The Charlie Brown Halloween special won’t air on network television this year | Hacker News Reader

The Charlie Brown Halloween special won’t air on network television this year

washingtonpost.com

97 pointsmxcrossb148 comments

If not for Disney (and other entertainment megacorporations, but mostly Disney) pushing for vastly extended copyright, this would have been in the public domain around 1995 and you could have your own copy to play any time you like without any fear of getting in trouble. Anyone could broadcast it, as well.

The Mickey Mouse curve is one of the most rotten legal decisions since Napster's ruling that "copying files and sharing them is not equal to copying cassette tapes and sharing them" in my lifetime.

At no point in my entire life has modern or popular music been more available than it is now. I haven't "bought an album" in over a decade, because virtually everything is instantly available at no additional charge beyond the one simple service I subscribe to. Short of all recorded content being de facto uncompensated, which is what the logical conclusion of Napster winning would have been, it's hard to see an outcome here that would be better for consumers than the one we have.

I suspect we'll be in a similar position with video content in 10 years as well. Already, I think it's easy to make the case that we're better off than we were in the status quo ante of cable bundles and video rentals.

As the opportunity to purchase physical or non-streaming versions of content dry up consumers will be forced into subscription services. There won't be a non-recurring-payment option for consumers who don't necessarily want new media. I don't know what the size of that market segment is, but the subscription-based streaming-only future isn't a "win" for them.

Speak for yourself.

I could subscribe to 3 or 4 premium streaming services and be spending less than I was on CDs 20 years ago.

Don't have to spend hours ripping them all, either.

...except unlike those CDs, the moment you unsubscribe, you'll lose access to everything.

And then you'll sign up for the competing service that has for all intents and purposes the same catalog, and get access to everything once again.

If you're, I guess, weird, you can just buy CDs the way we did in 1998. They're all still available! The bands would really like you to buy them! I'm genuinely not sure what the complaint is here. It seems to be that super-cheap, super-convenient music is available in addition to the CDs we were buying instead?

I think it's weird to be excited about being beholden to some big, faceless company that charges you a monthly fee AND sells personal data about you AND which you know your favorite artists secretly despise. Also kind of weird to be music-less when not connected to the internet or if you don't have a specific app installed. But you do you, man.

The excitement comes from not having to manage "stuff". Don't need to store/manage/catalogue/find anything physical. Don't need to store/manage/backup/catalogue anything digital either, just search for what you want in the app and play.

If collecting is part of the fun for you then go for it, but there's a whole lot of people for whom the collecting stuff isn't fun it's just unnecessary work.

You know that album you really like? Yeah it's gone now. The estate of $ARTIST doesn't want it available on $SERVICE_A now that $SERVICE_B is offering a better deal. Oh, and $SERVICE_B isn't available in $COUNTRY of course, but someone could buy the rights for it there and publish the music, someday, or never, we don't care.

I don't get it either, and yet these services are massively popular to the point of alternatives going away. Meanwhile I have tons of music on my laptop, desktop, and HTPC, and can play it as long as there isn't a power outage.

Streaming is great for things I know I want to watch once (e.g. TV series) and don't care if I can't rewatch it tomorrow. For music? Nope.

Or you can usually buy it in digital form DRM-free though I usually prefer to buy the CD and rip it myself if the price difference is minimal.

In general, the situation with music is much better than video in general. There are exclusives and gaps (especially for some oddball stuff) but, for the most part, all the major services have most of the music people typically listen too.

I have a big library but I augment it with streaming and (mostly) don't buy a lot of new music.

You don't own anything, though. I listen to CDs I bought 20+ years ago and then ripped all the time, in my home, at work and in cars. If you cancel your streaming service today what will you listen to tomorrow?

I can probably find it on youtube

and download it with youtube-dl...

wait a minute -

The market for people who actually want to own it is vanishingly small. I for instance literally do not care if I own it or not. All I really want is to be able to listen to it when I want to and I have that. I don't see a realistic future where I won't be able to listen to it.

All in all I'm with tptacek here. For all but the most niche consumer this is unambiguously better than we had before.

Nice to know you've completely lost touch with the rest of the world in terms of being able to watch significant chunks of recurring revenue fly out the door, along with realigning incentives away from getting any ambitious or different music that isn't "investment grade".

>"Screw you, got mine," does not tend to score points with the youth of today, and it doesn't score points with me. Not that what I think matters one lick. All of my music has either been consumed via radio, adopted via possession through being the family backup media, or public domain/OST, typically from ye olde CD store.

Furthering the arts my arse. Furthering the exploitation and monetization of the Arts as business model through aggressive litigation is more like it.

I like that I have a large music library--some of which is at least a bit oddball and, I'm guessing, not available streaming. But that's in no small part because I ripped a large CD collection (and pulled other songs off Napster, mostly to replace songs I only had on old vinyl).

That said, I'm not at all sure that I'd try to build a library from scratch if I were starting today. Maybe I'd buy the odd album here and there but probably not wholesale.

As for video, the vast vast majority people of people don't buy a lot of DVDs any longer. Heck, I've certainly had people express surprise that I even own a DVD player.

Ownership is some sense is useful b/c you can pass your records / cds / mp3s on to your kids. I guess what you would pass down would be playlists.

Playlist, MP3, CD, or LP: your kids won't want them regardless.

I enjoyed discovering my Dad’s LPs.

I'm just saying that in the large, lovingly handed down collections of popular music are not really a thing.

I am not talking about popular music.

I'm not so concerned with access to the originals as I am with the restriction of derivative works. Look back through human history and you'll find people retelling and adapting stories and songs freely. With our effectively-infinite copyright length, we've now locked our shared culture behind Disney's lawyers. That sucks.

I am unclear on how trademark interacts with copyright on this. Unlike copyright, trademarks really were intended to be infinite: they expire only when people stop using them (and paying the relevant fees).

So even if Steamboat Willie were to become public domain, would trademark limit the derivative works that could be made? The movie might be public, but the main character isn't. Can you tell me how that would work?

This so much. When I first learned about how US copyright laws were extended (and then pushed on the rest of the world via trade deals, etc), my respect for IP rules plummeted. In college I had no qualms using Napster, and later bitorrent, etc.

Even today, I get frustrated by geo-ip blocking (I'm Canadian) and I have no idea how I'm going to watch the Animaniacs reboot (Hulu isn't available here). Even worse, a lot of content gets licenced to Canadian media companies which then (if I legally want to) force me to watch through terrible apps with terrible commercial interruptions at bad times. The last movie I tried to legally watch via that last method has 20 minutes of commercials for every hour of the film.

I pay for Netflix and Apple music because they're affordable and extremely convenient, but get in my way and I'll have no qualms finding a better way.

That's great and all, but has nothing to do with the fact that the Charlie Brown Halloween Special will be on Apple TV and not network TV. It's always been the case that nerds can watch pretty much whatever they want by ignoring copyright and just downloading stuff. It was that way all the way into the streaming wars. Streaming services aren't spending hundreds of millions of dollars on content catalogs because they're worried that you're going to upend their business with torrent sites.

I've been hearing forms of this argument on HN for a decade (usually, it's Star Wars we're "locked out of"). If your "shared culture" is confined to Olaf the Snowman and the Avengers, then, respectfully, you're the one with the problem, not Disney. Read a book! There are zillions of them.

Meanwhile, if you're a parent that wants to put Olaf the Snowman on the TV, it has never, ever been easier or less expensive to do that.

I don't see how pointing out particular cultural examples is relevant. Most software from the 80s is commercially useless right now; should it still be protected by copyright? Books from the 1700s are still culturally relevant; is it OK that they aren't? What would society lose if I could create an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz that includes red shoes? Literally everyone involved in the original creation is dead, but WB owns it until 2035[1]. Is that ethical?

There's a balance somewhere between the rights of the creator and the rights of society to adapt and disseminate our own culture, and the argument we're making is that the scales are currently tipped way too far on the side of the creator. I don't care how easy it is to watch Frozen in 2020, I care about what the children who grew up with that film can do with the culture they grew up in when they are adults.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_The_Wizard...

"Our own culture" is just handwaving. What makes one title "our culture" and another "intellectual property", unless you outright don't believe in IP at all? The latter would at least be a coherent argument.

It's not a dichotomy. Culture is the environment you live in; if you have humans, you can't not have culture. IP is a set of laws that govern people's behavior. I'm saying we got the laws wrong and it impacts our culture negatively.

To me, it just sounds like a special pleading argument; nerds like Star Wars, believe it should be free, and so dub it "shared culture". What film or album isn't "shared culture"? By some definitions of the (very loose) word "culture", it's all "culture".

Yes, it is all culture, regardless of the copyright status. The question is whether our IP law results in "better" or "worse" effects on our culture, whatever those terms mean. I think the current length of copyright harms our culture more than it helps it. I don't care about any particular media property's copyright status, I care about what impacts copyright has on our culture.

I feel like you are not responding to the points I am making, and are hung up on something else.

> copying files and sharing them is not equal to copying cassette tapes and sharing them

It isn't. Cassettes are VERY lossy copies. It's like saving a jpg of a jpg of a jpg of a...

Disney didn't push for copyright extensions during this congressional session specifically because of the heightened awareness of them doing it last time.

There are lots of laws the public doesn't care about and all you have to do is get the legislature to "not disagree", after you get your pet project out of committee. So as long as people don't notice, you can get pretty much anything passed in the US. It works even better when all the well funded special interests hilariously decided to move to the far fringe edges of their respective parties and will never get consensus. Lowers the barrier for consensus for the rest of us since most of Congress is just waiting for things that can have bi-partisan support. Been a fun and cheaper than usual few years for me.......

Disney didn't push for copyright extensions this session because absolutely nothing was going to get done this session. The idea that the median voters cares even a whit about copyright extension is one you'll have to bring evidence to support. It seems unlikely to be true.

Yes, only 182 bills have been enacted this session, which is very low.

You'd be surprised what you can squeeze into a budget reconciliation bill if you care enough, the government has to reopen eventually.

Honestly, enough people just don't.

But you can.

Can what? Care about precisely which 75+ year old movies I can watch without paying $2 for the privilege? What makes you think this could ever be a serious motivating issue for the electorate?

you can squeeze any law into other laws, they are called riders. in some cases the barrier of entry is extremely low because the host-bill is required to open the government or something very time sensitive.

the point is that the electorate doesn't care and you don't want them to.

Ok great. Brb I'll be calling my congressman for my local pork needs to be amended to the next defense budget bill. While I'm at it i could use some extra barrels for shipping.

Most people do not have this purported easy access to Capitol Hill it is not trivial to get it done under a certa8n amount of fiscal influence. Please qualify your use of the word easy with numbers please, else its just empty words

As I wrote earlier, easier than before because the country is so polarized and incumbent special interests decided - like the general population - to move to the far fringes of their ideology as a future investment into the country leaving representatives pretty unoccupied this session. Not extremely easy because Congress is not passing many bills.

A lot of people, including myself, believe that adding completely unrelated items onto a billis completely unacceptable. Putting a high priority bill at risk for an unrelated pet topic is selfish and wrong.

Its also contrary to all best parliamentary practice and should be ruled out of order.

Oh I am flabbergasted and continually amused at the concept, but it is still a tool available for use

Mainly because they’re just going to use trademark rules that let them keep their most valuable brands as long as people think “Disney” when they see it. Them using the Mickey head everywhere isn’t a coincidence.

https://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-mouse-evades-the-public-...

> According a precedent set in a 1979 court case, a trademark can protect a character in the public domain as long as that character has obtained what is called “secondary meaning.” This means that the character and the company are virtually inseparable: upon seeing it, one will immediately identify it with a brand.

Enough voters care about copyright that they sunk SOPA in a few weeks (which shocked DC). IP activism also played a major part in stopping the TPP.

For a significant number of voters, intellectual property policy now works like a social issue, in terms of the intensity of emotion and effort it elicits.

The reason it had it's value was is scarcity. A traditional special. You are suggesting putting up Xmas decorations in October is a good thing.

But ignoring that, why not create something new? Are all our artists to busy with work?

Under pre-Sonny Bono copyright terms, this special wouldn't have been available until 2040. Someone downthread pointed out that under 1909 copyright terms, it wouldn't be public domain until 2022; Disney wouldn't have even been founded for another 14 years. So, no, this doesn't seem at all accurate.

For those who want to know where those numbers from from.

Under the 1909 Copyright Act, it was 28 years which could be renewed for another 28 years, giving a total of 56 years. The work was first published in 1966, giving 1966 + 56 = 2022.

The Copyright Act of 1976, the term became life of the author + 50 years for non-corporate works, and 75 years after first publication for corporate works. For works from before 1976 there were still under copyright, it was sort of retroactive.

I say "sort of" because instead of simple saying those simply got the new term, keeping their original start date, it changed their renewal term from 28 years to 47 years, which gives 75 years. Works that were still in the first term would still have to renew to get that 47 year renewal term. Anyway, 1966 + 28 + 47 = 2041. (Yes, I know that is not 2040. No, I don't know why not. (Well, I know why 1966 + 28 + 47 is not 2040...)).

The 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act (which, BTW, is the only copyright term extension in the US that Disney lobbying might have actually influenced [1]) changed the term for corporate works to be 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is earlier.

1966 + 95 = 2061.

[1] There have only been two copyright term extensions in the US since Disney was founded. I haven't been able to find anything on where they stood on the 1976 Act or if they did any lobbying for it. Of course they were in favor of it--but so was nearly everyone else. It made the US system much more compatible with the rest of the world, paving the way for the US to join the Berne Convention.

"It's a wonderful life" was released under 1909 rules. It came out in 1946, so was copyrighted until 1974. The owners (RKO) didn't renew the copyright, as it was a failed film, it was well before home video, so why bother I guess.

Thus in 1974 is became public domain, and all the networks could play it as many times as they wanted with no cost, and did so - making it a very popular film in the American cultural zeitgeist.

In 1993 this was all undone though, and now only the owner (which is NBC) is allowed to show the classic film, because it was based on a story that is copyrighted (and NBC acquired the copyright)

Copyright length are ridiculous. Any implication (we need copyright otherwise people won't create) that Philip Van Doren Stern wrote his story in 1943 because he felt he could capitalize on the rights of a derivative film in the cable tv and streaming era is laughable.

Philip Van Doren Stern sold the rights to his short story for the equivalent of about $150,000. Whatever he thought about the prospects for that story, the acquirer surely had had their own plans, and those plans funded the Stern's subsequent work and lifestyle.

Knowing what we know now, Stern surely would have bargained harder and perhaps gotten more money from RKO --- as is the case in any business transaction where we're given perfect information about outcomes. But that doesn't change the underlying moral rights involved.

I think this appeal to Stern is a pretty weak argument.

Further: the argument about copyright lapsing on Its A Wonderful Life is misleading. RKO let the copyright lapse, but if they hadn't, it would properly have been copyrighted --- under the 1909 rules! --- until 2000.

If it hadn't lapsed it would have remained unloved at the bottom of a vault somewhere and not become a cultural icon.

If RKO hadn't bought the rights to it for $150,000 (2020) practically none of us would have even heard about it, the same way we haven't heard of thousands of other short stories from the first half of the 20th Century.

That characterization of the 1976 act... let's just say, years later, person on the government side of that negotiation was still defensively apologetic, claiming it a success... as damage control, because of all the "crazy stuff" Disney et al were pushing. Beware a concerted effort since to rewrite history as "just Berne, no biggy". Berne reflects a major defeat of a US tradition of copyright as "industrial policy for the general welfare", by a European tradition of "rights and property", and by rent seeking.

Any background / references on this?

[conversation moved]

Thanks, appreciated.

Any details on branch/department of gov't?

I paid a small amount of money a few years ago and have a blueray copy

The root of the problem here is the excessively-long copyright term that facilitated this. Excessive copyright is one of the biggest enemies of cultural preservation and dissemination.

i suppose we'll get to see by 2024 if disney drafts yet another legislative extension to keep mickey out of public domain. may as well just come out and pass a law that disney owns all human culture – present past and future. now pay up.

I saw someone on here who proposed a simple sliding payment scale to keep things out of copyright after 5 years. 100 years out it might cost $1 million/year to keep it out. That way things naturally fall out unless a company needs to keep it in copyright.

That might have been me. The idea is to have an exponentially growing fee paid to maintain a copyright after some fixed initial term.

If Disney really wants to keep Mickey out of the public domain, they could do so by paying ever increasing fees into the public coffers. It might be worth it to keep their handle on things for $1B a year. And if not, then the public gets it.

You could just partake of culture outside of Mickey Mouse cartoons.

Does even Disney really push Mickey Mouse cartoons much any more? They seem to mostly focus on other product lines. I wonder just how much they would lose out on with no further copyright extension.

I don't know, but to the extent you're not talking about Mickey and Donald, you're not really talking about copyright extension anymore; under any reasonable copyright term, they'd still own Frozen and Toy Story.

I agree with the sentiment, but considering the catalog that Disney has amassed it's fairly hard to stay away from their properties if you want to partake of much media-based culture.

When a reader thinks of the "catalog that Disney has amassed" that is part of our "media-based culture", they are overwhelmingly thinking of titles that would remain copyrighted --- for quite some time --- even without the Copyright Extension Act.

Somehow I feel like we don't have too many preservation concerns around the Charlie Brown Halloween Special.

Why not?

The whole move to streaming is going to not live up to it's promise. I have no intention to sign up for multiple services, and figure out which one has the content I want. I got rid of cable because I was tired of 500 channels and nothing is on. I can't wait until some of them consolidate.

I've cancelled all my streaming subscriptions and found better things to do.

Perfect! Cancelling TV and these streaming services are the BEST thing I have done. Allows for more real life interactions and focus on friends and family!

Personally I’d recommend finding better things to do and then canceling your subscriptions when you’re no longer using them. Ripping out a big part of one’s life without a healthy replacement can be suboptimal.

For sure for sure. Make sure you find some other more interesting hobby and friends. Don't mean to do a dry cut. However, TV/shows are just another addiction! But like cutting all other addictions do it wisely.

Most importantly don't replace that with real human interactions.

I tend to watch TV at night when I wouldn’t be interacting with anyone but HN and a few forums anyway.

I have multiple streaming services and sometimes I can't figure out which show is on which service.

The services with smaller content libraries are the first on the chopping block (sorry AppleTV, I'm not renewing once the free trial is up).

I just Google the show or movie and it lists services where it is available. There are also dedicated sites for the purpose.

My thoughts are that there's a lot of overhead in that $5, and that streaming services should pick 2 (3 at the most) payment processors and consolidate that billing. So now I could pay $10 and get access to 3, maybe 4 or 5 streaming services each month.

It's like they're using pricing to force a zero-sum ecosystem.

I'd argue it already has. I picked up Sling for a month to try it out and even with the ability to start any live program from the start and the built-in DVR, streaming services are way more convenient than being stuck to a schedule and an arbitrary DVR storage limit.

It's not exactly rocket science to say, "Oh, I want to watch this thing -- let me search and find out which service it's on and sign up if needed." You'll still save money 99% of the time over $100+/mo cable bills. It sounds like you just don't care, which is fine.

>The whole move to streaming is going to not live up to it's promise.

It's already ruined.

Gave it a chance. Forked over more and more for subscriptions and still the content fragmented. Cancelled everything and went back to torrents and media servers. A VPN connection costs me less per year than I was paying in subscriptions per month.

Best of luck Hollywood, this time it's for life.

I think it’s fine. I can choose what content I want a lot more than I could in the days of cable and I can rent any movie or show (for the most part) for a couple dollars if it isn’t on one of my subscriptions. And if I want to watch a new show that bad I can subscribe to a platform for a month.

If you're outside the US it's often a matter of forking over for multiple streaming subscriptions and a VPN thanks to crappy regional availability.

This was always going to be the outcome though? Every company knows that content is king, and wants to control their own content. Netflix jumped headlong into making originals because they know each time they went to renew Friends NBC would just squeeze them for even more money based on the increasing demand.

This is exactly how it was going to play out, and there will never be one catch-all service, unless you want to pay $150 a month because hbo will charge that service $20, Showtime $20, Disney $20, BBC TV $8 and so on....

No way, it's already lived up to it's promise! I can't even watch cable any more, it's 8 minutes of programming followed by 5 minutes of commercials. Why pay to watch advertisements?

Hulu didn’t have ads. Then it did but you could pay more to avoid them. Then you paid more to avoid them but due to “agreements” some content still had commercials.

I can't remember the last time I saw something with a commercial on Hulu.

https://www.cnet.com/news/hulu-ads-vs-no-ads-plan-should-you...

> However, there is one caveat: A few shows will still have ads, even on the ad-free plan, due to licensing issues. Hulu says the list is subject to change, but right now it includes the ABC shows Grey's Anatomy, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and How to Get Away with Murder. It's also worth mentioning that Hulu with Live TV's ad-free option also shows ads with some on-demand titles.

I remember that season 2 of Rick and Morty seemed to as well, at least when it first came on Hulu

Amazon Prime is showing more and more ads - for now, it's just previews for other Amazon Prime content and only before the movie starts, but knowing what I know about the entertainment industry, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before those become McDonald's ads and in the middle of the content.

> move to streaming is going to not live up to it's promise.

What is this "promise" you're alluding to?

Are you willing to pay a company for the privilege of consolidating this content? I have no interest in returning to the days of cable companies sitting between me and content creators.

In the Apple ecosystem, Apple TV is doing a pretty decent job of working with the different streaming services to incorporate their catalogues into the "TV" app experience (which then launches into the different streaming apps). It's not perfect, and many services are fighting against it because they don't want to train customers to once again rely on a middleman.

The promise of streaming was releasing us from bundled cable TV contracts and letting us pick exactly what we wanted to watch, paying for it and nothing else.

We came close for a time, but I think everyone realised it wasn’t what they wanted after all. You could buy standalone episodes of a ton of shows on iTunes, but the calculus changed: sure, you enjoy watching Wheel of Fortune, but are you really going to pay a dollar for every episode?

> was releasing us from bundled cable TV contracts

Was it? I just remember it meaning we could subscribe directly to content creators, which is what the current environment looks like. No one was ever promised both 1-on-1 relationships with content creators AND the value-add of a consolidated service provider, which is just unrealistic to have.

> We came close for a time

When was this, exactly? The PPV era? Things have never been better than they are today for content consumers, we have more options than ever to customize what, when, and how we consume.

I wish everything was PPV so I could à la carte my heart out, but subscription revenue guarantees are what make the current landscape tenable for the investments we're seeing in new content across all the streamers. It used to be cable companies taking on the brunt of the risk of cash flow management, infrastructure, customer acquisition, and marketing. Now every streamer has to do everything themselves.

It still just boils down to: People are cheap and want unlimited everything from every media company for $12 a month on a single service, which was never realistic unfortunately.

While there would be challenges to doing it, if mainstream consumers were screaming for a content aggregator that brought together expanded cable content, everything on Apple/Amazon PPV, everything on the streaming services, plus maybe some more back catalog content for one low price of $250 (or whatever) per month, I think it would probably exist at some point. But very few people would be willing to pay that for the convenience of everything being available through a unified interface at a predictable price.

For people complaining about fragmentation and going to the torrents as a result, it's about price not convenience.

The killer feature of streaming is ad free, on demand content imo, not great content or accessibility to all the content. Netflix is replacing cable TV not all the great / transformative movies / tv shows you've watched in your lifetime.

That's what Netflix has been forced to become. It started out, however, as an extremely convenient movie library with basically anything you'd ever want to watch that cost substantially less than the ticket price of even a single movie per month. It was exactly what many people were looking for, and they flocked to it, but its success led to many content licensers ending their contracts in the hopes of offering their own streaming services for which they would get a bigger cut.

I think a lot of people look at the history of Netflix through rose colored glasses. I remember talking with a senior engineering exec I knew at Netflix quite a few years ago now and he made a comment along the lines of "People come to Netflix for the movies and they stay for the shows." (This was before House of Cards etc.) It may have once been better than today, but Netflix never had a great (streaming) film catalog.

There's also the fact that there are relatively comprehensive film catalogs on Amazon and Apple modulo streaming service exclusives and various older content. You just have to pay for it. The financial reality is that you're not going to get all the video content ever created for one low $10/month fee.

In 2012 I deliberately watched a new movie every night for the whole year on Netflix, and I never had to scrape the bottom of the barrel. There were thousands of good films in the categories I enjoy, and vastly more titles that just weren't my cup of tea. What catalogue has ever been greater? What catalogue has ever even come close to it?

That simply won't happen. The sheer size of the international streaming market combined with the sheer volume of existing and original content (no matter what quality!) and the natural state of competition between legacy and disruptive players means we'll never return to a period where television content had to be high-quality because there was only enough signal bandwidth for 4-5 channels.

We need a Criterion Collection but for streaming TV services.

To be fair, music streaming is still pretty decent. Spotify has almost everything, and it's just a few major artists that hold out for a 'Tidal exclusive' or whatever. But generally I think that however much upfront revenue the service provides is probably to the detriment to the bigger picture of 'let people listen'. But for £10 a month, the reality is it's pretty phenomenal, especially for someone that (previously) bought a lot of records. I hope this doesn't fracture, or we'll be back to MP3s and Napster.

But yeah, TV and movie streaming is a shambles. Exclusive licensing is terrible - they should move to the same model as the music, licence to everyone and let us all pick the service we prefer. But I don't think it's ever going to happen.

Business idea: Distrokid but for SVOD...

That's because music streaming services are rarely (never?) also music producers and exclusivity agreements are rare (though not unheard of - see Garth Brooks). If the goal is consumer choice, it seems like a bad idea to allow streaming services have vertical integration with content production.

Meanwhile, you can watch the Star Wars Holiday Special on the Internet Archive.[1]

[1] https://archive.org/details/thestarwarsholidayspecialhighqua...

That one is so univerally bad, even skipping through it was painful.

"David Hofstede, author of What Were They Thinking?: The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, ranked the holiday special at number one, calling it "the worst two hours of television ever". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Holiday_Special

I'm looking forward to the LEGO one this year. "An animated sequel set after the events of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, titled the LEGO Star Wars Holiday Special, will be released on Disney+ in November 2020."

The suggestion I've been given is to watch a riff track version rather than the original. The biggest sin of the holiday special is that it's dull and no amount of cold medication will help improve it, as I discovered one January.

It did introduce Boba Fett, though. But yeah, it's still terrible.

Another Star Wars Holiday Special? Well I guess that's one more for 2020 Bingo.

Made by people who hate Christmas!

https://web.archive.org/web/20201027230540/https://www.washi...

While we're at it: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:C9613136C9E5BA4A8094E1CBA3B7A3E15E785F51&dn=Its.the.Great.Pumpkin.Charlie.Brown.1966.720p.BluRay.x264-x0r

> The Halloween special, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," premiered on Apple TV + on October 19 for Apple TV + subscribers, but Apple is also making it free to watch from October 30 through November 1.

via https://www.macrumors.com/2020/10/27/peanuts-wildbrain-apple...

The article mentions this:

> AppleTV Plus plans to make the “Peanuts” specials free to stream for nonsubscribers during short windows around relevant holidays. But as with HBO allowing PBS to air “Sesame Street” episodes after a period in which they’re exclusive to HBO, Apple’s decision emphasizes the restriction, not the limited availability. It underscores that Americans now have different levels of access to some cultural touchstones, dividing kids whose parents can shell out for extra services from those who can’t.

The author's point is less that it is less accessible now and more that it is less shared now. Streaming has a plethora of benefits over broadcast television, but unity (in the sense of "broadly shared cultural moments") is not one.

Apple has put a classic holiday show inside their walled garden. Why not let it run on TV as usual and people can use Apple to view it when they want?

If only we had the original 1909 copyright laws, this would be public domain by 2022!

My personal price preference breaks down into something along the lines of:

I am happy to pay up to $100/mo for access to ANY movie or TV show.

In the past on HN, people have pointed out that this is not possible at the $5 or $12 or $15/month price point which is fine. I wish someone would at least offer the option (or even tiers) so that I could make the decision for myself.

I don't really understand why the streaming services are leaving so much consumer surplus on the table. Clearly people are open to the idea because cable companies had tiers like this (which people paid for).

> because cable companies had tiers like this

I'd much rather deal with multiple disparate streaming services than ever return to the days of a consolidated content provider. Having to log into a few different services to browse content is a small price to pay for banishing the middlemen.

> Having to log into a few different services to browse content is a small price to pay for banishing the middlemen.

Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and even HBO are middlemen. Even much of their “original” content is produced by other production companies and licensed.

Are you expecting each production company to have their own service some day?

> Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and even HBO are middlemen

This is how the entertainment industry has worked for many decades, including the big studios, in that they're the financiers and marketing.

So they pay for and own the content, have exclusive distribution of the content, and you can't sidestep them to get to the content since it wouldn't exist with out them. Does that sound like middlemen?

One quick Meta edit- this is a loss for Amazon, which has a connected interest to WaPo. Let’s be clear about that first. No mention of that tie in the article, which is pathetic.

My kids watched the Charlie Brown Halloween special ad free and at their schedule’s whim (aka 2x in a row). Don’t shed a tear for Charlie, he’s fine, this offering is way better. Now If I could only get my wife to let me cancel directv once and for all...

I get that the copyright laws should be tweaked and Charlie should be totally free, but I’m guessing that the copyright law has also enabled Disney to spend quite a bit of money on the new Charlie Brown space series, which my kids also have loved.

At the end of the day, I didn’t pay any more money to see Charlie Brown Halloween, I saw it ad free, very high quality picture (you can actually see the shadows from the way the cartoon was assembled I think?), I didn’t have to worry if this was some troll version where Charlie pulls out a chainsaw and slices Lucy up, (looking at you, YouTube). I mean, do I need to go on?

>new Charlie Brown space series, which my kids also have loved.

I mean, couldn't a quality series be created without previously popular IP? Is the only reason your kids watched it is because of their parents appeal to nostalgia? Is anyone else sick of endless sequels?

Not only that, if you create a new series you get a new copyright on it. You get all the money from the new series. The difference is that then there isn't only one company who can make it.

When you have a culture and that culture has lots of traditions and memories associated with the holidays, and they're a key vehicle for nostalgia, you don't just swap it all out for the latest shiny new movie. Furthermore, we are talking about the Peanuts characters. They had a multi-decade run syndicated across all the national funny pages, long before any of them were ever animated. Do we even have the sort of media environment any more where it's possible to make this sort of cultural investment, and reach out and touch everyone? If not, this may be a harbinger of our culture's continued fragmentation in the days to come.

See the German and Nordic new Years eve tradition of watching Dinner for One a B&W British Comedy sketch from the late 1950's

Im confused by this response. Whats wrong with enjoying the nostalgia, the simple jazz trio music vibe, the simple illustration style, all applied to a very modern theme? Sure it isn't the only path to kids programming, but the resulting product is fun. Its ok if you don't like it.

I guess my point is that why aren't we making new things? Is the appeal to nostalgia such a money maker that it's stifling new creative endeavors? Could there have been a fun product that is a futuristic space spaghetti western that isn't Star Wars branded? Is being an appeal to nostalgia a requirement for a fun product?

> this is a loss for Amazon

How is this a loss for Amazon? Did Amazon previously stream it for free? It seems mostly a loss for broadcast tv.

Because AppleTV is a direct competitor to Amazon Prime Video...

Maybe "loss" isn't the right word, but there's definitely a conflict that should have been disclosed.

In all likelihood, Amazon was also bidding on the rights to the show. This article reads to me like a cheap shot from Amazon because Apple won a licensing bid. Maybe "loss" is the wrong word, but there are certainly more complicated intentions behind the article. Why was it written? Does WaPo really care about Charlie Brown, and does its new location in broadcast media really make a difference in the theme of "Democracy Dies in Darkness?" If Amazon picked up sole rights to Charlie Brown, would this article have been written? Or did Amazon pass on Charlie Brown because they felt it should appear on broadcast TV, where it "belongs", where its always been?

In reality, Charlie Brown Halloween is just on a different channel now, paid via different mechanism, but WaPo is saying it "won't air", as if its getting locked in the vault.

> Does WaPo really care about Charlie Brown

WaPo? I doubt it. Specific people at WaPo? Almost certainly.

> does its new location in broadcast media really make a difference in the theme of "Democracy Dies in Darkness?"

I’d love to hear you explain what you think this question means.

> its new location in broadcast media

AppleTV (and streaming more generally) is not broadcast media.

> (you can actually see the shadows from the way the cartoon was assembled I think?)

If you look closely you can sometimes see the brand of drafting paper they used as backing for the animation cells.

This is the Beethoven sequence from A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Start at around 2:10 and pay close attention to the details.

https://youtu.be/6CK5AJzXdD8

My theory is they know exactly what they are doing and are still trying to clean house on DVD sales.

I imagine this means the Christmas special won't air this year, either...

There is a seven day free trial for Apple TV.

Or you can watch it for free October 30-> November 1 (I think those dates are right)

WTF is wrong with Apple TV - It's Charlie Brown for christ sakes....

American culture has been redefined as 'Intellectual Property' with the intent of controlling it in perpetuity.

I think it goes rather the other way, that intellectual property is distinctively morally defensible --- it wouldn't exist at all without its creators and investors, unlike the land we stole from indigenous people --- and the idea that you can declare something "American culture" and thereby expropriate it from its rightful owners is alarming.

> rightful owners

When it's the original author or within a reasonable time frame of their publication the concept of rightful owners makes sense.

The idea of an essentially immortal non-living entity or a 5th generation niece/nephew being a rightful owner to a work is not a view I agree with. Society is the background that allows works to be created, at some point control over those expressions is ceded back to society.

A company funds the creation of a piece of content, taking the risk that it will be worth enough to recoup both that content and all the rest of their portfolio of titles, most of which are worth approximately nothing. I see the moral claim they have on that, even 100 years later. I do not see what moral claim we have, at all.

Markets don't always work, but here's a place where they've worked exceptionally well. We are in a wonderland of available content. It has never been easier to find something great to watch or listen to. If Disney wants to charge me $100 to watch Steamboat Willie, what do I care? I'll just watch something better, and probably not pay anything for it.

> I do not see what moral claim we have, at all.

All art is based upon the past. Think of how many times the plays of Shakespeare have been remade and reinterpreted. His works represent a share heritage that generations of artists have freely borrowed from.

And Shakespeare did the same thing! Hamlet is based on a 13th century legend of Amleth. Should a high school production of Hamlet in 2022 be required to pay royalties to the 13th-century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus?

> Markets don't always work, but here's a place where they've worked exceptionally well.

I agree but I don't see why a reasonable fixed term, such as 25 years, wouldn't work as well and allow the cultural well to refill. Think of how liberating it would be to be able to, for example, freely sample music from 1993 or earlier. And every year we all get more!

Even the term we had in 1909, over a hundred years ago, long before Disney existed, the content we're talking about wouldn't be available today.

Under the 1909 act, works before 1963 with extension and works before 1991 without extension of their copyright term would now be coming under public domain. Could you elaborate your point? I fail to see how a difference of 3 years invalidates the previous posters point.

The Charlie Brown Halloween Special would not be public domain under the 1909 Copyright Act, the point being that copyright extensions are not the reason network TV isn't broadcasting it.

It would be in two years at which point any network could broadcast it, AppleTV has likely bought the rights for many years to come making copyright extension a cogent component of this discussion in my opinion.

In the counterfactual world where the US hadn't passed the Copyright Act of 1976, which is not the "Mickey Mouse extension" that people talk about when we talk about extensions. That's a world in which the United States has sharply lower copyright terms than Europe. And even in that world, Charlie Brown still isn't public domain this year.

It's just not a strong argument.

Don't forget: you were paying for Charlie Brown last year when it ran on network TV; you just weren't paying the same way you are now. This is really just a story about how broadcast TV is being obsoleted by streaming; it's not a copyright extension story.

I didn't mention Disney? You asked what moral claim they would have to that work and I'm arguing that copyright is a govt imposed restriction on the natural right of humans to create and share derivative works.

If we are citing legal trivia the original constitution of 1790 allowed for a copyright term of 14 years, with a single extension, for a total of 28 years. So the halloween special would have entered the public domain in 1994.

No, the Copyright Act of 1790 did that. A specific term for copyright appears nowhere in the Constitution, which simply delegates to Congress the authority to authorize monopolies to authors and inventors.

That brings us back around to the extermination of a phrase from the article "common cultural experiences".

Consider the cultural difference between the gen-x experience of "every gamer" knowing the first level map of FPS game "Doom" vs the experience of never meeting another human playing in a procedurally generated space game like Elite Dangerous or No Mans Sky.

We can all entertain ourselves alone and very cheaply, its just if none of us have anything in common there is no more "We" anymore.

The effect can also be seen in political divides and other areas of life.

In the linked article, they intentionally, for some reason, confound "Friends" and "The Office" as common cultural experiences. However, even that is false. Friends finale in 2004 had 53 million viewers, The Office finale (US version, 2013) had a mere 5 million viewers. Quite a rapid cultural implosion!

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