by chipotle_coyote 14 hours ago
I think you're right, but I've always been a bit skeptical of that vision -- it implicitly relies on the assumption that "THE streaming service" will choose to make as much content available as technically and legally possible; they're imagining something like "Spotify but for movies and TV shows". But I was always worried about "Apple's App Store but for movies and TV shows": one company with ultimate gatekeeper status over what you can and can't legally watch. (The movie and television business is not like the music business; the financial incentives don't, as far as I can tell, support the same kind of distribution models.)
I'm not particularly thrilled about this kind of consolidation, but given that Warner was going to be bought by somebody, Netflix may be one of the least worst outcomes.
HBO owns Westworld and stopped streaming it to avoid paying residuals.
If they don't make their content available legally, then it should go into the public domain.
Don't want this to happen to your content? Then don't release it to the public.
We need to bring back explicit copyright registration and renewals.
Hoarding is never good for society. It is wild that we've adopted laws to reward it.
Wow. That is dysfunctional.
I would be curious how the financial wires got crossed.
I would have assumed residuals were proportional to views, and views valued proportionally as contributing to subscription demand. And it would be a rare viewer to watch one show like that, over & over. I.e. only upside. Something went sideways.
Thats how it used to work in the movie theater/cable days. Then Netflix said "I will pay you a ton of money up front to own everything" Creatives said amazing! Then the "war" for creative talent started because of the fragmentation of services, so you got people saying I will pay you X + a royalty regardless because you are so sought after, which eventually, as you see here, priced them out of their own content.
I think that a show like Westworld is a great example of the realities of the streaming era. If HBO kept streaming it on HBO Max it probably costs them $2-4 million in residual liabilities. HBO removed dozens of scripted shows during that phase, and had a mandate to cut around $3B in post merger costs.
After Year 1, WGA/SAG residual formulas decrease: Year 2: ~80% of Year 1 Year 3: ~55% Year 4+: sometimes stabilize at a “floor” rate
So what did they do? They ran it for a few years, ran the numbers, realized that Westworld was no longer profitable on the platform. (Profitable would have to mean draws enough new subscribers to the platform). AND THEN - Warner Bros. Discovery made new deals with other platforms with ads. I think you can still find Westworld on Tubi and other ad-supported platforms that actually pay Warner licensing fees.
I think ideally you'd have 2-3 streaming services that all have all the content without exclusives? (So the spotify of movies and tv, the tidal of movies and tv, the bandcamp of movies and tv...)
That would be ideal. It's my (very limited) understanding that the costs of making television and movies makes that kind of scenario unlikely, though.
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