It is the only way to get mainstream films on netflix any more.
Basically, if it is available on disk, Netlfix can mail it to you. And their mailing service is pretty efficient. It's rare to have to wait long to get something.
The only annoyance is that occasionally you get a 'rental only' disk that doesn't have the extras.
Unfortunately, they're really letting their back catalog rot. An awful lot of things I saved in my DVD queue at some point are no longer available. In many cases, they're still available to buy but Netflix doesn't have them.
Edit: because it looks like it will turn into a wasteland after disney leaves
However, in practice, large rental companies (like Netflix) likely DO have contracts that make it easier and cheaper for them to get large numbers of discs without buying them on the retail market. But at least the first sale doctrine provides a fallback if contracts fail. I think I read somewhere that in the past Netflix has had to refer to the retail market for certain titles.
Edit: I also wonder if the unit price difference will ever be big enough that Netflix has to charge a premium for those who want the excluded titles?
So they definitely have agreements with the studios/distributors to get discs for the rental market, and it looks like that agreement is covering more and more titles. For the Marvel titles - it's about 50:50 (in perfect balance..)
> The defendants, Zediva, self-described as a DVD "rental" service, served its customers with access to DVDs played from their data center where each DVD was streamed through its individual DVD player for up to four hours. Zediva customers did not have access to the digital file.
> The court held that the "public interest is served by issuance of a preliminary injunction" in order to uphold copyright protections.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warner_Bros._Entertainment_Inc....
Wow, was that ever a stitch up though; I have to vent(!):
>"The non-public nature of the place of the performance has no bearing on whether or not those who enjoy the performance constitute 'the public' under the transmit clause", stated the court. It did not matter whether Zediva's customers were using the service at different times and in different places. //
Paraphrasing that "the clause requires the transmission to be to the public, the fact that here they're not transmitting to the public [but to paying customers only, in private] is not material". Way to take an explicit requirement and hand-wave it away there judge.
What I'd love to know is how the motivations work in this sort of thing in USA, like do the politicians get paid by the media corps, and the politicians choose the judges, or is there a way the media corps pay off the judges direct [perhaps "consulting" jobs when they retire?].
>The court also refused to adopt the Second Circuit's volitional requirement //
What a surprise!
>Last, even though the plaintiffs required their licensees to provide a high quality movie-watching experience to the VOD customers, the defendants being non-licensed, were not obligated to meet such standards and provided sub-optimal customer experience that tarnished customers' perception of VOD as an attractive option for viewing the Copyrighted Works. //
Except that's, again, exactly backwards if the VOD providers were better then they'd get the business. The defendant is paying full price for the DVD; the DVD is the quality the complainant made it - likelihood of irreparable injury is close to zero.
I'll bet the court did a quick survey "would you like cheaper, easier access to dvd rentals at home?" and all the public said "no way, stop that shit ASAP!".
Not sure about Netflix, but studios have tried to squeeze Redbox before by telling their distributors not to sell to them until X days after release, though.