
Netflix acquires the global streaming rights to 'Seinfeld' - coloneltcb
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2019-09-16/netflix-acquires-the-global-streaming-rights-to-seinfeld
======
jlmorton
It's strange that we accept a copyright system that allows a show like
Seinfeld to remain outside the public domain over twenty years after it ended.

Intellectual property exists to encourage science and the useful arts. It
doesn't exist to extract every last penny of value out of a show for its
owners.

In a world where copyright existed for twenty years, rather than 95-120 years,
Seinfeld still would have been made. No one is green-lighting a television
show with the expectation of huge distribution agreements decades later.

I'm not generally one to bash corporations, but US copyright law is among the
clearest examples of corporations writing our laws to the detriment of
consumers.

~~~
bobbylarrybobby
The insane amount of time that copyright persists is almost surely due to
Disney. Every time their copyright is about to expire, congress extends the
duration. You can be pretty sure that the copyright duration will always be
today’s date minus the date Disney first copyrighted something.

~~~
maxwell
I wouldn't be so sure about "always".

Disney Fatigue has already set in:

[https://fictionphile.com/disney-marvel-superhero-
fatigue/](https://fictionphile.com/disney-marvel-superhero-fatigue/)

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2019/07/...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2019/07/20/disney-
remake-fatigue-lion-king-little-mermaid/1741525001/)

[https://fortune.com/2019/07/20/live-action-disney-lion-
king/](https://fortune.com/2019/07/20/live-action-disney-lion-king/)

[https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/21/spider-man-
out-...](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/aug/21/spider-man-out-of-
marvel-cinematic-universe-after-disney-split-with-sony)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/05/wi...](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/05/with-
solo-has-star-wars-fatigue-set-in/561416/)

~~~
skinnymuch
I went to a few links and they were ridiculous untrue articles. We need a
bullshit meter for articles that purport to be legitimate. None of the three I
clicked were.

Disney with Fox (who will only have contributed 15% of their percentage or 4%
overall) have a 40% box office revenue percent this year. That is absolutely
insane. I’m not sure when the last a company had that much of the box office.
But it hasn’t been done for a while.

Lion King grossed $1.6B. $1B outside the US and $500M+ in the US/CA. Yet one
of the articles was trying to use the movie as an example of Disney’s decline?
I can’t come up with words to describe how silly that is.

I personally do not like Disney controlling the media market so much and do
not like most of what they put out. But I’m not going to straight up lie and
say their dominance isn’t there.

------
j9461701
I find it strange the competition around Seinfeld was this intense actually.
Certainly in its day it was the 900 pound gorilla of sitcoms, but modernly?
The sitcoms that seem to be doing well are either feel good stuff like Parks
and Rec or Friends, or stuff that took Seinfeld as a jumping off point into
the cesspool like Always Sunny. In 2019 Seinfeld seems like it's not hard
enough to run with the modern cynic comedies, while still too dark to be
classified as a positive show.

Also most of the episodes seem very much of their era, and it's been 20+
years. Will episodes that relied on their extreme relatability still work when
the target audience has never actually experienced that situation? In Chinese
Restaurant when George is desperate to get access to a pay phone - how does
that play with Gen Z?

~~~
gnulinux
I'm scratching my head here. I'm a huge IASIP fan and can't see how IASIP took
Seinfeld as a jumping off point. IASIP is characterized by it's very dark
humor, no laugh track and subtle plot developments when it seems like each
episode is stand-alone. Seinfeld had a very obvious laugh track and it's humor
was significantly less dark. (I mean, Seinfeld is cynical... But let's be
honest, there has never been a long running rape joke, jokes about homophobia,
misogyny, pedophilia, alcoholism, drug abuse, stalking, incest etc) So it's
really hard to see a connection. Could you maybe elaborate?

~~~
j9461701
Seinfeld was famous for having the rule 'no hugging, no learning'. The main
characters were mean, selfish, short-sighted jerks and they never learned
their lesson or grew emotionally over the whole course of the show. That was
unheard of at the time, as other shows either featured at least one likable
character or had their characters evolve over time into better people. The
point of Seinfeld was to watch these human cesspools behave horribly for 22
minutes and laugh at their misfortune. Always Sunny took those core
principles, and turned them all to 11.

Jerry Seinfeld is a bit of a clean freak? Frank Reynolds strips naked, shaves
his whole body, and slathers himself in hand sanitizer to keep the germs away:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyvxE35X8Ow\](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyvxE35X8Ow\\)

The guys on the show are kind of disrespectful toward their romantic partners?
Dennis is a monster:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYBPvrJbPA4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYBPvrJbPA4)

George is kind of stupid? Charlie is straight up mentally challenged:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5xrkNeO2QI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5xrkNeO2QI)

Elaine dances the funky chicken? Dee is an actual bird:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkYh2dvoeN8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkYh2dvoeN8)

------
nscalf
Just going to note in here, everyone in this thread is saying no one cares in
2019 where Sienfeld streams. I’m 26, and I can tell you this show is one of
the best ones ever made and I will be able to more easily peddle episodes that
are brilliant to my friends and roommates.

~~~
BeefySwain
23 years old, Seinfeld is my favorite sitcom by far and is in my top 5
favorite shows in general.

I have a Hulu ad-free subscription purely for watching it, which I will be
cancelling as soon as Seinfeld moves over to Netflix.

------
nailer
'Friends' seem to have acquired a second life amongst Gen Z folk who never saw
it on TV when it first aired, there's nothing stopping Seinfeld from having
the same kind of comeback.

~~~
jedberg
It'll be a big question of whether the plots still play well. I was watching
Seinfeld the other day, and I'd forgotten how many of the plots revolve around
someone missing a critical phone call, because they all had land lines.

Kids today won't understand those plots. :)

~~~
skyyler
Do you genuinely believe that kids don't know what it's like to not be near a
phone?

Kids are going to understand those plots just fine. You should spend some time
reassessing your understanding of today's youth.

~~~
jedberg
I was mostly be facetious, so no.

And in fact I'd say I'm pretty in tune with today's youth. I have lots of
teenage family, as well as friend's kids to talk to about these things. I make
it a point to ask them questions about how things are different today than
when I was a teen, so I can have a better understand.

My first question is always, "How do you learn about new music?" As a teen,
they way I learned about new music was from the radio: the DJs would tell us
what the cool new songs were. But that curated experience is missing today.
Spotify sort of gets there, but it's not really the same.

My second question is always, "How do you talk to your friends?". And
surprisingly, the number one answer recently has been "In person". Today's
teens are starting to have a backlash against social media and actually like
to connect in person, which was refreshing to hear. But number two is usually
Snapchat or similar "erase after consuming" media. "Facebook is for grandma"
and Instagram is for "only the good stuff that I want everyone to see".
Texting is often in the mix too, but they are very aware that texts cane be
easily saved and monitored.

Although directly to your point, kids experience missed phone calls a bit
differently. Mostly it's more like "I was camping this weekend with my family
and they didn't have cell service!".

~~~
Apocryphon
Kids today now have to grapple with their smartphone battery running out. U.S.
infrastructure does not yet possess abundant public charging stations.

------
blang
I am a little surprised consumers are not buying: Seinfeld, Parks & Rec, and
Friends. They can be had on DVD or digitally for less than a year of a
streaming service, and it would free you from worrying about when the show
will leave your particular streaming service of choice.

~~~
nightski
I think consumers got burned out rebuying content on the vhs -> dvd -> bluray
-> 4k ultra hd transitions.

~~~
mrguyorama
I think for your average person, nice DVD masters are still perfectly
acceptable content

~~~
asdff
Until you try and watch them on a 4k screen. Somehow the same discs come out
looking worse than they did on the 1080p I had just couple months ago. I blame
the high refresh rate and questionable upscaling.

------
zxcvbn4038
The article talks a lot about worldwide rights - does Sinefeld make sense to
people not familiar with all the quirks of New York City? I love Monty Python
but I’ve met plenty of people that just don’t get it - I imagine that Seinfeld
would be the same.

~~~
bluetidepro
I've only ever been to NYC (as a kid) once, and it still makes sense to me.
Granted, I live in another major city (Chicago). I think the "quirks" you are
referring to are probably more just general US/American quirks, more than
anything that specific to NYC. Kind of like the humor in the US version of The
Office vs the English (UK) version.

------
crossman
In my experience my non-american friends never really seemed to get Seinfeld
or find it very appealing. Seems like the global part of this isn't that
significant from that perspective

~~~
yarrel
Tell them it's just "Hancock's Half Hour" but in New York.

------
nickthegreek
Apparently this is getting a 4k treatment. I wonder if its just a lazy upscale
or an actual remastering.

~~~
joezydeco
Seinfeld and Friends were actually remastered off the original 35mm film for
HD conversion back in the day. Seems like going 4K isn't going to be much
different, especially at the price they're paying.

~~~
whycome
And if I remember correctly, the big challenge wasn't the scaling up, it was
the reframing - 4:3 vs 16:9. That challenge has been overcome for the most
part in that HD remaster. (It's hard to reframe some scenes when they were
deliberately spaced out in a certain way to reflect the frame that the
director had to play with - it has the potential to fundamentally change the
narrative intentions.)

A video that addresses some of it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFIrsitJW5M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFIrsitJW5M)

------
misiti3780
I didnt realize netflix lost the rights to the office - does anyone know when
it is disappearing ?

~~~
alienreborn
End of 2020.

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/25/20727317/nbc-universal-
st...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/25/20727317/nbc-universal-streaming-
service-launch-date-2020-comcast)

------
Medicalidiot
I wonder how much losing The Office made them go after Seinfeld.

~~~
jedberg
Or how much of it was "Let's make sure the new NBCUniversal streaming service
doesn't get this since we have a chance to stop them".

~~~
WorldMaker
Seinfeld's distributor is Sony Pictures, so perhaps the closer to home
competition would be from PlayStation Vue. Maybe a few more adults might buy
PlayStations if they moved Seinfeld there.

------
tibbydudeza
I wonder if Peacock (what a stupid name) is going to stream the Cosby Show
????.

------
mrbonner
Great, now I have something else to watch after Cheers!

------
coldtea
Very relevant for 2019. Next they should announce "All in the family"...

~~~
jedberg
Seinfeld is on TV every single day of the year _right now_ through
syndication. I don't think you could find All in the Family on TV at all.

I think one is slightly more popular today than the other.

~~~
jerf
Speaking at least for my area (Detroit television market), a lot of local
channels use their digital allotment to run a "Whatever I Can Syndicate For
The Cheapest" channel at SD quality. It looks a lot like the UHF syndicated
content when I was a kid. I wouldn't be surprised All in the Family shows up
there, a lot of contemporaneous stuff does.

Not that you're wrong about Seinfeld being, oh, let me guess, somewhere
between two to six orders of magnitude more popular, depending on how many
dozens of people are watching the "Cheap Syndication" subchannel at any given
time.

~~~
jedberg
I love those digital sub channels! Recently I discovered a free-over-the-air
version of game show network. It's awesome!

