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Comment by basseq | Hacker News Reader

This is a smart move by YouTube, but as a consumer, exclusive streaming rights are annoying as hell. It means content services (YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, etc.) become walled gardens. "Oh, you want to watch Shawshank Redemption? You have to go to this other service and pay another monthly subscription." Not going to happen.

From a content creator (studio) perspective, I have to imagine this is ineffective. Might they make more money with "open" rights for anyone? "Doesn't matter who you are, pay us $0.50/hr for streaming this content and we're good."

Again, as a content provider, absolutely you want exclusive content as a reason for people to join your service. (I have Netflix for House of Cards and HBO for Game of Thrones.) But as a creator your goal should be wide distribution.

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> From a content creator (studio) perspective, I have to imagine this is ineffective.

It's effective if you consider what their real goal is: to keep any one streaming provider from becoming too popular, and then in a position to start making demands from the creators. They're deathly afraid of streaming ending up like music did with iTunes, where Apple had the record companies in an iron grip until they were broken by streaming. Thus, they want to keep each service as weak as possible, so they can remain in a position to yank popular titles if any of them get too uppity.

And, honestly, it's working. For a while, it looked like Netflix would be the movie-and-TV streaming provider, and everyone else was going to be an also-ran, but now Hulu and Amazon Video are respectable competitors. I don't really like that, but their success means that there will definitely never be one service which has everything. Everyone would just switch to that one to pay only one subscription, and that service would have way too much leverage over the creators.

Its the fundamental flaw with our broken copyright system. HBO should do fund-raisers for new seasons of Game of Thrones each year, to the sum of whatever amount covers costs + profits they want. Then the finished product can be public domain. If they are worried about year to year revenue they can do a rolling campaign, and episodes are produced when revenue is generated to pay for them.

You can still do investorships in such relationships - an investor can pay for the pilot, and then the studio can charge a surplus on future episodes to reimburse the investor. The risk is in how popular the series will be, and that is the risk the investor assumes - you just need to offer them enough of future episode profits to entice them.

They could still hold a trademark on the series so nobody could impersonate them, but if someone else wanted to take Song of Ice and Fire and make a tv series nothing would stop them as long as they aren't impersonating HBO or George R.R. Martin.

This whole disaster around licensing produced works is hell and a huge burden on society and culture, and this is one spec is a sea of immorality around it.

It may be annoying as a consumer to have to pay multiple services, but at least you get to pick and choose the ones you care for. I don't need Hulu ($8) or HBO ($15), but I'm happy to pay for Prime Video (~$9) and Netflix ($8). Even if I paid for all 4 of them, my all-in price would be about $40/month (USA), which is way cheaper than Cable ever was for me...

For creators, getting paid well to make good content is the overriding objective, since that's what lets you keep creating. Amazon is putting up top-tier cash for content like the new "Top Gear", "Man in the High Castle", etc. in response to Netflix/HBO. This is a real-world manifestation of competition resulting in more content being made.

I think that net/net, this is a win for consumers (who get more awesome semi-ala carte content), creators (who are getting access to more funding for more projects), and distributors (who get exclusivity to drive people to their platform).

For all the crap and insults that get hurled at the music industry, at least they have this figured out on the streaming side. With a few very small exceptions (Taylor Swift on Spotify, Beatles on everything), it's a decision between what's the best service for me? than what service has most of the music I like?

While I'm in complete agreement with your desires, I don't think that's how it works for the creators.

Almost every restaurant/cafeteria/whatever has an exclusive deal with Coke or Pepsi, despite the fact that I'd think it makes more sense to have diversity to match customer demands. They (the owners) find the "deals" they get more persuasive than my buying power, but since every is like that the "deals" aren't really deals at all - it's the norm.

> But as a creator your goal should be wide distribution.

Actually, I would say a creator should have stable, predictable sources of revenue. They should be in control of their revenue, so they can take charge of growth, instead of letting it happen as it may.

This requires building partnerships, effective distribution channels, and audience relationships.

"Open" rights don't necessarily align with those things.

The goal should not be wide distribution – it should be building a stable platform that allows your business thrive.

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