Netflix Teams With LG For 'Prepaid' Streaming Worldwide (engadget.com) 32
An anonymous reader writes: Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced at CES that the service had gone live in 130 additional countries including India, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. He called the expansion "the birth of a global TV network." Partnering with LG, the company hopes to expand its reach by providing prepaid access worldwide. China remains the most notable holdout for the streaming service but Hastings is hopeful saying, "We are continuing to work on that and we are very patient."
Netflix vs Hulu, Amazon, etc. (Score:5, Interesting)
Netflix is available in a lot of countries.
Hulu and Amazon are only available in a handful of countries and their list doesn't even include Canada.
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Don't they own House of Cards? (Score:4, Interesting)
Apparently it's not available in the newly opened 130 countries... or at least in some of them.
Re:Don't they own House of Cards? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, that's gonna be the joke here.
Netflix exists in all these countries. But due to this licensing restriction or that contract, will there be anything to actually watch on it?
Re:Don't they own House of Cards? (Score:5, Interesting)
I haven't started the free trial yet, but the comments of people who did that in Romania are... disappointing.
Their flagship isn't available, the old movie collection is limited too... 3 titles for each of de Niro, Pacino, and other great actors?
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Netflix started here in Italy last November, but House of Cards is not part of the catalogue because they already sold broadcasting rights to Sky.
Region Locking Still in Place (Score:5, Informative)
For those whoa re wondering about the continued use of region locking, that nonsense will still be in place.
from http://www.wtoc.com/story/3090... [wtoc.com]
"Although Netflix is now virtually worldwide, not of all its entertainment will be available everywhere. For instance, a prized licensing contract that gives Netflix the rights to Walt Disney films after their theatrical release will be limited to the U.S. and Canada as part of a deal negotiated several years ago. Hastings told reporters Wednesday that Netflix is hoping to expand those rights into other countries."
They are still in negotiations for global rights to all of their content, but being available in many more countries should increase their bargaining power in that endeavor.
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days/weeks.
Years here for some TV Shows. They are 2-3 years behind seasons.
And in one instance, a shows was taken off Netflix before we even got the last season!
What's the point then?
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Global content works great on a brands own network but third party series often get long term regional rights deals.
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Unlikely, actually.
In fact, being available in more countries will likely result in more difficulty for Netflix - the problem being that the content industry is trying to avoid another Apple.
For those who don't know, the iTunes music store is wildly successful. So successful in fact that Apple was able to dictate the terms of the agreeme
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Only so many hours in the day mate. So the pigoplists can carry on any way they want, in the end people will have only so many hours to waste on sucking down content. So they want to dick around, big whoop, people will just skip that content and send producers bankrupt due to lack of reach. So how is netflix complete with the oft annoying youtube, all kinds of weird content, who gets the most hours of consumer eye balls.
Yep, the can run up all the crazy pscyho ideas they want of unlimited profits but it
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Good point. I had forgotten about the music industry history with apple causing consternation. At some point I can understand their reasoning. For some one in the production side the idea of a Walmart for movies must seem like a fairly terrifying prospect, and I think your argument points out a less discussed motive for using DRM: a vendor lock-in to prevent certain music distributors from gaining the power to become a Walmart like entity.
Ultimately the he record labels argument is still false because an
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There is an infinite supply of copies (or streams or viewings or whatever) of movies, but there is definitely not an infinite supply of unique movies. New movies require actors, producers, writers, editors, etc.. This impedence mismatch means a bridging mechanism is necessary.
The mechanism can be to impose artificial scarcity on the copies of movies. Or it can be some form of patronage -- maybe Coca-Cola buys a movie directly, or more subtly has product placement, or the patronage is lower-level and is j
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There is an infinite supply of copies (or streams or viewings or whatever) of movies, but there is definitely not an infinite supply of unique movies.
The supply is close enough to infinite; there is already more content in existence than anyone could reasonably hope to sample in their lifetime. Even if the creation of new movies were to cease (along with all copyright restrictions), no one would lack for entertainment.
It's true that if people want new content beyond what people naturally choose to produce for their own amusement they will need to pay for its production. However, that is merely a "want", not a "need", and as you yourself pointed out there
Offline viewing (Score:1)
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I'm sure it's a feature coming in the future but like every challenge with copyright they need approval. The nice thing about Netflix is that they are now in a position to bully copyright holders.
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Funny thing is netflix says copyright is not why they don't offer it. http://gizmodo.com/the-real-re... [gizmodo.com]
"According to Neil Hunt, Netflix's Chief Product Officer, Netflix users won't be able to handle the complexity the added choice will bring."
Apparently us consumers are too dumb to handle one more choice after being given the choice of a few thousand things too watch herp de duur.
Although I have to admit a few months ago I had to explain to someone that they had to have internet service to use netflix for w
LG? (Score:5, Interesting)
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OK, I read both articles and I still don't have a clue what LG has to do with any of this. What are they doing again?
I agree..
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