
MPAA Welcomes Netflix as New Member - nonbel
https://www.mpaa.org/press/mpaa-welcomes-netflix-as-new-member/
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caiocaiocaio
Remember when MPAA released a closed-source Linux distro with the intention of
gathering incriminating data on university students? That was pretty weird.

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fortran77
I don't remember this! Do you have a source so I can get the whole story?

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high_5
Not only that, the distro infringed the Xubuntu copyright too:
[https://xubuntu.wordpress.com/tag/mpaa/](https://xubuntu.wordpress.com/tag/mpaa/)

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Nightshaxx
That's hilarious. In trying to catch people stealing, they stole a trademarked
logo.

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sieabahlpark
Should have fined them damages in excess of 1 trillion dollars to the open
source community.

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rayiner
I find the tribalism over copyright to be quite odd. It makes sense for many
tech companies to lobby to devalue copyright, because they are in the business
of profiting by distributing other peoples’ content. (I forget who said it,
but the principle is commoditizing your inputs.) And it makes sense for
organizations like the MPAA to push back on those efforts. It’s an economic,
not moral battle. Netflix used to be on one side, now it’s a content creator
and on the other.

The moral calculus, I think, cuts the other way. People complain that Wall
Street middle men don’t create value, just move it around, but in the same
breath assign moral superiority to companies that just move around content
created by other people. Odd.

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vincent-toups
It seems to me that since economics is exactly about value, there cannot be an
economic battle that isn't also a moral battle.

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IggleSniggle
Beautifully said!

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RenRav
So what? Netflix included with all the other tv bloat channels? More tv
content on Netflix? Better licensing deals for Netflix?

Maybe Netflix and other cooperating services will jack their prices to $20 so
I can finally unsubscribe.

95% of these Made by Netflix titles suck and haven't justified the price
hikes.

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reaperducer
If $20/month is the pain point which causes you to leave Netflix, you're not
the kind of customer it wants anyway.

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vesinisa
To stay current with television entertainment one would need to subscribe to
at least Netflix, HBO, Amazon and, soon, Disney. If you live in the non-
anglophone part of the planet you might want to add a few on-demand providers
in your local language as well.

If each charge $20 / mon that's close to $2,000 / year just for content to
your television - a full payslip for many low-income people. Such prices might
be justifiable to enthusiasts but not really for the general public.

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hombre_fatal
> To stay current with television entertainment

You lost me here.

That's like tasking yourself with staying current with your Warhammer 40k or
Magic The Gathering card collection and complaining that it's expensive. Yet
you suggested TV as if it's some self-evident thing everyone wants to
maximize.

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ergothus
I'm a cord cutter and have been for over a decade.

When I initially made the switch, I didnt use an antenna (my complaint is
about commercials, not (just) the cable company). I discovered that I lost the
ability to participate in a lot of water cooler talk. Even now, I didnt wat
bird box, or game of thrones (at least not yet) and I was missing references
to them all over the place.

Socially, groups use such references to indicate belonging. This is true in
communities of varying sizes. Ergo, not participating DOES have repercussions.

I'm not saying it makes sense to break the bank, but I am saying there are
social and therefore economic and other consequences.

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hombre_fatal
That makes sense if you seriously can't handle the tiny adversity of not being
able to engage in every single topic at the water cooler because of some
social phobia.

But I don't find that very convincing otherwise.

I reinvoke my comparison to deciding you need to own every Magic The Gathering
card for whatever reason you want to use. This is more obviously silly because
how normalized and socially-acceptable TV obsession is in our culture, but I
still don't buy that it's something remotely necessary in your life. And it
seems like a popular but toxic self-limiting belief.

Just like if you were to tell me you think the reason you can't make friends
is because you can't talk football at the water cooler, so you study the sport
every night so that you can spout trivia at work. I would suspect some sort of
social disability if you did that.

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DoreenMichele
I haven't owned a TV for years. It does fairly effectively cut you out of a
lot of conversations.

Historically, people lived in little villages, knew all the same people, etc.
These days, TV shows and movies get used to establish a common frame of social
reference between people who really don't know each other well.

A hundred years ago, you would have commented on a mutual acquaintance or an
event you both attended to bond and to facilitate communication. Now, we
routinely use popular media references for the same purpose.

I mostly don't care that I'm "missing out." But, yeah, there is a real social
cost involved.

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hombre_fatal
Sure. But you'd have to argue that the social cost is more than a few peanuts
and a nickel at this hypothetical water cooler. Or worth buying multiple
subscriptions + hours invested in "keeping up" with television.

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DoreenMichele
That would depend on a lot of factors. We have sayings like "Its not what you
know, it's who you know" for a reason and social bonding requires common
ground, effective communication, etc.

This is part of why it's de facto exclusionary for "the old boys network" to
engage in specific social activities that cannot readily be done by, for
example, women as well in a "co-ed" fashion.

Which may not matter at all to your life, but could be the make or break for
someone else's career.

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vuln
Aaaaaannd I just canceled my Netflix subscription. For months I’ve been on the
fence (and wasting money) attempting to figure out if it’s actually worth it
to me.

Thanks Netflix for making the choice easier.

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coding123
So like just about every movie you've seen has their logo on it - do you get
to the end credits see the MPAA logo and scratch your eyes out and say I just
wasted my money!!!!

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vuln
I pay Netflix to distribute content. The content created has paid into the
MPAA and uses technology to ensure no one infringes. If Netflix is a
distributor of content or essentially a dumb pipe why do they care what I do
with the content after I receive it?

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clintonb
Netflix hasn't been a "dumb pipe" for years. They have been content co-
producers since 2012 ("Lilyhammer") and producers since 2013 ("House of
Cards").

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givinguflac
I don’t understand why they would do this, or what the benefits are.
Personally it gives me a strong reason to ditch Netflix now, which is a
bummer.

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arkades
What’s a good alternative? Their Netflix Originals are owned by them; non-
original library sucks to begin with.

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jcoffland
> What’s a good alternative?

Go outside. Read a book. Spend quality time with your family.

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arkades
I do those things. Also, I watch movies, which is obviously what the question
addressed. I don’t think your answer added anything substantive or meaningful
to the conversation at all, and was at best a condescending distractor.

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hombre_fatal
I don't know, I think it's a good contrast to the sort of shrill voices that
crop up on this topic. Like when people complain how expensive it is once they
task themselves to subscribe to every streaming TV service, as if it wasn't
self-inflicted or as if the point of life is to maximize TV consumption.

We take our culture of hyper-consumption for granted so much that people scoff
when you suggest "well, why not consume less? What's the big deal?"

It's not like we need more posts of people vocalizing how begrudgingly they
subscribe to Netflix in every Netflix thread. As if unsubscribing is never an
option. It's a bit exhausting to scroll through.

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judge2020
(JANUARY 22, 2019)

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timvisee
Can someone explain me why this is good or bad?

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xenocyon
On the bad side: the MPAA lobbies heavily for continually enlarging copyright
protection (e.g. the DMCA) and aggressively pursues legal action against
individuals. Netflix has deep pockets, so its membership provides the MPAA
with increased funds for lobbying and legal muscle.

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scarface74
Netflix has deep pockets? Have you seen their balance sheet and debt
obligations?

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xenocyon
MPAA membership dues are on the order of USD 10 million per year.

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scarface74
Which is chomp change for any major company.

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echelon
Do you think Netflix will falter when Disney arrives to the steaming scene?

Do you think Netflix could be disrupted if content became cheap to produce
(through new technology)?

Do you think we could lobby to get copyright terms greatly reduced? How would
we go about doing so?

I'm really interested in your thoughts.

(I'm pursuing a startup to answer the second question, but I'm worried the
incumbents will simply copy us if the technology works out as well as we
hope.)

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wodenokoto
1) No, Netflix is fully on track to become as good or better than its
competitors at producing content at a faster pace, than competitors are
becoming as good as Netflix at delivering content online.

2) No. Netflix is doing quite good against youtube. Netflix are also doing
quite good in animation, which is a genre that has become much cheaper to
produce in the last 20-30 years thanks to technology.

3) I don't know. Maybe. Disney has apparently given up extending copyright, so
at least things are moving in the right direction.

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electrichead
Aren't the other members the ones that Netflix is disrupting in the first
place? What can it hope to gain from this?

(Honest question)

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kevingadd
It gets to be the favored disruptor, and now the MPAA will help kill any other
competition in exchange for sweet deals

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iNate2000
Yeah - the disruption is over.

You only get to win so many times until you aren't the underdog anymore.

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molticrystal
So Disney's jaw dropped when Netflix refused to renew the contracts for the
Marvel properties, but they have enough disposable income to prop up this
living dead corpse of a organization and overall money pit whose
accomplishments include incompetency, copyright infringement, and piracy.

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StavrosK
The MPAA? Of "Fuck the MPAA" fame?

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svnpenn
You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

\- Harvey Dent

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voodootrucker
That was enough reason for me to cancel. So long netflix!

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psychometry
Netflix is such a sell-out. First the ISPs, now the MPAA.

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beart
Isn't selling out literally what every company in the world strives to do?

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cannonedhamster
Most companies that intend to go public maybe. Private ownership and pride in
what you sell does still exist in America, just takes more looking. Patagonia
for example just made a decision not to support the VC vest culture any more
than it already was. I've got a chain of local hardware stores that are still
family owned nearby. There's tons of real Amish furniture companies that
aren't looking to sell out. Just because it's the common way didn't mean it's
the only or best way.

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thrav
Although, to hear my friend tell it, Patagonia is still a massive military
supplier. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it does seem to run a
bit counter to their uber eco friendly branding.

This seems to back that claim:
[http://soldiersystems.net/tag/patagonia/](http://soldiersystems.net/tag/patagonia/)

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cannonedhamster
They make good products and the military needs good products. I'd much rather
they support the military that's generally trying to do the right thing than
people trying just to make money.

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swiley
I’m not so sure I feel comfortable giving them money now.

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scarface74
But you felt comfortable giving them money before when that money went to MPAA
members...

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eveningcoffee
I am not sure what point you are trying to make here. There a is difference
between being an independent content distributor and being a member of the
gang.

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clintonb
Netflix has not been an independent content distributor for years. Here are
their productions and co-productions:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_dist...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_distributed_by_Netflix).

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eveningcoffee
This is true. What I meant was "independent content distributor for not their
own content".

In an ideal world Netflix would not produce content and Sony would not own a
movie studio.

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clintonb
What makes that "ideal"?

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eveningcoffee
Because we would have more honest competition (and from that possibly better
outcome for the consumer).

I find that a great example is Blu-Ray vs HD-DVD where the later did not have
region restrictions but the first belonged to Sony who also owned a movie
studio allowing large portion of the content to be never released on HD-DVD.

