Hacker News Reader

Comment by jamesfrank | Hacker News Reader

How would this accelerate copyright/IP reform?

It's a great example of the excessive control given to rights holders, so excessive that a prominent company like Netflix ($300/share is certainly not something to shirk) and similar hypothetical businesses can be totally gutted at the pleasure of a handful of production companies and/or publishers. The diminution of Netflix is no small matter and will hopefully serve as a very visible demonstration of the cruel absurdity of current copyright law.

Netflix can only offer a relative few movies without the approval of content holders, mostly only those that are older than my grandparents. They don't even have the option of reverting to classics from the 40s, 50s, 60s or 70s.

The hope is that the dramatic demise of Netflix will raise awareness and visibility of these issues, promoting IP reform.

Yeah, I can't believe the nerve these software developers have, they don't accept a $0.99 for all their apps. Let's make them lose their copyright and make sure app stores can dictate pricing freely, without having to negotiate with developers.

I'm not arguing for the abolishment of copyright entirely. I just think 90 years+ is a term far too long. I'd like to see it reduced to something in the 20-30 yr range, and perhaps some broadening of fair use and derivative works allowed without license.

Once copyright goes to 20-30 years, Netflix (or its successor) could have a tiered plan: $8/mo that streams fully-recouped and out of copyright movies, $x/mo for new releases.

I have to disagree with you. Whats the point of an IP if you have no control of who uses it.

The problem is that the content holders don't realize who their friends and enemies are. They worry about the web, but when a solution to a lot of their issues arises, they want to charge them right out of business.

my 2 cents...

Whats the point of an IP if you have no control of who uses it.

Compulsory licensing already exists for music. Something similar could be done for movies. It may not fit in an $8/mo streaming plan, but the change would allow anyone to set up a streaming site as long as they pay the compulsory licensing fees.

It seems as though you're suggesting that the movie studios that spend tens, sometimes hundreds, of million of dollars to produce a single film should be forced to sell it to companies like Netflix for pennies. The basic problem here is that Netflix is selling a total fantasy product that does not pay the rights holders enough money. Look at the math -- $8/month for unlimited access? How does that possibly work when your cable bill is $80/month, a DVD/BR costs $15-$30, and a movie ticket costs $10-15? HBO, which shows more recent movies, is about $20/month by itself. Just to offer competitive prices to the rights holders I suspect Netlix would have to charge between $50-$75/month.

I'm generally all for government regulation as needed but this seems absurd. Why would any film company produce movies anymore? People (un)happily pay a lot more for the content today in other mediums. We're going to force the film industry to charge them a lot less to prop up Netflix and other streaming video services? Again I have to go back to the simple fact that Netflix has always been selling a fantasy and their troubles today are totally self inflicted. They convinced people they could spend an insanely small amount of money to get a huge amount of value/content. Netflix is almost a ponzi scheme.

That said, Netflix does have the content and the media companies presumably didn't license it out of the goodness of their hearts.

> businesses can be totally gutted at the pleasure of a handful of production companies and/or publishers

If this were true, those studios would go out of business and more cooperative studios would rise up to replace them within a few years.

> $300/share is certainly not something to shirk

The important metric is market capitalization (share price multiplied by number of issued shares). Netflix's market cap is an optimistic $5 billion. Apple is $377 billion, equal to 75 Netflixes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com