Netflix Hits Users With Another Round Of Price Hikes

from the meet-the-new-boss... dept

It's been obvious for a while that the future of internet television is starting to look increasingly like traditional cable. Initially, the streaming sector was all about innovation, choice, and lower costs to drive subscriber interest. But as the market has matured and become dominated by bigger players, some familiar patterns have emerged, including giant companies trying to lock down as much content as possible in exclusives, and a steady parade of price hikes that slowly, surely, start to erode the value proposition.

Last week Netflix announced that the company would be imposing yet another price hike. Here in the U.S., the company's 720p "basic" tier is increasing $1 to $10 per month, its 1080p "standard" tier is increasing $1.50 to $15.50 per month, and its 4K "premium" will see a $2 increase to $20 per month. Similar hikes are also on their way to Canadian subscribers. In a statement, Netflix justified the hikes using familiar rhetoric about "improving the customer experience":

"We understand people have more entertainment choices than ever, and we’re committed to delivering an even better experience for our members," the statement said. "We’re updating our prices so that we can continue to offer a wide variety of quality entertainment options. As always, we offer a range of plans so members can pick a price that works for their budget."

Granted every time the company imposes a rate hike, folks act as if the world is falling. Back when the company bungled its "Qwikster" DVD unit spin off and imposed price hikes there were no shortage of critics insisting the company was doomed. But for now, consumers continue to find the value proposition streaming offers to be worthwhile, especially in comparison to the still high prices of traditional cable TV options. Streaming still generally sees the kind of customer satisfaction ratings traditional cable companies can only dream of.

But the price hikes that have hit streaming TV services (especially live streaming services) haven't been without repercussion. Not only did more customers cut the traditional TV cord last year, streaming TV services saw a significant reduction in growth. Netflix itself saw a significant drop in subscriber growth across 2021 and a loss in total subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, in no small part due to a 2020 price hike.

With the pricing for live streaming TV services like YouTube TV increasingly looking more and more like traditional cable, and the hunt to lock down exclusives driving increased confusion among consumers trying to find their favorite content, there continues to be a real risk the entire sector simply forgets to learn anything from the plight of traditional TV. As in, keep pushing price hikes for the same or an eroded value proposition, and you can expect a lot of potential subscribers to move to alternatives... whether that's over the air broadcasts using an antenna, or TikTok.

Filed Under: cable, price hikes, streaming, video
Companies: netflix

Google Blocked An Article About Police From The Intercept... Because The Title Included A Phrase That Was Also A Movie Title

from the but-content-moderation-is-easy dept

A week before Christmas, Radley Balko published a typically excellent story about the police chief in Little Rock, Arkansas, Keith Humphrey. It's a good story, and you should read it. Humphrey, who was appointed police chief as part of a reformist campaign, has faced on ongoing campaign to try to take him down from stalwarts within the Little Rock police department, including a few others who wanted his job -- but mainly by the local police union, the Fraternal Order of Police. Anyway, what caught my attention was that a few days after the article went live, The Intercept reported that it had been removed from Google search due to a DMCA copyright takedown notice.

This raised a lot of eyebrows, including questions of whether or not some of the characters who come out of the story negatively were abusing the DMCA to get the story disappeared from Google. It also surprised some people who didn't realize that you could issue a DMCA complaint to Google to get something removed from search. Over the holidays, however, the actual story came out and it's even dumber and more pointless than you could have imagined, but it does highlight (yet again) just how incredibly broken the copyright system is these days.

First off, the "Google removal" bit is nothing new. Even though you might think that DMCA takedowns should only be handed to sites that actually host the content in question, hosts are only one part of the DMCA 512 rules. That's the part that most are familiar with, 512(c) with the rules for dealing with "information residing on systems or networks at direction of users." That's the part that has all the standard notification and takedown rules. But there's also 512(d), which is for "information location tools" and says that if such a tool is notified of infringement -- using the same method in 512(c) -- you have to "respond expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity.

In other words, yes, if someone wants to block something from being found via Google, they can try to file a DMCA takedown claim, saying that the content is infringing. We've seen this used and abused plenty over the years. You may remember revenge pornster Craig Brittain who sought to use this system to get links to a bunch of articles about him removed from Google (this included the press release from the FTC about him settling with them for his sketchy revenge porn efforts). In fact, Brittain tried this multiple times.

Indeed, many copyright holding entities don't even bother to go after the hosting of infringing materials -- they find it more expedient to just have that content de-linked from Google. As Google notes in its transparency report, it has been asked to delete 5.5 billion URLs from its index. For what it's worth, elsewhere, Google has reported that the vast majority of URLs it is told to delete aren't even in its index -- but it's still pretty crazy. And while Google at least has a team that tries to review these requests, mistakes happen, because mistakes always happen at this scale.

In this case, this was clearly a mistake. But it's an incredibly stupid mistake, so it's worth highlighting. Notably, Google put the link to Balko's story back into Google a few hours after The Intercept publicly complained about it, but it took another week or so until the actual DMCA notice made its way to the Lumen Database where we could finally see just what caused it. Was it the annoyed Fraternal Order of Police in Arkansas? Or just other annoyed cops?

No. It was a cybersecurity company that is apparently really bad at it's job.

The notice came from Group IB a "cyber threat" company based in Singapore that claims to specialize in the "prevention of cyberattacks, online fraud, and IP protection." It claims to be an "industry-leading cybersecurity solutions provider" but it frankly looks like most of the other companies in the space which probably shouldn't exist. This notice was sent on behalf of a Russian firm: ООО "РАЗВЛЕКАТЕЛЬНЫЙ ОНЛАЙН-СЕРВИС." As far as I can tell this seems to translate into Online Entertainment Service Limited Liability Company -- about as generic a name as you can find. The company was only created in the summer of 2020, so it's a relatively new company.

And, apparently, it hired Group-IB to issue takedown notices for a bunch of Netflix shows and movies. From the notice, I would guess that the Russian company is supposed to be trying to take down Russian translations of these Netflix shows, because while all of the names listed in the notice are from Netflix, they're each listed with their English name... and their Russian name. And most of the URLs in the notice do appear to be to various sketchy film download sites. Also, in listing the "original URLs" (which are supposed to show the original copyright covered content), the notice lists both the American IMDB site URLs... and the Kinopoisk.ru links, which is a Russian IMDB-like site owned by Yandex, the big Russian internet company.

So, for example, the takedown for "Stranger Things" in this notice looks like this:

DESCRIPTION: series "Stranger Things / Очень странные дела" (2016)
ORIGINAL URLS:
01. https://www.kinopoisk.ru/series/915196/
02. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4574334

So... it's actually possible that this company was hired by Netflix, but that's not entirely clear. Still, how does this lead to The Intercept having its story taken out of Google? Well, one of the takedowns was for the film The Old Guard, which is a Netflix production starring Charlize Theron, released in 2020. I'd never heard of it but it gets decent reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and apparently a sequel is being made.

Of course, you still may be shaking your head as to what any of this has to do with The Intercept's story about Police Chief Keith Humphrey. But it's right there in the takedown demand:

The other URLs listed do seem to lead to sketchy download sites, meaning they likely are pirated versions of the film. But, why is The Intercept article targeted? It seems the most obvious explanation -- as stupid as it sounds -- is that the subhead to The Intercept story mentions... "the old guard" as those trying to takedown Chief Humphrey.

If you can't see that, it shows the title and sub from The Intercept:

So... the most likely explanation here, as stupid as it seems, is that Netflix has some sort of deal with this silly Russian company, which hired the Singaporean "cybersecurity" firm Group IB to try to "police" the internet of infringing works in Russia... and in their lazy Googling for infringing copies of these Netflix shows and movies, they searched for "the old guard" and just grabbed various URLs, and didn't check all of them, meaning that The Intercept's story about Chief Humphrey got caught up in the mess... and, especially over the holidays with probably a lot of Google's copyright takedown checkers on vacation, nobody caught that this was obviously a mistake until The Intercept (understandably) raised a stink.

For most normal people this would be yet another sign of how broken our copyright system has become, but unfortunately it's the way things work these days.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, dmca, journalism, little rock, radley balko, reporting, russia, takedowns, the old guard
Companies: google, group-ib, netflix, the intercept

Austin The Latest City To Try And Impose A Netflix Tax

from the gimme dept

Hungry to boost municipal budgets, a growing roster of states and cities have spent the last five years or so trying to implement a tax on Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services. Sometimes (like in Chicago) this has involved expanding an existing amusement tax (traditionally covering book stores, music stores, ball games and other brick and mortar entertainment) to online streaming. Other times this has involved trying to leverage existing cable TV laws or ordinances to try extract their pound of flesh from Netflix. In both, it involves taking rules written for the physical world, and applying them to the internet. Often haphazardly.

That's what's happening in Austin, where the city just joined a growing Texas lawsuit trying to force Netflix to pay the same taxes as local cable providers. Texas law allows cable and video providers to deliver cable TV via publicly-owned utility poles on public land in exchange for remitting 5% of gross revenue to the municipality. So the argument has generally been because Netflix bits technically travel over those same lines, they should also be responsible for paying that tax:

"Streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu and Disney+ have their content moved through those lines, but they do not pay the fees imposed on traditional cable TV providers. Austin officials say they should.

The Austin City Council voted last week to join the coalition lawsuit against streaming providers. It often depends on state law and local guidelines, but such efforts often don't go very well. Georgia, Indiana, Ohio and Nevada have all pursued similar efforts, and most of them have found themselves bogged down in elaborate legal fisticuffs for trying to apply laws generally written for different technologies and different eras to the modern streaming world.

Cable TV providers generally have a physical presence in the towns and cities they serve. Employees live in these areas, climb physical poles in these areas, and do tech support calls in these areas. By contrast, a company like Netflix may have little to no real physical presence in a town (outside of maybe some CDN hardware at an internet exchange point or regional ISP), so demanding they pay a tax under laws designed decades ago for different technologies often proves logically and legally unsound.

Netflix argued as much last January, making it clear the costs would be passed on to consumers:

"These cases falsely seek to treat streaming services as if they were cable and internet access providers, which they aren’t. They also threaten to place a tax on consumers that the legislature never intended, and we are confident that the courts will conclude that these cases are meritless."

I suspect a lot of municipalities will continue to struggle to make progress here. Older franchise agreements and state laws in a lot of states exempt any service that doesn't have significant local physical infrastructure. A mish mash of local court rulings means there's not a whole lot of federal precedent on this stuff, but eventually this debate is going to wind its way to the Supreme Court, where the efforts could easily be swatted down by an over-arching federal ruling.

Filed Under: austin, franchise fees, netflix tax, streaming, taxes, texas
Companies: disney, hulu, netflix

Netflix Files Anti-Slapp Motion To Dismiss Lawsuit Claiming One Of Its Series Caused A Teen To Commit Suicide

from the even-an-algorithm-is-protected-speech dept

Because Netflix is big, it draws lawsuits. It has been sued for defamation, copyright infringement, and, oddly, defamation via use of a private prison's logo in a fictional TV show. It has also been sued for supposedly contributing to a teen's suicide with its series "13 Reasons Why," which contained a lot of disturbing subject matter that teens deal with daily, like bullying, sexual assault, and -- most relevant here -- suicide. The final episode of the first season contained a suicide scene, one that was removed by Netflix two years after the show debuted.

While undeniably a tragedy, the attempt to blame Netflix for this teen's suicide is severely misguided. The lawsuit filed by the teen's survivors alleges Netflix had a duty to warn viewers of the content (content warnings were added to the show a year after its release) and it failed to do so, making it indirectly liable for this death.

Netflix is now trying to get this lawsuit dismissed using California's anti-SLAPP law because, as it argues persuasively, this is all about protected speech, no matter how the plaintiffs try to portray it as a consumer protection issue. (h/t Reason)

Netflix's anti-SLAPP motion [PDF] points out this isn't the first time teen suicide has been depicted in pop culture, nor is it the first time people have tried to sue creators over the content of their creations. None of those lawsuits have been successful.

13 Reasons Why is not the first work to tell a story about teen suicide. The subject has been explored in countless literary works, motion pictures, songs, and TV shows—everything from Romeo and Juliet to Dead Poets Society. And this is not the first lawsuit that has claimed that the media’s depiction of suicide and violence is to blame, and should be held legally liable, for real-life suicides and other tragic events. Courts, however, have repeatedly rejected such suits.

Since this lawsuit directly implicates creative expression, Netflix says California's anti-SLAPP law applies.

Without question, 13 Reasons Why is protected expression under the First Amendment. And the FAC itself, which is replete with citations to articles about 13 Reasons Why and its subject matter, makes plain that 13 Reasons Why’s speech is in “connection with a public issue.” Plaintiffs try to sidestep the anti-SLAPP statute and the First Amendment by insisting that their claims are not based on the content of 13 Reasons Why, but on an alleged “failure to warn” or breach of a purported duty to protect “vulnerable populations” from the content. But without the allegations that the show’s content is “dangerous,” Plaintiffs’ theories fall apart. Not only do those theories strike at the free expression embodied in the show, they target Netflix’s conduct “in furtherance” of the distribution of the show, and therefore bring this lawsuit squarely within the ambit of the anti-SLAPP statute.

Not only is the content of the series protected expression, but so is the algorithm that possibly recommended the show to the teen. The plaintiffs' "failure to protect" theory argues that Netflix's algorithm is itself reckless and dangerous, given that it prompts users to select titles that may contain disturbing subject matter. But whether or not a human is performing the recommendation makes no difference. It's a form of editorial control which is protected under the First Amendment.

The recommendations system, and the display of suggested titles, is speech. It evinces “[a]n intent to convey a particularized message,” Spence v. Washington, 418 U.S. 405, 410–11 (1974)—namely, a message about what shows and movies a viewer might choose from to watch. The recommendations fall within the well-recognized right to exercise “editorial control and judgment.” Miami Herald Pub. Co. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241, 258 (1974). Plaintiffs allege that the recommendations here are different because they are dictated by an algorithm. But the fact that the recommendations “may be produced algorithmically” makes no difference to the analysis.

[...]

The suggestion that a viewer watch a particular show falls within the broad scope of conduct in furtherance of the right to free speech. The subject of the recommendation—13 Reasons Why—is itself protected speech, and the recommendations facilitate Netflix’s protected distribution and dissemination of that speech.

The plaintiffs' claims can't be separated from the undeniable fact that the allegations are all about creative expression, which is exactly why the state's anti-SLAPP law should apply.

Finally, like Plaintiffs’ failure-to-warn theory, Plaintiffs’ recommendation theory cannot be disentangled from Plaintiffs’ allegation that the underlying content is “dangerous”: the entire premise of the claim is that Netflix had a duty to identify which viewers are “vulnerable,” and ensure that the algorithm does not recommend 13 Reasons Why (or other content Plaintiffs deem unsuitable) to such viewers.

If, as the plaintiffs argue, creators and producers of disturbing content can be held directly liable for the actions of viewers, the end result would be self-censorship and a dearth of options for creators to distribute their creations. Suicide has been the subject matter of countless creative efforts for hundreds of years. A lack of content warnings ahead of viewing doesn't make a viewer's death Netflix's fault. Viewers have control over what they watch and, given the vast amounts of information contained on the internet about movies and TV series, there's little reason to believe viewers have to go into any show "blind."

As tragic as this situation is, the blame (if there even is any) doesn't lie with Netflix. Netflix is no more responsible for this death as the creators of the series or the writer of the novel that inspired it.

Filed Under: 13 reasons why, 1st amendment, anti-slapp, blame, california, liability, protected speech, suicide
Companies: netflix

South Korean ISP Somehow Thinks Netflix Owes It Money Because Squid Game Is Popular

from the troll-tolls dept

We've noted for a while how the world's telecom executives have a fairly entrenched entitlement mindset. As in, they often tend to jealously eye streaming and online ad revenues and assume they're inherently owed a cut of those revenues just because at some point they traveled on their networks. You saw this hubris at play during AT&T's claims that "big tech" gets a "free ride" on their networks, which insisted that companies like Google should pay them significant, additional troll tolls "just because" (which triggered the entire net neutrality fight in the States).

AT&T pretty solidly established this entitlement mindset domestically, and I've watched it slowly exported overseas. Like this week in South Korea, where South Korean broadband provider SK Broadband sued Netflix simply because its new TV show, Squid Game, is popular. Basically, the lawsuit argues, because the show is so popular and is driving a surge in bandwidth consumption among South Koreans watching it, Netflix is somehow obligated to pay the ISP more money:

"South Korean Internet service provider SK Broadband has sued Netflix to pay for costs from increased network traffic and maintenance work because of a surge of viewers to the U.S. firm's content, an SK spokesperson said on Friday.

The move comes after a Seoul court said Netflix should "reasonably" give something in return to the internet service provider for network usage, and multiple South Korean lawmakers have spoken out against content providers who do not pay for network usage despite generating explosive traffic.

Except that's not how any of this works. ISPs design their networks for maximum potential peak load. It's completely irrelevant how popular some content traveling over your network is. Your job as a telecom operator is to design networks that easily flex to handle a surge in capacity, regardless of traffic type. If you're failing to do that, it's because you're not designing your network and investing in capacity properly. It's not suddenly the content company's job to pay you more money to fix a problem you created.

Notice how SK Broadband also trots out the "Netflix doesn't pay for bandwidth" trope, which is a deeply entrenched talking point in telecom lobbyist circles and also... simply isn't true. Consumers pay ISPs for bandwidth. Streaming companies like Netflix pay ISPs for bandwidth. The idea that Netflix is somehow getting a "free ride" on telecom networks is just not based on any factual or technical reality. That hasn't mattered to the South Korean courts, which have been leaning toward the telecom point of view in rulings the last few years:

"the Seoul Central District Court ruled against Netflix in June, saying that SK is seen as providing "a service provided at a cost" and it is "reasonable" for Netflix to be "obligated to provide something in return for the service".

SK estimated the network usage fee Netflix needed to pay was about 27.2 billion won ($22.9 million) in 2020 alone, the court document said.

Netflix has appealed against the ruling, court records showed, with fresh proceedings to start in late December.

The South Korean courts, shockingly, are wrong. South Korean telecoms have convinced some in the South Korean legal system that content companies should pony up additional cash if something is popular "just because," even if that makes no technical sense from a network design standpoint. It's the kind of bizarre legal outlook AT&T dreams of here in the U.S., and the "big tech is getting a free ride" concept is the foundation of the argument, despite not actually being true.

In addition to paying for bandwidth, companies like Netflix and Google also spend massive fortunes on their own transit networks, underseas cables, and in some cases (Google Fiber) their own residential ISPs. In Netflix's case, the company also operates a Content Delivery Network which helps greatly improve streaming efficiency and overall load, the hardware for which is provided to ISPs around the world, for free. Netflix has also been pretty flexible when it comes to designing adjustable tiers of service to help users on bandwidth caps (which, to be clear, are also bullshit cash grabs) avoid additional bandwidth fees.

So when you see a telecom (or one of their captured regulators, consultants, think tankers, or policy wonks) arguing that somebody is getting a free ride and should be throwing more money at them, what they're really saying is "we're too cheap to adequately invest in our networks and want you (Netflix, whoever) to give us money for no reason." That the South Korean courts have bought into this argument (largely because the content companies in question are U.S. based), is unfortunate.

Again, this whole bumbling, bad faith argument was a cornerstone of the origins of net neutrality, a battle that was (in part) about preventing regional telecom giants from exploiting their gatekeeper power to demand obnoxious, arbitrary troll tolls. Pushed by AT&T, some U.S. regulators (most notably and recently the FCC's Brendan Carr) are still pushing some variation of this dumb argument today. And the folks pushing it are generally hopeful you're too dumb to realize that it makes absolutely no technical sense.

Filed Under: bandwidth, free ride, internet, net neutrality, network traffic, south korea, squid game, streaming
Companies: netflix, sk broadband

Netflix's Announced 'Video Game Streaming' Foray Fizzles Into Some Mobile Games Using Netflix IP

from the more-like-a-trickle-than-a-stream dept

You may recall that my colleague Karl Bode discussed Netflix's response to real competition last month, dealing mostly with how Netflix has attempted to hand-waive concerns over losing subscribers in the face of increasing streaming options from the likes of Amazon, Disney, and Comcast. But buried down in the last paragraph was a reference to Netflix's reported interest in video game streaming. Reports indicated that Netflix had hired an executive that had previously worked for EA, speculating that the company was getting into game publishing. There was no official word from Netflix as to what this game studio would actually look like, and the speculation was roughly what you would expect.

While Netflix has not yet confirmed what shape its video game publishing arm might take, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman has suggested that the effort could lead to "video games [as part of] its service in the next year." The use of "video games" as a descriptor is key, as that differentiates the effort from the "choose your own adventure" TV specials that have become more common on the service since Black Mirror's "Bandersnatch" special debuted in 2018.

A tantalizing thought, to be sure. Would Netflix, the company that largely changed the way the public consumes television and movie content, jump into video game streaming in some way to compete with Amazon, Google Prime, and the like? Given the lackluster adoption of such video game streaming services, and given Netflix's reputation for redefining content via streamed services, such speculation certainly made sense.

But, no, Netflix is not getting into that sort of video game streaming service. Instead, the studio will build mobile gaming apps available to Netflix subscribers, chiefly utilizing Netflix intellectual property.

One month after its vague announcement of a new gaming-centric strategy, Netflix has explained how it will "publish" video games in the foreseeable future: as downloadable smartphone apps, available exclusively for paying video-streaming subscribers.

The news coincides with the company's public launch of Netflix Gaming on Thursday as part of the service's smartphone app... but only in Poland—and only on Android. The company's American Twitter translated Thursday's Polish announcement, which explains how the service works. It also announced the two games launching as part of the service today: Stranger Things 3, a 16-bit beat-'em-up that was previously available as a standalone Google Play purchase (and is still live on PC and consoles); and Stranger Things: 1984, a rebranding of a 2017 smartphone-exclusive game that revolve around slow, puzzle-solving movement through pixelated TV-series environments.

Yawn. The more detailed announcement is honestly underwhelming. On top of that, the way Netflix is attempting to silo this new gaming content behind the Netflix app for subscribers sounds like an absolute user experience nightmare.

To access this content, you'll need to log in to Netflix's Android app while using a Polish IP address, then open the region's new "N Gaming" row of icons (pictured below). From there, pick either of those games, and the app will direct you to their Google Play download listings. Once downloaded, the apps in question will request your Netflix credentials before loading, and they will not work without an active Netflix membership.

The Polish IP part of this equation is a function of this all being in beta, so we'll leave that aside. But accessing the Google Play store by first navigating a complicated menu in the Netflix app... only to then have to re-input your user name and password for Netflix into the game application? Come on now, this isn't the efficient user experience Netflix made its name on.

And I'm also terribly confused why Netflix would even want to restrict selling its games only to Netflix subscribers. Why not sell to, you know, everyone? This reeks of console exclusivity, where gaming console companies strike deals with developers to only appear on their consoles as a way to drive more console sales. Is Netflix's strategy really to use these mobile games to drive more people to subscribe or stay subscribed to its main offering?

If so, it's a terribly weak move, and unlikely to work. Maybe the game catalogue will grow, but I can't imagine anyone considering unsubscribing to Netflix changing their minds simply to play a Stranger Things mobile game.

Filed Under: streaming, video game streaming, video games
Companies: netflix

Netflix's Ramped Up War On VPNs Comes With Collateral Damage

from the whoops-a-daisy dept

As Netflix has grown internationally, the company has increased its crackdown on "content tourism," or the act of using a VPN to trick Netflix into letting you watch content specifically licensed for other countries. If you take a look at what's available per country, the motivation to use a VPN to watch content not available in your market becomes abundantly obvious.

Pressured by copyright holders concerned about this "piracy," Netflix began beefing up its war on VPNs around 2016. This primarily involved blocking VPN IP addresses used by users trying to avoid this sort of "geofencing."

Initially it wasn't particularly difficult for VPN providers to skirt the restrictions. Often by trying to disguise their VPN IP addresses as the IP addresses of normal, residential broadband users. But more recently, Netflix has been beefing up its VPN blocking efforts, including the banning of some residential IP addresses:

"Netflix doesn’t explain which IP addresses are blocked and why, but the most recent efforts are much broader than before. This issue was brought to our attention by WeVPN, which noticed that the updated geo-fencing system is blocking its residential IP addresses."

The problem is that determining which IP address is a VPN disguised as a residential broadband subscriber, and which IP address is an actual residential broadband subscriber is going to prove difficult, inevitably leading to some collateral damage:

"The collateral damage is that you have hundreds of thousands of legitimate residential Netflix subscribers blocked from accessing Netflix’s local country full catalog from their home,” a WeVPN spokesperson informs us.

While we are unable to verify how many people are facing issues, it is clear that the measures are spilling over to regular subscribers.

Torrent Freak points to a growing number of complaints on Reddit from folks saying that they suddenly can't access content they pay for, and none of them appear to be using a VPN or proxy to disguise their real IP address. Netflix's response so far has been in a few instances to try and blame the user's ISP:

Netflix hasn't been particularly clear yet on exactly what they're doing, but it's fairly clear the new lockdown is coming with some collateral damage, an internet-filtering inevitability.

Filed Under: collateral damage, content tourism, copyright, geofencing, licensing, streaming, vpns
Companies: netflix

Netflix Finally Faces Competition, Tries To Pretend Otherwise

from the nothing-to-see-here dept

Netflix had a pretty good run there for a long while. Thanks to low prices and an innovative streaming system, the company simply hoovered up streaming video subscribers as the cable TV industry stumbled around in the dark, busy pretending the cord cutting phenomenon either wasn't real or would end once Millennials started procreating. As a result, there was a big long window where Netflix's only real competitor was a bunch of fairly terrible "me too" half assed offerings from the traditional broadcast and cable sector.

That was then, this is now. With cable giants finally figuring out this whole streaming thing (Comcast's Peacock, Dish's SlingTV, AT&T's HBO Max) after numerous face plants (Verizon's Go90, AT&T's HBOMaxUltraExtreme), and numerous movie studios and broadcasters going direct to consumer (Disney+, AppleTV+) Netflix is finally started to see its market share slowly eroded. In fact the company's latest earnings report indicates Netflix lost 430,000 subscribers in the US and Canada. Like clockwork, Netflix now has to turn from innovation to turf protection.

And like the countless companies before it, part of that process involves pretending that things aren't changing under their feet. During the company's earnings call for example, Netflix executives tried to pretend roaring competition wasn't the primary reason for the subscriber dip:

"In the past year and a half, Disney, Apple, WarnerMedia, Comcast and others have launched streaming platforms, and there are more than 100 streaming services for consumers to choose from, according to data company Ampere. Yet on a call for investors, executives dismissed the idea that competition was behind the weaker figures. “Does HBO or Disney... have a differential impact compared to the past? We’re not seeing that in the [data] we have,” said Reed Hastings, Netflix co-chief executive. “That gives us comfort.”

Sure, some of the headaches could stem from COVID-related chaos, but it's hard to just brush off the impact Disney+ and other popular services have had on Netflix growth. Hastings' denial amusingly parallels the cable industry's "nothing to see here" approach of the last decade. However interesting it is to watch startups try to disrupt a sector, I've always found it just as interesting to watch companies gain popularity and critical mass, then inevitably pivot away from innovation to protectionism, timidity, and turf protection (Microsoft in the early aughts, Google over the last five years).

Seeing whether Netflix has the chops to maintain supremacy in the face of competent competition should prove entertaining, starting with the company's foray into video game streaming. There's still a lot of obstacles for Netflix to overcome, including a flood of studio/broadcaster direct to consumer offerings, and telecom giants that are not only starting to field competent streaming competitors, but remain eager to use their monopolies over broadband to erect unfair and arbitrary competitive barriers (see: pointless broadband usage caps).

Filed Under: competition, streaming
Companies: disney, netflix

Spielberg's Production Company Inks Multi-Film Deal With Netflix, I Guess To Win A Bunch Of Emmys Instead Of Oscars

from the about-face dept

Way back in the ancient history of 2019, famed director Steven Spielberg became something of the front man for the aging Hollywood crowd that sees streaming services as somehow deficient when he announced plans to push the Academy to disallow Oscar nominations for films that appeared first on streaming services, arguing they should instead be considered for Emmys. Spielberg's plans were for naught, however, as the Academy refused to ban stream-first films from nominations. This led to Spielberg, directly and through mouthpieces, walking back his very clear intentions so as to pretend that he felt differently than was the reality. I'll stress again that all of this occurred all of two years ago.

Which is part of what makes it strange that Spielberg's production company, Amblin Partners, just inked a multi-film deal with Netflix.

In a press release on Netflix's website, the two companies announced that the partnership will result in "multiple new feature films per year." As is often the case, today's press release was accompanied by prewritten statements by various executives involved, including Spielberg himself. The quote attributed to him says:

At Amblin, storytelling will forever be at the center of everything we do, and from the minute [Ted Sarandos, Netflix co-CEO and chief content officer] and I started discussing a partnership, it was abundantly clear that we had an amazing opportunity to tell new stories together and reach audiences in new ways. This new avenue for our films, alongside the stories we continue to tell with our longtime family at Universal and our other partners, will be incredibly fulfilling for me personally since we get to embark on it together with Ted, and I can’t wait to get started with him, [Scott Stuber, Netflix head of Global Film], and the entire Netflix team.

The obvious immediate question that comes to mind is to wonder aloud just how many Emmys Spielberg thinks he can win under this partnership. Snark aside, it's worth noting that Amblin doesn't solely produce films by Spielberg and that the production company has already produced some streaming hits on Netflix, most notably The Trial of the Chicago 7, as noted in the ArsTechnica post.

Still, it's quite an about face for a world famous director, who, only 2 years ago, was plainly arguing that films that release on streaming services like Netflix are somehow a different animal than those that first enjoy a theatrical release. That whole argument was flawed for multiple reasons, including just how much movie content is now primarily enjoyed via streaming, coupled with the shoddy job theatres have done in actually fulfilling their value-add propositions, otherwise known as the only real reason why the public should want to go to the theatre instead of watching a film at home.

If Spielberg can be dragged into modernity, that's a good thing. But we shan't forget his previous statements, if for no other reason than they should probably serve as a warning to any other "get off my lawn" crowd members who want to pretend like culture doesn't change.

Filed Under: emmys, oscars, steven spielberg, streaming
Companies: amblin, netflix