Streaming Rights On Whitney Houston Movie NOT Pulled In Order To 'Make Really A Large Amount Of Money On DVD Sales' [Updated]

from the profiting-off-of-death dept

Mon, Feb 20th 2012 11:59am — Mike Masnick

Update: Netflix denies this story, ~~though the reporter stands by it~~. See update at the end.

We covered how Sony Music UK jacked up prices on Whitney Houston's music minutes after her death -- then changing them back and apologizing. However, in an even more extreme case, it appears that whoever holds the copyrights on the Whitney Houston movie, The Bodyguard has pulled those rights from Netflix, where it had been streamable (found via Karl Bode, but kudos to Dan McDermott who noticed the problem and found out the details from Netflix). The reasoning is that they figure lots of people will want to buy it now, and this is a chance to cash in on her death:
Netflix rep: "Okay Dan, I just went and talked to my main supervisor as to why the movie had been pulled and the reason it was pulled was the production company pulled the streaming rights from us because all the publicity after Whitney Houston's passing there was an opportunity to make really a very large amount of money on the DVD sales of her movies. So they're going to pull all the streaming titles we have of Whitney Houston so they can make more money off the DVD sales of her movies."
Now, watch the copyright holder complain that there's too much infringement of the movie as well...

Update: Apparently Netflix is denying the story though McDermott -- a long time reporter stands by the story. Netflix claims that the streaming rights to the movie went away last year when a licensing deal ended (and it is true that Netflix has lost some streaming rights in the last few months, though I have no idea if this is one of them). However, McDermott insists that he got the story from Netflix directly. As he told Andrew Couts at Digital Trends:

“I publish three newspapers and first started in news when I was news director at WLVA in 1987. I was aware of the sensitive nature of the story and was cautious and responsible,” McDermott told us via email. “The quote I printed is accurate. I cannot speak to whether the Netflix representative was telling me the truth but I asked him to verify what the Netflix users were saying (that it was pulled after her death) and the guy came back and said what he said. I tripled checked to get the quote accurate.

“He said that he had checked with two supervisors and that the ‘main’ one told him why it had been pulled.

“Personally I believe that the kid told me what his supervisors said. I can’t imagine that they were pulled after her death in some bizarre coincidence.

“Also, it is important to note that Netflix is not the bad guy in this. Unless they lie now.”

I guess it's possible that Netflix is right, and there was confusion on the part of the supervisors...

Update 2: Indeed, it looks like my guess was correct. Netflix was right, and the supervisors of the customer service guy were wrong. Dan McDermott has admitted that the report the guy gave him appears to be wrong. He reported it correctly, but Netflix staffers gave him incorrect info. The movie was pulled from streaming back in January...

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Filed Under: death, dvds, movies, music, prices, streaming, the bodyguard, whitney houston
Companies: netflix

90 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:04pm

"Now, watch the copyright holder complain that there's too much infringement of the movie as well"
All those old VHS tapes are costing them BILLIONS!
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:07pm

I don't see what the fuss is. Supply and demand, and all that.

It seems to me the real story is your need to try and make them look bad. Boring and predictable, IMO.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:08pm

Re:
Supply and demand, and all that.

The supply of digital bits is infinite, so, um, might want to revisit your economics logic.
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GMacGuffin (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:09pm

Yeah man. Capitalism in all its tacky greatness.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:09pm

Re:
"I don't see what the fuss is."

The answer to your riddle is within you!

"Supply and demand, and all that."
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Loki, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:09pm

At least someone actually had the balls to be honest about what they were doing.

I get suspicious when they start telling the truth, though.
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gorehound (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:12pm

MPAA takin advantage of someone famous who just passed away.And this is News ?
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:12pm

Re: Re:
Um, obviously they plan on using their (terrible!) government-granted monopoly and (evil!) artificial scarcity to make more money than if they just gave it all away for free. Did you forget how copyright works? :)
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:12pm

Re:
Its exploitive, disgusting, and opportunistic.
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Mesonoxian Eve (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:14pm

Follow-up: Oops, we're sorry. It was a mistake.
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:Lobo Santo (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:14pm

Re:
Naw naw naw, this is the difference between capitalism and greed.

In capitalism, one goes out of their way to meet the customers' demand, making a REASONABLE profit the whole way thru.

Greed, on the other hand, leads one to do stupid things in order to drive up the prices, like crafting some artificial scarcity (for more on greed and artificial scarcity, see: OPEC).
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Beta (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:14pm

Re:
Never ascribe to large testicles what can adequately be explained by a small brain. The supervisor probably went sprinting to the rep's desk a few seconds later, yelling "Don't tell HIM that!"
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sehlat (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:17pm

Who cares?
The streaming will be back when the rightsholder notices that one or two dozen people actually bothered to buy the movie who hadn't already done so.

Is there any movie that can't be waited for, given how many movies are available? If you can't see "The Bodyguard", there are bunchteen others, either already in your collection, buyable or streamable.

And finally, for those who are starting to get sick to their stomachs at the thought of giving Hollywood so much as a penny, better alternatives are available.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:17pm

Re: Re:
Let me guess: You feel that way about copyright in general. Am I right?

Doesn't the price of art go up when the artist dies? I don't see the big deal at all.
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Planespotter (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:20pm

Re: Re: Re:
Yes on finite pieces... The Bodyguard sells for a few dollars 'cos there are tens of thousands of copies on DVD worlwide.

Economics not your strong point then?
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:22pm

Re: Re: Re:
Hell, boy, if I could copyright stupid I'd make a fortune off y'all.
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Lorpius Prime (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:22pm

Re: Re: Re:
I suspect it's that we've forgotten why copyright is *good*.
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Gwiz (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:23pm

Re:
Follow-up: Oops, we're sorry. It was a mistake.

Follow-up: Oops, we're sorry. We apologize that someone noticed this. We will work harder on keeping such things quiet in the future.

FTFY
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:25pm

Re: Re: Re:
"Doesn't the price of art go up when the artist dies?"

That depends, are they selling the movie on the original film it was shot on?
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:29pm

Re: Who cares?
Whitney Houston appeals to the people that still buy plastic discs. So maybe three dozen.
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Colin, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:31pm

Remember how we shouldn't be allowed to rip movies because there are so many great alternatives for us to pay for where we can watch them? And how they can just remove those movies on a crass, profit-fueled whim? Funny how they didn't mention that last part...
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:31pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Um, they can sell "The Bodyguard" for whatever price they want, and if the market now is willing to pay a higher price then good for them if they can get it. Again, I don't see the big deal. Now you guys are obsessing about what price they ask for some movie? Snore.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:33pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Obviously they can sell copies at whatever price they want. If the market demand is up, then it makes sense to profit from it. Sorry, but I just don't see the problem. As I said, I think the real story is that you guys think this is a story.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:33pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
to quote another AC, "Its exploitive, disgusting, and opportunistic."

personally, I would boycott everything this company rents, releases, etc. for at least the next 6 months.
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:33pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
No respect for the dead?
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:34pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Mike trying to pretend like supply and demand is not a factor in the market for movies shows a bit of delusion on his part, no?
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Gwiz (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:34pm

Re: Re:
....like crafting some artificial scarcity (for more on greed and artificial scarcity, see: OPEC).

Yeah, OPEC and the oil companies are masters of that for sure.

The one that always gets me is this one:

From a recent USA Today article:

Rising prices are an annual spring ritual, largely because of seasonal demand.

If it demand increases at the same time every damn year, why are they so unprepared for it every single time?
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:42pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
So unless I care about the price of "The Bodyguard," then I don't respect the dead? I don't see it. It's got nothing to do with respect for Whitney Houston. The fact is that demand for the DVD has gone up, and they're going to profit off of it. It's called business.

And what about Mike "profiting" off of her death by running all these silly stories? Where's his respect?
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:42pm

This shows just how horrific the never ending quest for the dollar has become. This is outrageous! I for one intend to quit doing business with this company all together. And for those wishing to write me off as a pirate, I own over 2000 legally purchased movies. And they wonder why black march is coming.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:44pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I love how worked up you guys get about them selling a movie for what the market is willing to pay for it, but you don't care at all when people willingly steal a movie and violate other people's rights. Funny how that works. You guys love the lawbreakers but hate their victims. It's amazing. And sad.

And, good Lord, if someone was accused of illegally downloading this movie, Mike would be defending that person all the way. He would never stand up for the victims who had their rights violated.
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GMacGuffin (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:45pm

Re: Re:
My refusal to use emoticons to relay sarcasm does bite back at times. Let us not forget that stories like these spread as well, so old-school scarcity ploys like this are more likely to backfire. (Especially for a film that truly, deeply, sucks.)

And it's still available on Netflix as a physical DVD, but in the queue it is labeled, Very long wait. Is this scarcity a result of complicity with Netflix? ... one has to wonder. [Emoticon.]

(And it's not OPEC, it's the Republican Machine -- run by big oil -- that's driving up the gas prices to stop economic growth during the election cycle ... so says my socialist wife.)
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Hulser (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:45pm

The Houston Clause?
the production company pulled the streaming rights from us

They can do that? I would think that it'd be a no-brainer for Netflix to stipulate in the contract with the media company that they can't just arbitrarily pull the rights on a particular movie. But then again, the content companies have Netflix over a barrel, so maybe there's a clause in the contract for this very thing. Still, it seems odd that they can just yank a single title.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:46pm

Meet the new loss, same as the the old loss
This is why the Cloud will never make it.

Copy write holders, the DOJ*("Mega" destruction of personal property), old, broken business models & patent trolls (claims on new methods) will prevent new innovations and progress in general.
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MRK, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:48pm

Re: Re:
Supply and demand is most definitely in effect.

The production company are simply creating an artificial scarcity while demand is unusually high.

Jerk thing to do? Yep. But its in their rights to do so. We can stick it to them by simply not buying the DVD.

Techdirt is just reporting the facts. Its not Techdirt's fault for making the production company look bad, they did that to themselves.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:48pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes, don't worry, I'm sure all the Netflix streaming customers will just go right back to buying useless plastic discs.
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Jay (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:52pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The movie industry making money hand over fist is a victim?

Meanwhile, the fact that they can't give other countries cheap movies to watch equates to theft?

Great logic.
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Chris Rhodes (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:58pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
violate other people's rights
You don't have a right to my hard-drive or to the contents thereof.

You and the rest of the stone-age media can keep pretending that you do and even get laws passed to that effect, but that's just re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic that is so-called "intellectual property".

Adapt or go extinct. Whining won't save you.
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ahow628 (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 12:59pm

Oops...
They forgot to pull it from The Pirate Bay. Can someone send them an email real quick to remind them.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:01pm

Yes, and in the future, those paintings you purchased that became so much more rare after his death will be discounted back to their original price, because supply and demand just doesn't apply in Masnickworld.

Sheesh!
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:01pm

You're delusional
No, copy write terms should be no longer than 30 yrs, that would help progress more than bribing politicians to extend the term. You�re pretending that an artificially extended copy write term constitutes supply and demand.
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CJ (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:12pm

Re: Re: Re:
Netflix is not free.
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CJ (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:15pm

They did not do this with Michael Jackson's videos. Netflix still had a few.
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Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:16pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Just what about having the movie available on Netflix prevents them from selling DVD's? Does it make the movie more scarce? No. Does it make viewing the movie more scarce? Possibly. But availability on Netflix in no way prevents the purchase of DVD's. One might argue that being on Netflix increases the exposure of the movie, and that exposure just might drive a DVD sale or two.

If it weren't for Kevin Costner, I might just go and torrent the movie, but I have some standards.
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Lorpius Prime (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:19pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
It looks to me like he explained it perfectly: the copyright owners are using their monopoly to reduce supply at the same time that demand increases, so that they can make a larger profit off the death of a celebrity.
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Adam V, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:19pm

Re:
Just curious: how does a painting become "more rare"? Isn't there only one of them?
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Trails (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:20pm

Re: Re: Re:
Because it won't work. As shown time and time again, people will torrent before going back to buying the discs.

Mike's point is that it's dumb, not immoral.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:20pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Demand has gone up, supply remains the same until they put artificial limits on it to make it "scarce" and run up the cost. They can do what they like with their movies but creating artificial scarcity around real demand following an "actresses" death is low. Some people just want to watch the movie again to remember a star they liked/admired/whatever they don't want to own it. The studios are trying to make own it or don't watch it their only options.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:22pm

Re:
Yes a single copy of a real physical painting is the same as a collection of 1s and 0s that can be infinitely duplicated.
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Adam V, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:24pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Aren't we talking about streaming? Is supply and demand a factor in the *streaming* market?

Or are you trying to say "this movie is available from: Best Buy (physical), Netflix (physical), Netflix (streaming). If we remove Netflix (streaming) from the picture, more people will flock to Best Buy (physical) to get the movie"?

You're omitting the fact that the majority of these people likely switched to Netflix (streaming) because they were tired of paying for a movie at Best Buy (physical) only to watch it once or twice and never again.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:25pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Your right we should be able to profit as much as we want from anything that is in demand. You know whats real popular these days? Water! Lets raise the prices to 100$ an ounce, I mean people want it right? Whose to say these municipalities shouldn't be able to make as much money as they want.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:26pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Monopolies are only victims of their own greed.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:29pm

Re:
'insightful'-, 'funny'- and 'report'-buttons aren't enough. In this case I crave for an 'incredible stupid'-button.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:31pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The fact that you immoral people don't care or are able to see a problem with it is just priceless.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:33pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
When you die I will go to your funeral and sell trinkets there to everybody who goes to your funeral, lets see how they will feel about it :)
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:36pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
them selling a movie for what the market is willing to pay for it,

If that were the truth, piracy would have a much much smaller presence online.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:36pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"I love how worked up you guys get about them selling a movie for what the market is willing to pay for it, but you don't care at all when people willingly steal a movie and violate other people's rights. Funny how that works. You guys love the lawbreakers but hate their victims. It's amazing. And sad."

The movie was available as streaming video at a set price.
People were wiling to pay for it.
Warner Brothers yanked access in order to force those who were willing to pay for streaming video to buy a more expensive plastic disc.
That's not "...what the market is willing to pay for it..." it's exploitation and greed, pure and simple.
But then, since you're a shill, you hav no actual opinion except what your masters tell you to think, boy.
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Rose M. Welch (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:37pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The fact is that demand for the DVD has gone up, and they're going to profit off of it. It's called business.

The fact is that we're discussing streaming rights for this film. Any demand for the DVD should be unaffected by the availability of the streaming version.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:40pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Mike trying to pretend like supply and demand is not a factor in the market for movies shows a bit of delusion on his part, no?"

You mean artificially-induced demand by cutting off the existing supply?

It's like in the old Westerns where the bad guys controlled the dam and forced townspeople to pay for water to keep themselves alive until Randolph Scott came along, shot the bad guys and opened the dam.
Who's our Randolph Scott?
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:41pm

Re: Re:
Millions of paintings from "da Vinci" to present are worthless. Rare (scarce) = Excellent.

All movies ≠ excellence.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:43pm

It appears The BodyGuard is back up...
https://signup.netflix.com/movie/The-Bodyguard/321652
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:46pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
At no point does this say anything about not caring about when people "willingly [*cough*] steal." It does, however, make a prediction that they will also complain (probably with some hyped up stat) about the piracy on the movie now.

So you have on one hand, a group trying to manipulate supply, and on the other hand the same group will likely complain about how others are manipulating supply. And using the term 'supply' here is a real loose version because as Mike said the supply is, for practical purposes, infinite.

The point of the article is to show facts. People will then form their own opinions of the morality or ethics of the situation once they know facts.
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Chris Rhodes (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:48pm

Re:
It's funny when trolls talk about supply and demand and somehow don't realize what this means about an infinitely copy-able good and the effect that inevitably has on content prices.

Can't stream it? Just copy it off ThePirateBay for its natural supply-and-demand value.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:51pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Maybe immoral too...be open, be human, be awesome
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:56pm

Re:
I don't see what the fuss is.
Then you're blind.

Supply and demand, and all that.
Wrong - demand might increase, but supply is still infinite. Add the fact that they've forgotten about their competition, who haven't raised their prices. Raising your prices when your competition doesn't is bad business.

your need to try and make them look bad.
Are you suggesting that Mike made them raise prices? No, they're making themselves look bad without any help from Mike.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 1:58pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
You assume people will be there.
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TtfnJohn (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 2:25pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Let's try to get some perspective, shall we?

Sony jacks up the price of their back catalog of Whitney Houston gets blasted and admits their mistake and sets the price back down again.

This movie production company doesn't seem to have noticed that as moves in to do roughly the same with the DVD. I don't really care all that much except that it's beyond tacky and opportunistic and in horribly bad taste.

Doesn't it strike you that the backlash in both cases IS the market speaking? Sony listened, these people didn't.

All in all they get what they deserve which is probably few, if any, extra sales of the DVD at, one assumes, increased prices. It's just not that good a movie.
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TtfnJohn (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 2:35pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
While it appears that Netflix has it back on let's go to my major point.

WB pulls the stream to increase DVD sales, at increased prices no doubt, and gets hammered on line for it. Including here.

Does it not strike you that in the same way as Sony's attempt to profit from her death had to be reversed doesn't it strike you that the market IS speaking?

It has nothing to do with infringement or piracy or any other of your standard "evils" it's just the market speaking that the move is tacky, in horrible taste and they're not gonna buy.

It's the market that's speaking and that's all there is to it. Opportunism in the Internet age gets answered very quickly with outrage. What can't you understand about that?
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 2:36pm

It's been out on DVD for a long time. My (legit) DVD is so old that it's fullscreen only!
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 2:54pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"I love how worked up you guys get about them selling a movie for what the market is willing to pay for it, but you don't care at all when people willingly steal a movie and violate other people's rights. Funny how that works. You guys love the lawbreakers but hate their victims. It's amazing. And sad.

And, good Lord, if someone was accused of illegally downloading this movie, Mike would be defending that person all the way. He would never stand up for the victims who had their rights violated."

You are a complete fucking tool, this goes beyond copyright numnuts, you're efforts to focus your slander campaign on this, is both sad and patthetic, and just insults us, that you think us so fickle, as to forget the bigger picture

You sir are either dumb or the problem, dare i say, a true politician
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Mike Masnick (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 2:55pm

Updated!
Added an update to the post. Netflix is denying the story and claiming it's been off of streaming for a while. The original reporter is standing by his story though...
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 2:59pm

Re: Re: Re:
"Let me guess: You feel that way about copyright in general. Am I right?

Doesn't the price of art go up when the artist dies? I don't see the big deal at all."

ive heard of that happening, its always nice for the artists to get more money for their effort............oh wait!
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Simple Mind (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 3:09pm

silly humans
Funny thing is that after being informed of some singer/actor death I have never had the thought of going out to purchase their music/movie. If I liked the artist I already heard/saw their stuff while they were alive.
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Almost Anonymous (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 3:10pm

Re: Re:
Judging by the Update in the story, that's exactly what happened.
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Suzanne Lainson (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 3:38pm

Re: Updated!
The reporter is no longer standing by his story.

Dan McDermott - Google - Netflix is telling the truth. The rights were pulled before�
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Anubis, 20 Feb 2012 @ 4:06pm

Re: Re:
Absolutely correct. The cost to them, or anyone, to transmit the product digitally is pretty minor I would have to imagine. Just the fractional cost of whatever broadband service they pay for, I suppose.

The cost to manufacture and distribute a new DVD, however is not minor. But the cynic in me thinks the studio already has SOME quantity of these DVDs already manufactured, sitting in a crate somewhere, just waiting to be sold.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 4:09pm

Re: Re: Updated!
Indeed... turns out it was what I wondered at the end of my update. Netflix told him the wrong info. I've updated the post further.
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MrWilson, 20 Feb 2012 @ 4:41pm

"The movie was pulled from streaming back in January..."

Or else this proves the conspiracy theorists' assertion that Whitney was bumped off by the owners of the copyrights to which she contributedin order to make more money...right after they spent all the money they made from the aliens when they assasinated JFK.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 5:20pm

Re: Re:
Chris, I understand the technical ability to reproduce 1s and 0s. One day you will come to understand that it isn't the 1s and 0s that are valuable, but rather the product they convey.

Would you care to give me a million dollars for a collection of random bits?

Supply and demand - you have to look at where the supply comes from to understand that there is nothing infinite about content.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 5:21pm

Re: Re: Re: Updated!
Did netflix really tell him the wrong info, or did he take someone's "nudge nudge, wink wink" a little too seriously?

Seems like a rush to vilify here.
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Trails (profile), 20 Feb 2012 @ 5:22pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Ya fair enough, I shoulda said

"Mike's point is that it's dumb, morality notwithstanding."
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darryl, 20 Feb 2012 @ 7:14pm

Quality Masnick 'research' !!!! Hahahaha
it's typical of the bad reporting on TD part, all the 'stories' here on TD are just that, when your 'source' is 'what some guy said to some other guy, and that other guy said it somewhere on the web.

Masnick thinks "thats good enough for me" "STOP THE PRESS"...

It shows that mansick has NO interest whatsoever in accurate or unbiased reporting, he's just interested in how he can 'spin it'. Truth never enters into the equation.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 7:16pm

Re: Re: Re: Updated!
and you would never check the facts before you burn up the keyboard with lies !!!!!!....
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 7:21pm

Re: Re:
by having a larger population.

A container of water might be 'alot' for one person, but rare for a million people..
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 7:26pm

Re: Re:
Gwiz, do you feel like an idiot now ???
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Feb 2012 @ 7:37pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
true, but your logic, truth and reasoning has NO place here on TD...

neither is independent thought...

here on TD you are told to 'think what Mansick tells you to think, and feel how he wants you to feel'..

This place is primarily for those who will not or cannot think for themselves or form their own opinions. If you try to do there here, you will meet the ire of the Masnick guard dogs, who are suitabily programmed to insult you, but NEVER propose a viable counter argument, and if you really upset them, Masnick himself will hurl you some abuse... (but not address the issue)..
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Loki, 20 Feb 2012 @ 7:53pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I love how worked up you guys get about them selling a movie for what the market is willing to pay for it, but you don't care at all when people willingly steal a movie and violate other people's rights.

It might have something to do with the fact that Infringers, in their efforts to get what they want, in the manner they want, may cause inconvenience to the movie seller and trample/violate some of their "rights" but they don't directly inconvenience me or trample my rights in the process.

The movie sellers, on the other hand, treat everyone - customers and infringers alike - with dishonesty, inconvenience, and even as outright criminals. They show no concern for violating/trampling my rights or anyone else's in the process of pursuing their agenda.

Basically, if someone is peeing in your bushes, don't expect me to care if you're taking a dump in the middle of my front lawn.

Funny how that works.

Oh, and when a good portion of your wealth was originally obtained from basically the same form of "theft" you are complaining about, and you have basically engaged in activities that are essentially extortion, blackmail and bribery, claiming you are somehow a victim is merely laughable.
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Gwiz (profile), 21 Feb 2012 @ 6:40am

Re: Re: Re:
Nope. I made a sarcastic comment based on the information available at the time.
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TDR, 21 Feb 2012 @ 7:46am

MAFIAA: And I...eeeI...eeeI... will ce-ehn-sor you...oo-oo...oo-oo!
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Feb 2012 @ 2:04pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
true, but your logic, truth and reasoning has NO place here on TD...

neither is independent thought...

here on TD you are told to 'think what Mansick tells you to think, and feel how he wants you to feel'..

This place is primarily for those who will not or cannot think for themselves or form their own opinions. If you try to do there here, you will meet the ire of the Masnick guard dogs, who are suitabily programmed to insult you, but NEVER propose a viable counter argument, and if you really upset them, Masnick himself will hurl you some abuse... (but not address the issue)..
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Chris Rhodes (profile), 7 Mar 2012 @ 9:12am

Re: Re: Re:
Then the scarcity is in the production, not the end product. Once created, the product is infinitely copyable and thus has a value approaching zero.

If you want to increase production, you give people a reason to support production (e.g. Kickstarter). You can't improve production by trying to overturn the laws of supply and demand for the end product.
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