09:52 – I’m sure Reed Hastings’ email will be reproduced elsewhere on the web, so I won’t bother. The big news, of course, is that Netflix is splitting into two independent companies, with Netflix keeping that name for streaming and the disc rental service renamed Qwikster. Separate memberships, separate queues, separate billing, separate user ratings, separate everything. Oh, and Netflix might as well have casually announced that GameFly is now toast, since Qwikster will also be renting games.
My first reaction was negative; I don’t really want to have to manage two separate queues without any links between them. The stuff we watch sometimes changes from disc-only to disc-plus-streaming and then back again. More than once, we’ve watched the first episodes of a long series on disc, watched others streaming, and then had to switch back to discs when the streaming contract ended. That hasn’t happened as much lately. Of the 92 titles in our instant queue, only three–The Planets, Walking with Cavemen, and Occupation–are currently showing as expiring. As usual, we get only a few days notice, in this case until the 23rd.
I really do wish that Netflix would negotiate permanent unlimited streaming licenses. It’s fine if they delay streaming availability until a few months after the DVD releases. For example, series 3 of Sons of Anarchy just released on DVD. Series 1 and 2 are available streaming, although only Netflix knows for how long. Series 3 will, no doubt, be available streaming in a few weeks or months. So why doesn’t Netflix negotiate a standard contract with the rights owners to Sons of Anarchy? Agree to pay them a fixed sum for permanent unlimited streaming for each episode as the new seasons become available, after a window to allow DVD sales. Most DVD set sales occur very soon after the set is released, and there’s little in the way of paying markets for old series episodes after that. Sure, a few people may buy episodes or even the entire season from iTunes or whatever, or they may be able to sell re-run rights to local TV stations, but an old series is basically spent in economic terms once the DVD set releases.
Licensing on this basis would be win-win-win for the copyright owners and for Qwikster and for Qwikster subscribers. The copyright owners would get “free money” from Qwikster, and Qwikster would build its back-catalog of good TV series and subscribers would have a lot of good content waiting to be discovered.
Of course, people like Barbara and me would love to see such a plan. More and more people are doing what we do; wait until a new series is available on Netflix/Qwikster before starting to watch it. I adore Emily VanCamp, for example, and she stars in a new series that debuts in a couple of days. In the past, I’d have set up our DVD recorder to record the episodes as they were broadcast and then zap the commercials. But we won’t watch it on broadcast TV. Instead, we’ll wait until next summer, when it will release on DVD, and watch it commercial-free.
Work continues on the biology book. I’m currently prototyping the biology kit and putting together purchase orders for a small number of the kits. I plan to have the book 100% complete by year-end, so I have to have kits ready to ship soon after that.
I think it may well turn out to be a good move. I think a lot of their customer base is interested in one product rather than the other. I watch a lot of Netflix streaming content, but haven’t decided to sign up for the disk service yet. My inlaws watch a lot of
NetFlixQuikster. The availability of game disks may well get me to sign up.RE: Netflix/Qwikster
I have their one DVD at a time plan so I can get on DVD what isn’t available for streaming. So, I guess I will now be a Qwikster customer as well. Though, let me go on record as saying that’s a really lame company name.
I get the fealing that Qwikster is just a temporary company set up to administer the winding down and closure of Netlfix’s DVD by mail service over the next few years.
If Netflix offered EVERY movie and TV show (starting the night they originally air) for 24/7/365 on-demand streaming in HD then I’d happily dump cable and be willing to pay as much as $75/month for Netflix. Unfortunately, Netflix’s selection isn’t even remotely close to that. Even with Cox On Demand + Netflic + iTunes there have still been several movies and TV series I cannot stream. Don’t even get me started on the poor support for subtitling and closed captioning on many of those streaming services (I’m not hearing impaired, but prefer to watch movies with the English subtitles so I never have to rewind to find out what someone mumbled or whispered).
I fear everyone is trying to get into the streaming businesses and the networks and studios are wondering why they even need a middle man and are thinking of selling direct. If that’s what happens then we’ll end up with dozens of streamers that all want around $10 month. That would just hurt the business. There needs to be aggregators out there that can offer the whole enchilada for a reasonable flat monthly fee. Unforunately, none of those have emerged yet. I would imagine the cable companies (Cox, Comcast, et al) are scrambling to fill the void. Perhaps when it’s all said and done we’ll all still be paying the same cable companies (albeit for streaming instead of traditional cable).
Chad admitted: “If Netflix offered EVERY movie and TV show (starting the night they originally air) for 24/7/365 on-demand streaming in HD then I’d happily dump cable and be willing to pay as much as $75/month for Netflix. “
So would I! In Canada, the selection is even worse. B list movies at best. TV from two years ago. I wouldn’t pay $1/mo.
I doubt Netflix will shutdown disc rentals anytime soon. If nothing else, they’re a strategic club that Netflix can use while negotiating streaming licenses.
For example, with the Starz license expiring in February, I expect Netflix will no longer honor that 28-day window for renting discs of movies from Disney and whoever else Starz has. Having discs available to rent the same day they release no doubt has a large impact on DVD sales, which the copyright owners don’t want to see reduced. The studios made a huge issue of that one-month window in the past, and I suspect it’s just as important or more so now than it was then. How many people are going to buy a boxed DVD set if they know they can rent it immediately from Netflix?
I’m 100% behind Netflix, because it’s trying to drive down the price of content on behalf of itself and its customers. The studios are fighting tooth and nail to keep that from happening. They have this bizarre idea that old content is worth a lot of money, when of course it’s actually worth very little. I actually think Netflix overbid drastically when they offered Starz $300 million, up from $30 million a few years earlier. I think $50 million or even $100 million might have been justifiable, but certainly no more than that for old movies (by which I mean any movie that’s been released on disc).
I’m sure the studios will decide that it’d be easy to offer a streaming service for their material. In fact, IIRC, Sony already does that. What they’re going to discover is that they can make more money selling their material to Netflix, which has 25+ million eyeballs, than they can trying to attract people to their individual services. I don’t see any of the “alternatives” threatening Netflix seriously. Amazon has a pathetic streaming catalog, and much of it is priced PPV. That simply doesn’t fly as a mass market option, although of course they’ll sell some PPV and people with Amazon Prime may watch some “free” streaming stuff. Google has the same problem, as does Apple and everyone else trying to complete with Netflix streaming. Their all-you-can-eat options, if indeed they offer them, are either grossly overpriced or have pathetic selections, or both. And Hulu Plus has commercials, for Thor’s sake. Don’t these idiots understand that the reason DVD rentals and streaming are so popular is that people don’t want to watch commercials?
Hell, I rip and burn every disc I get from Netflix. Not because I want to keep it; I burn to DVD-RW discs, which are overwritten by the next disc I rip. No, it’s because I refuse to sit through the damned unskippable commercials at the beginning of most DVDs. When I put the disc in the player, I insist that it come up directly to the main menu.
So why doesn’t Netflix negotiate a standard contract with the rights owners to Sons of Anarchy? Agree to pay them a fixed sum for permanent unlimited streaming for each episode as the new seasons become available, after a window to allow DVD sales.
The rights owners may or may not be legally able to sell unlimited streaming rights for a flat fee. The union contracts with WGA, SAG, AFTRA, DGA, etc. may or may not allow that. All of these unions have residuals agreements that put limits on what the studios can do in the streaming area. That was one of the major sticking points in the last writers’ strike. (Along with royalties for DVDs.) The unions are not opposed to streaming, they just want their piece of the pie that Netflix, Hulu, etc. deliver to the studios.
Screw the unions. Unions are no different from organized crime extortion rackets. It’s time we crushed all of them. All of this stuff should be work-for-hire. It’s no wonder that more and more video production is being done in right-to-work states. Of course, Obama’s NRLB will probably make it illegal to shoot TV series in North Carolina and other such states.
Incidentally, regarding the comment about Qwikster, I agree. I would have named it Netflix and Discflix. Barbara works in the IP department of her law firm, and commented this morning that she bet the IP attorneys for Netflix had searched very thoroughly before allowing the Qwikster brand name to be used. I told her probably not. A company with the clout of Netflix can use any trade name it wants to, unless that name is owned by someone with similar clout. If someone small already owns it, Netflix simply sics their attack-lawyers on them.
Qwikster sounds like something a chef might buy to increase productivity.
Qwikster is the dumbest name! Sound like a cure for premature ejaculation…
I thought the CEO’s letter was damn good PR, though.
It’s hard to find decent 30Mb/sec SDHC cards, but I think these are the cheapest I’ve found.
Awaiting delivery of two w/in a day or two. May or may not be cheap Chinese knock-offs, but I’ll let you know.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/140597061811
Jim
For not a large increase in the cost you can get a REAL Sandisk card without fear of a cheap Chinese knockoff.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/524532-REG/SanDisk_SDSDRX3_8192_A21_8GB_Extreme_SDHC_Memory.html
Qwikster sounds the like the love child of the Nestles Quik bunny or a really short lived Tornado.
RBT wrote:
“All of this stuff should be work-for-hire. It’s no wonder that more and more video production is being done in right-to-work states. ”
An issue that vexes me, and is part IP and part union related, is that the wonderful Australian historical series Rush is DOOMED. The actors were only paid on the basis that it would be broadcast on free to air TV, so it can’t be sold as a DVD, as, for instance the BBC SF series Blakes7 was/is. Rush was made in the mid Seventies, and since it’s so old it should be well out of copyright by now.
They have made some very costly changes to make it into a separate business in a very short time; there has to be a reason for such abrupt action, a reason not made clear yet. Don’t be surprised if Netflix sells Qwikster off quikly.
I agree with Roy that the smoke has not yet cleared on this. The fact that they chose two names so radically different, suggests they do not want any future cross-branding. Netflix is the brand with value. And add in the fact that they have split ordering and billing completely, suggests Roy is probably right.
Netflix has people on the ground being paid internationally to set up operations abroad. Wonder what happens to that?
The whole thing seems a bit too hastily conceived and executed. This guy Reed may be joining Carly Fiorina in the not too distant future. I’m sure nothing could make their customers happier.
Screw the unions. Unions are no different from organized crime extortion rackets. All of this stuff should be work-for-hire. It’s no wonder that more and more video production is being done in right-to-work states.
The problem is that the unions that have these royalty agreements are the “above the line” unions and can’t be avoided by going to a right to work state. You can avoid all the other unions (except the Teamsters) by going to a right to work state, but not SAG, DGA, & WGA as all the major studios and networks are signatories to those unions.
My brother is a member of IATSE, the stagehands’ union, and does movie and TV work in a right-t0-work state. About 50% of his work is “non-union” in that he may not get union scale pay or overtime, but the union is O.K. with that. In fact, the producers still contribute to the union health plan, retirement, etc. for him. In effect, the union acts like a trade association in getting him access to group rates for benefits – crucial for a freelancer.
Rush was made in the mid Seventies, and since it’s so old it should be well out of copyright by now.
Should be, but thanks to the EU and WIPO, the copyright will live forever……
There may be issues with music as well as the actor’s contracts. “Miami Vice” was unavailable for years due to music rights. The producers only bought the rights for many of the pop songs for limited use and sale on tape or DVD was not included. Some shows replaced pop songs with soundalikes or generic music and it sucked.
Nowdays the producers are so worried about copyright that when filming on location they will come in a pull all the artwork off the wall and replace it with their own so as not to run afoul of a copyright suit. My brother worked on a pilot for ABC and one scene was in an elementary school classroom. They came in, photographed everything, took down all the kids’ artwork, and put up drawings his crew had made (and signed releases for). After filming, they took down their art and put the room back the way it was.
In a sense I can live with the disappearance of Rush. I have a fair number of episodes on tape, not sure what condition they’re in. But I *really* wish I could by a DVD of it.
Thanks Ray. I’ll save the link.
The camera doesn’t even like 4 Mb cards so I don’t know how it would react to 8 Mb, but the price is good. I’ve played with other cards, but for use in my old camera which hasn’t a big buffer, those 30 Mb/sec cards take the cake.