Netflix said to be in Disney’s crosshairs | Hacker News Reader

Netflix said to be in Disney’s crosshairs

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17 pointsphesse1437 comments

I truly hope that Netflix doesn't sell to Disney; I can't imagine a worse actor in the IP space than Disney. I'm not that worried though, I think that Netflix sees its future as something more than being bought out at this stage. Then again, money does speak its own powerful language.

I don't know. I think Netflix has a good idea of what they'd like their future to be, but no clear path to get there. Their subscriber growth is slowing, and their content library is shrinking (and was always pretty anaemic outside of a few core territories). Being owned by Disney would give them guaranteed access to a AAA content catalogue, and far more firepower in reciprocal licensing negotiations. And for their part, Disney gets a ready-made, world-class streaming service.

While I'm apprehensive about the idea of this as a Netflix subscriber, I think it probably makes a fair bit of sense for both businesses.

as a production company they will be much more successfull than disney in 5 years

Disney owns so much IP: Marvel, Star Wars, Disney. You expect them to come up with that much stuff in 5 years?

Those are definitely powerhouse IP, but Netflix has a wider range of quality content.

I agree it will be a challenge, but if you look at the talent that appears to want to work with Netflix and do originals, I wouldn't rule out the parent's 5 year estimate.

It's not like you can just go to Disney and say "let's do this". They have a brand and image to uphold so their content choices will always be limited.

No chance. They could be a digital-only HBO, but even HBO need the backing of a big media company (Time Warner).

I'm curious whether you can make any reasonable argument at all for this.

They need a big company behind them sooner or later, but for the love of god, not Disney.

What is netflix's competitive advantage? They have some customers and some technology, but the customer's probably care more about the content. They don't own the content. Their own IP is limited. The Studios own Hulu so they are better off licensing their content to Hulu.

They've shown a remarkable ability to rapidly iterate new shows which people like, revive old shows that people still want, and they've begun to enter the culture in the form of "Netflix and Chill" and the like.

The problem is they don't own the old shows. They are owned by AMC, Disney, Fox etc.

I'm not sure why that's a problem if they still get to be exclusive carriers of them and they enjoy great success along the way.

To add to that, they're more responsible for cable cutting than any other service. I still have tv service but I'm finding it harder and harder to talk about anything on cable with people. They'll talk about Stranger Things and other shows.

Cable/satellite service will have to come down in price to keep a large audience for ads. It will probably be too late. With less revenue, it will be harder to produce top shows and compete with the high quality content that is being produced at a fraction of the cost. I think it's going to continue to grow to be one or two services and a few direct a la carte channel subscriptions for consumers.

Sports is a big driver for many services (ex: NFL for DirecTV) but you can now subscribe to Sunday Ticket if you can't get DirecTV where you're at. Big Ten Network can be streamed without a tv service too. You can just add a cheap HD OTA antenna to get network channels. Once most the sports outlets go direct, there'll be a huge exodus.

> Cable/satellite service will have to come down in price to keep a large audience for ads.

Or the same content outlets will have to deliver content through streaming, either subscription or ad supported, while the same service providers will just make money selling internet service rather than cable/satellite TV service.

This may just be me, but I'd rather not watch something, than watch it with ads. Maybe if I'd been slowly trained to accept them, rather than backed into a corner by them until ad blockers and streaming came along, that wouldn't be the case. Once you live a life without ads though... I mean, virtually none at all... they start to grate on your nerves in a big way. I started to realize how much of my time was spent wasting critical thinking resources on dealing with marketing crap, and I wouldn't go back.

At best, people would capture streams with something like a DVR, then FF through the ads. Besides, with advertising comes advertisers, and their predictable responses to pressure groups compromising the actual product. Good luck making 'Game of Thrones' with ad money!

> This may just be me, but I'd rather not watch something, than watch it with ads.

Its not just you, its why ad-free subscription services exist (premium cable TV, some streaming services, etc.) I'm not sure what that has to do with the comment its in response to, though.

Yes exactly - those channels will be part of the a la carte option for consumers I mentioned.

Right now - internet is more valuable to most people but much less expensive per month than tv in a package. TV is just not reasonably priced, especially when you still have ads on every channel.

If anything, TV should be free with the networks selling advertising and paying the tv provider for their infrastructure and audience. Basically like magazines. Give it away. Get an audience. Sell ads. Don't squeeze us from both ends and charge us for content AND monthly for each piece of shitty equipment.

Or sell channels a la carte at a fair price and make it easy. These packages are ridiculous. You have a ton of stuff you don't want. Then they reconcile viewership on the backend to figure out what members of that package should get what portion of each subscription. It's old-school. It inflates the TV price because you often have to purchase a larger package than you need to get the variety of channels you want.

Consumers are simply tired of paying for content AND getting ads.

Roku is amazing and they could enable the a la carte direct subscription model with the content providers. But for most channels right now, when you add one, you have to login with your TV provider and validate.

-- I can't imagine a worse actor in the IP space than Disney

Why do you say that? Just curious.

I don't know if this is what GP means but for one, Disney is one of the driving forces behind extending copyright periods:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act

That's exactly what I'm thinking of, thanks.

I'm not sure "driving force" is really accurate. The main impetus for the 1976 Act, which changed the term from 28 years with the possibility of one 28 year renewal to life + 50 was to allow the United States to join the Berne Convention. Berne required a minimum of life + 50.

The extension to life + 70, or 95 years after publication for corporate works, was in the 1998 Act. Disney did lobby for that, but the big argument for it was that was to match EU copyright terms, which went to life + 70 under the "Directive harmonising the term of protection of copyright and certain related rights" in 1993.

I think you're overestimating how much the US cares about adhering to international laws and guidelines, and underestimate the power and volume of Disney's lobbying.

Disney is pretty much only a huge force from using public domain to make money, yet they routinely do things to avoid their IP from entering the public domain.

Some examples [1]:

- Frozen (2013) from Hans Christian Anderson’s Ice Queen (1845) - Revenue = $810.3 million

- Alice in Wonderland (2010) based on Lewis Carroll’s book (1865) - Revenue = $1.02 billion

- Snow White (1937) from the Brothers Grimm folk tale (1857) - Revenue = $416 million (10th highest grossing film as adjusted for inflation)

- Aladdin (1992) from a folk tale in One Thousand and One Nights (1706) - Revenue = $504 million

Then you have their lobbying:

"In 1998, Copyright was up for it’s last copyright term extension, from life +50 years to life +70 years. Disney’s Mickey Mouse copyright had accounted for up to $8 billion in revenue in 1998 when they were lobbying for copyright extension.

Disney’s Chairman, Michael Eisener personally met with then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. The day Lott signed on as co-sponsor of the bill, Disney’s PAC donated to Lott’s campaign. Within a month Disney also gave $20,000 in soft money to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Of the 13 initial sponsors of the House bill, 10 received contributions from Disney’s PAC. On the Senate side, 8 of the 12 sponsors received contributions" [2]

Protect $8B with some cheap lobbying. What a deal!

[1][2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/derekkhanna/2014/02/03/50-disney...

Seriously the value from lobbying is outrageous from a business standpoint. Even if the bribes were 100x what they are now it'd be worth it. Screaming deal for companies working against public interests, as it has been for decades.

Honest question: How are those examples different from studios adapting, say, Shakespeare to a more "modern" context? 10 Things I hate About You (1999) is an adaptation of Taming of The Shrew.

The difference is that those studios don't try to rewrite laws via lobbying to block their IP from entering the public domain after profiting greatly off public domain.

Mickey Mouse should be released.

If I'm understanding copyright law correctly (I am not a lawyer, but am familiar), Disney has copyrighted the specific adaptation of those stories from the public domain - not the stories themselves. So someone can't, say, do Snow White in the same way as Disney did (same script, artistic style etc) but they can do things like Snow White and The Huntsman (2012), which made ~$397m worldwide. I do agree that rewriting laws via lobbying is a problem. I'm just not sure that Mickey Mouse should be public, seeing as how that IP is so tied up in so much of what constitutes value for Disney.

Edit: Just read a bunch about the history of Disney and the Mickey IP. Yeah, totally not comfortable with that.

Interesting the article didn't mention Disney owns ABC, which owns a chunk of Hulu (along with others in the consortium).

I know that Netflix is relying more heavily on it's 1st-party content lately, but I can't see how Disney could buy Netflix without making negotiations much harder with every other studio..

Why would Sony/etc allow movies to be shown on a Disney owned platform?

because Sony needs money badly?

A logical move on both sides. Some of Netflix's biggest hits are Disney owned IP's, and Netflix needs some more AAA titles in its catalogue.

Star Wars distribution alone makes it worth it.

Please no. Disney is not the right company to be driving Netflix.

You do realize that disney owns Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars right?

Many people think that those franchises were better before Disney though.

Those people aren't shareholders.

Oh pardon me, I didn't realize we were having a shareholder meeting.

As someone who hates the idea of a 'cinematic universe' this doesn't inspire confidence.

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