how intellectual property laws" are written. Your complaint is actually about the nature of the business.

And as written, copyrights can be renewed practically indefinitely, long after death. Elvis and The Beatles are not being motivated by monopoly profits to continue creating. Using a pop song in a montage can produce a nightmare of rights deals that keep product from availability.

Actually as written CURRENTLY, it's death plus 75 years. Unfortunately, businesses would like to change that (Disney...), which I think is ridiculous. It doesn't need to be extended any further.

That said: should those writers of songs not get paid for the exploitation of their work in this musical montage? The TV or movie or play will be making money from the exploitation, so why shouldn't they get paid?

The thing is, in the context of new media that can access creative products at little cost, these intellectual property laws are keeping many, many items unavailable, both inadvertently and as part of nefarious business strategy. It's not just a question of new products after all! These problems make no difference to amoralists who think all successful business strategy is admirable for its profitability of course.

So, basically, your complaint is why can't this material be free or pirated? Because that seems to be the only meaning from this paragraph. Because if the owners of the "creative products" don't want to put out the product, it's theirs to do as they please. They don't think there's money in exploiting their product, so they won't.

Why is that a bad thing?

Further, the bizarre extension of copyrights to merchandising means that megahits that spin off toys etc. are vastly more profitable than merely creative ventures. The desire for massive profits from blockbuster movies means that there is less money for regular movies, and a positive disincentive to create anything but the most popular forms of entertainment.

Again, that's has nothing to do with copyrights. That has everything to do with a corporation trying to maximize profits. You're complaining about the wrong thing.

The more profits kept by the producers means less money for large numbers of creative people like writers and actors (and even directors,) which in this society means less incentive. Who knows how many talented actors and writers can't get work because they aren't box office, or can't even get enough work to keep up with the Joneses, much less get enough experience to perfect their talents.

Again, this isn't about copyright. This is about the business model of Hollywood. AND, it's also just about TV and Film, again, not about copyright, which extends to all forms of media.

And now, given the ease of technology, one can make a movie for a few thousand bucks--many board members here have done the same thing. AND, given the protection of COPYRIGHT, they can exploit it how they want to.

The costs of delivering creative products are elevated by intellectual property laws.

HOW, specifically? Because the cost of delivering a movie is not set by copyright. Copyright doesn't cost all that much. You can register a copyright for like 25 bucks or so.

That is their purpose. Monopoly pricing reduces production in a capitalist economy.

HOW? This makes NO sense. I can sell my book on the internet for what EVER price I want. Because it's mine. Now, if I sell a license of my book to a publisher, yeah, they are going to set the price so they can make some money. Why would I want that: because that publisher might give it more publicity than I can, they are investing money, matching my investment of time writing the book.

But, again, that has NOTHING to do with copyright. As, I OWN my copyright as a writer.

AND, NOW, there are quite a few success stories of authors selling directly to the consumer...

With the advent of very low cost delivery systems the disparity between monopoly pricing in the past and now is ever more extreme, and the distortions of the creative processes in entertainment just as much greater.

How?

Putting all creative products that can be delivered via internet, collecting a relatively small access fee, then divvying receipts according to a formula is probably the most rational solution. That is, in such a way as to actually maximize creativity, the professed goal of intellectual property laws.

What if I don't WANT my creative product on the internet? What if I think my creative product is worth MORE than someone elses? (And again, you seem to be latching onto just TV/Film.)

And how does putting everything on the internet "maximize creativity?" I see how it would maximize consumption...

The problem is that such a system will deliver lower profits to producers. This is consonant with the lower costs of production really. This will not be a problem for creativity because the creative people are not motivated solely by the money. Indeed, the ones who are most motivated by the money tend to be the least creative as near as I can tell.

Lower cost of production? I guess it might result in that. But, if you like your summer blockbusters, I think they might become a thing of the past in your plan...

But, what does this have to do with COPYRIGHT?

In practice, the new business model will be the misuse of intellectual property laws to carve out select markets, leaving the consumer with the option of paying more for several services to have complete access or doing without. The limited markets will increase marketing costs, limiting production of new content to what can be most profitable in this limited market. The most profitable new content will be reality programming of various sorts. This trend is well advanced and there is no prospect of change. The business stooges will see to that.

Business wanting to make money? Shocking. The thing is, copyright is actually there to protect the little guy. Now, the little guy (or gal) could sell his or her copyright, or license it out (I'm looking at you Harry Potter).

So, unless this is some sort of argument of why I can't make the Star Wars script I want to make, your complaint ISN'T with copyright, but how big entertainment does business.

But, with the internet, many artists are skipping the studio now, or the publisher, and are able to carve out a little bit of money, and maybe down the road be able to make a middle class living (I'm looking at you The Guild.)

 

[stj]

Intellectual property laws enable Starz to limit Netflix's offerings for example. So, yes, limited markets. Internet mashups or no, intellectual property laws are going to provide the mechanism that cuts up the internet into a set of data banks (for lack of a better term,) each of which has a separate, higher cost unrelated to production expenses, and each of which is limited to the holdings of the corporations engaged in creating the data bank. So, yes, the markets will be limited. To put it another way, intellectual property laws will be used to make internet services paid services. Copyright monopoly will make it economics of scarcity, that's the point of this kind of monopoly.

Professor Zoom, copyright is not intended to protect the little guy. This is much clearer in patents, where it is the rare inventor who profits anywhere near as much as the businessmen. It is obvious society has a vested interest in compensating creative people but it simply is not the case that means they have to have a "right" to set their own price. You've unconsciously read the whole issue in terms of the current business viewpoint. This is particularly obvious when you think you've rebutted a point by saying copyright merely extends 75 years after death. That's insane on the face of it!

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Intellectual property laws enable Starz to limit Netflix's offerings for example.

Which Netflix should have anticipated, so I have no sympathy for Netflix, while at the same time recognizing that Starz is the dinosaur in this scenario and Netflix is the little rat-like mammal scurrying underfoot. The dino can stomp the rat now, but the rat or a cousin of the rat will win in the end.

Intellectual property laws can't stop the changes in the entertainment and other businesses that are underway, which are driven by technology that is opening up new options for consumers who probably weren't even aware of how restricted their options once were. But once they become aware, there's no going back.

So, yes, limited markets.

Only if people's tastes continue to be shaped by the economics of scarcity, but the popularity of mashups and fan productions are just two indications that new tastes are being shaped.

There's no reason why people have to like only big-budget Hollywood blockbusters and anodyne network TV shows. Their tastes have been shaped to like those things because of deliberate marketing campaigns aimed at doing that, plus the lack of options. But that's all changing now.

To put it another way, intellectual property laws will be used to make internet services paid services.

Weeell...they're welcome to try. And I'm sure they will, vs just calmly allowing their businesses to be undermined or destroyed. Not so sure about their odds of success.

 

[Hyperspace05]

I've just started following this thread in the last two pages, and I appreciate the notes about SciFi/Fantasy content becoming available on streaming. Thanks, keep it up!

As for Netflix pricing being excessive - ridicoulus. For years we all got the streaming for "free" - Now that more people are using it, of course they need to raise prices to bring more /newer content. It doesn't come for free. You complain it doesn't have enough new content? Well that new content is not free for them. I think the $7.99/month is a GREAT deal. I did drop the discs, though... I just didn't use it much. When I dropped the DVD by mails - turns out I still had my last disc from 6 months ago.

Sure, Netflix doesn't have a lot of the newest stuff. But for that I have started to use Redbox. (Which is very awesome! No monthly fees, and $1.20/DVD, plus games)

Netflix streaming + Redbox is a prefect combination for me.

 

[Professor Zoom]

Intellectual property laws enable Starz to limit Netflix's offerings for example. So, yes, limited markets. Internet mashups or no, intellectual property laws are going to provide the mechanism that cuts up the internet into a set of data banks (for lack of a better term,) each of which has a separate, higher cost unrelated to production expenses, and each of which is limited to the holdings of the corporations engaged in creating the data bank. So, yes, the markets will be limited. To put it another way, intellectual property laws will be used to make internet services paid services. Copyright monopoly will make it economics of scarcity, that's the point of this kind of monopoly.

Professor Zoom, copyright is not intended to protect the little guy. This is much clearer in patents, where it is the rare inventor who profits anywhere near as much as the businessmen. It is obvious society has a vested interest in compensating creative people but it simply is not the case that means they have to have a "right" to set their own price. You've unconsciously read the whole issue in terms of the current business viewpoint. This is particularly obvious when you think you've rebutted a point by saying copyright merely extends 75 years after death. That's insane on the face of it!

We're gonna have to agree to disagree on copyright right and whether or not they are a monopoly by big corporations. HOWEVER, I did not say MERELY extends 75 years. I did NOT use that word. I said:

Actually as written CURRENTLY, it's death plus 75 years. Unfortunately, businesses would like to change that (Disney...), which I think is ridiculous. It doesn't need to be extended any further.

Don't change the meaning of what I wrote. I gave you the facts. You said it could be renewed "practically indefinitely", I gave you the correct information.

In the end, I think you are confusing intellectual property laws and licensing. STARZ wanted a better deal than Netflix was going to give them. So STARZ is pulling out of the deal. This isn't an intellectual property right problem, it's a business decision.

YOU, however, feel it's a problem because you can't get what YOU want whenever you want it. Simply put: It's not your property, you don't get to decide how much it should be sold for. Period.

 

[stj]

I said "merely" 75 years to make a little fun of you. The idea that someone who's been dead for that long needs protection is crazy. The moment the creator dies, his or her needs are gone, as are his or her rights. In a merely human sense, 75 year is practically indefinitely. For most adults it means forever in the grave! Intellectual property laws are not about rewarding the creator, yet you persist in posing the issue in those terms.

Imagining little guys protected by intellectual property laws is even nuttier. The virulent hatred so often expressed for Harlan Ellison's litigation shows how unwelcome, not to say shocking, the little guys' use of these supposed protections really is. Of course, the really big money is in patents, and there are many little guys who've found out their legal supports are feeble reeds indeed.

The power to license depends upon the intellectual property laws. I'm not confused on the issue, but if you really think they are separate, you are, very badly mistaken.

It's not your property, you don't get to decide how much it should be sold for. Period.

Supposedly in a capitalist economy, the market decides. Yet you uphold the supposed legal right for the patent/copyright/trademark/logo holder to exact their price! This is a legally protected monopoly, no matter if you pretend it isn't. The inability to even conceive of an alternative view means you've drunk the koolaid, not that you have a justifiable opinion. This is a wellknown fallacy called "begging the question."

Incidentally, proprietary information is another example of intellectual property. This legally enabled secrecy is damaging human society. One aid to US economic development was the resolute way it ignored foreign patents and used the knowledge some would have restricted for personal profit. Intellectual property laws are a major tool in restricting foreign economic growth today. If you identify with the big guys, I'm sure this is very gratifying and I'd expect no less. But please don't rant about the little guys while you suck up to the owners.

 

[Professor Zoom]

EDITED TO CUT: I wrote a lot of stuff, and it was good stuff. Point by point stuff. But, really, I don't think you understand copyright, so...:

Let's flip the script: how would YOU like to see copyright/intellectual property laws written?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

As for Netflix pricing being excessive - ridicoulus.

This is a textbook study of how psychology interacts with pricing. If a company presents a "good" price, people don't judge it in isolation. They compare it with what they already know. If that same company has been so foolish as to already give people a better price, then the "good" price magically becomes "bad."

And by textbook, I do mean the Marketing 101 textbook from freshman year. That was an extremely basic mistake for Netflix to make, and from that perspective, yeah, they do deserve the shit coming down on them - for being incompetent, not for being greedy.

Better long-term planning would have helped Netflix here, such as realizing that their plans to switch from DVD to streaming (which was always the plan - they named the company Netflix, not DVDflix) would be undermined by content producers who might resist the notion of their whole business model for the future being stolen out from under their noses. Gee, ya think?

I'm sticking with Netflix because I've read the Marketing 101 textbook and know that people who are huffing and puffing about the price change are being irrational, and I don't want to be like that. By the same token, Netflix shouldn't expect their entire customer base to understand such things, so I won't blame other customers for acting exactly as people in general always act.

Sure, Netflix doesn't have a lot of the newest stuff. But for that I have started to use Redbox. (Which is very awesome! No monthly fees, and $1.20/DVD, plus games)

From what I can tell, Netflix gets DVDs for everything about the time that the DVDs are released. (And because more than half my queue is old HBO shows, I'm pretty much stuck with Netflix on the DVD system, at least till I've finally burned through the entire runs of The Wire, The Sopranos and Six Feet Under).

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Starz' honcho attempts to explain himself.

(If you want to skip ahead to the Netflix part, it starts at about 9:00.)

Basically, Starz doesn't like the way Netflix makes everything equal. Sure, TV series are priced differently - you don't get Starz for free like broadcast - but most of Starz' content (that anyone cares about) is actually movies, and since when are movies priced as a premium? Nobody goes to the movie theater and expects to see Sony movies at a different ticket price than Paramount, Universal, etc. Who even pays attention to that?

 

[theenglish]

Where I am right now, Blockbuster has just closed its doors. We now have "Blockbuster de la calle" which consists of three guys who sit on the curb outside the empty Blockbuster building selling bootlegged DVDs. Newer releases than Blockbuster and low overhead means these guys have a whopping business with cars parked in Blockbuster's old parking spaces and the driver's buying stacks of DVDs for two dollars a piece for them.

Legal DVDs can no longer be rented and only purchased in stores for about 2-3 times the price as you pay in the US.

So, the only real viable alternative is Netflix which has been keeping my kids busy for the last month, and my wife and I have been catching up on a lot of old movies we've never gotten around to seeing.

Just thought it might be interesting for people to find out that all this copyright wrangling and movie wars actually means big business for bootleggers here in the developing world.

 

[theenglish]

Where I am right now, Blockbuster has just closed its doors. We now have "Blockbuster de la calle" which consists of three guys who sit on the curb outside the empty Blockbuster building selling bootlegged DVDs. Newer releases than Blockbuster and low overhead means these guys have a whopping business with cars parked in Blockbuster's old parking spaces and the driver's buying stacks of DVDs for two dollars a piece for them.

Legal DVDs can no longer be rented and only purchased in stores for about 2-3 times the price as you pay in the US.

So, the only real viable alternative is Netflix which has been keeping my kids busy for the last month, and my wife and I have been catching up on a lot of old movies we've never gotten around to seeing.

Just thought it might be interesting for people to find out that all this copyright wrangling and movie wars actually means big business for bootleggers here in the developing world.

 

[cylkoth]

Recently added genre titles

Ultraviolet-the 6 episode British miniseries dealing with vampires and those who hunt them.
The Planets-8 episode BBC documentary series exploring the solar system
Ninja Turtles The Next Mutation- 26 episode live action series from 1997

 

[stj]

My DVD list is down to three flicks. One, Attack on Leningrad (a movie that knows the Soviets beat the Nazis, which is to say, isn't a fantasy? gotta check that one out!) is listed as very long wait even though it came out last month! WalMart is selling the sucker for $12! One item listed very long wait for another family member has been perched at #1 on the queue for months! Three others, listed as short wait, have been there for months as well, which makes one wonder how Netflix defines short wait.

It is not an accident the the intellectual property laws are being used to prevent Netlix from presenting a fixed charge for access to an online DVD library, the most reasonable way to maximize access to information by covering the real, i.e., nonmonopoly costs. The restrictions on Netflix have forced it to can its previous business model but the model imposed, in which it is just another provider whose selection is both limited and overpriced, Netflix can't use its lower costs to expand the market. It's like broadcast television. In the long run the higher costs (in TV, the esthetic damage inflicted by commercials) have shrunk the size of the market. But even if the whole pie is shrinking the lure of higher profits from a greater share of what is most definitely not an ideal free market, impels the individuals to play the game in a way that will lose it for everyone in the end.