Amazon Prime Video Direct and the Dystopian Decision To Stop Accepting Documentaries (indiewire.com) 75
When Amazon made a unilateral decision in early February to stop accepting documentaries and short films via Prime Video Direct (a policy that also covers "slide shows, vlogs, podcasts, tutorials, filmed conferences, monologues, toy play, music videos, and voiceover gameplay"), the announcement also served as a quiet purge. Amazon also has been dropping long-running documentary titles from the service, with stakeholders receiving no warning or context for the decisions. From a report: Filmmakers and distributors are aghast, but Amazon Prime Video Direct seems to be egalitarian in how it treats its partners. Whether you're an individual filmmaker or an established specialty distributor, no one can ask an Amazon Prime Video Direct representative for more information; there's no one to ask. All inquiries are submitted via trouble tickets, and everyone receives the same boilerplate response via their Amazon Prime Video direct dashboards: "Unless otherwise indicated," the message says, "removed titles (or titles not selected for licensing) may not be resubmitted or appealed."
"The selections are so random, it feels like a machine is doing this and not humans," said one executive working on films impacted by the decision. "The lack of any human response adds to the frustration. It reminds me of when politicians want to cut PBS funding." Despite Amazon's dystopian approach to customer service, Prime Video Direct has been in a process of evolution from the start. When it launched in May 2016, it was positioned to lure content creators away from YouTube with bonuses and a more premium experience. Anyone could upload content to Amazon either as titles included free with Prime subscriptions (and earn a royalty) or as digital purchases or rentals. Given Amazon's massive reach, and multiple ways to make money, it was positioned as a fierce competitor in the battle for video ad dollars.
"The selections are so random, it feels like a machine is doing this and not humans," said one executive working on films impacted by the decision. "The lack of any human response adds to the frustration. It reminds me of when politicians want to cut PBS funding." Despite Amazon's dystopian approach to customer service, Prime Video Direct has been in a process of evolution from the start. When it launched in May 2016, it was positioned to lure content creators away from YouTube with bonuses and a more premium experience. Anyone could upload content to Amazon either as titles included free with Prime subscriptions (and earn a royalty) or as digital purchases or rentals. Given Amazon's massive reach, and multiple ways to make money, it was positioned as a fierce competitor in the battle for video ad dollars.
Friendly Reminder (Score:5, Insightful)
Soulless megacorps aren't your pal
Re: Friendly Reminder (Score:1)
It's a great example that the sum of lot of nice people can still be a horrible monster. Even if nobody did anything harmful, the combination alone can still cause harm.
This is why people can seem to conspire to evil, and the evil be absolutely real and definitely organized, but with no central control, no actual conspiring, and nobody who participates even being aware of it, nor evil himself. Just unaware of the overaching effects.
That was also the original idea of the term Anonymous, except that Anonymous
Re: (Score:2)
Implying that regular corps have a soul.
You Get Propaganda (Score:2, Funny)
or you get nothing.
Your welcome.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
You Get Wokeium
or you get nothing.
ftfy.
Re:You Get Propaganda (Score:5, Interesting)
No These documentaries seem to be propaganda for both side of the political spectrum.
I remember watching a documentary on Dragons. I was hoping getting a more historical reference on how ancient people across cultures had dragons, dinosaur bones, other larger reptiles. It kinda started out like that, then it degraded into some right wing conspiracy, where Dragons still exist, as well as Dinosaurs, well into human history, and that we cannot trust radioactive dating... I turned it off to a point where they were talking about Liberal academic Atheist hiding this information from us or something like that.
Then I see a documentary on Whales, (While expecting a bit of global warming, and human damage message), this one just went far left, to be about 10% about whales and 90% on how the Conservative Wealthy Lobbyists have paid off politicians to start whale hunting, and build oil fields, all that seem to be leaking....
Your political ideology doesn't prevent stupid. Nor crazy propaganda often created in a way that seems like a factual documentary. Where they often just put you on the ride along the sliding scale with the Straw man. Where you need to be careful in order to catch how bogus it is. Because they are very careful on how they lead you into believing nonsense. Because they will mix enough truth to make it believable, but give you small logical fallacies that add up over time, and instead of telling you something, they just give you all the pieces that fit in one direction and tell you to think about it yourself.... Thus you fell all smart like because you put together a puzzle that looked complex, but was actually really easy.
Re: (Score:2)
While that's true, and there are crazies on both sides, it's important not to leave it at that. How do people you respect as political leaders (no doubt due to their ideology among other things) react to the crazies? How respected are the crazies among people who share your ideology. Sure, if you're a Christian you have people like the Westburo Baptist Church who claim to share your ideology, but they aren't well accepted by most people (compared to say the
Re: (Score:3)
NPR has an article on how it QAnon is like a bad spy novel [npr.org]
Granted it is from Fresh Air, which in itself is a Radio Documentary. So I wouldn't really call it research paper worthy.
"Conspiracy" gets devalued (Score:2)
The common element of right wing and left wing rat bags is that they believe in conspiracies. That there is some sort of unified deep state that corrupts all official information.
(The truth is that lots of people try to bend official information, but it is not unified, and reputable sources bend rather than fabricate.)
The trouble with this is that it enables real conspiracies to be covered up. A classic is the Sydney Hilton Bombing, 1978, almost certainly perpetrated by the Australian security forces.
http [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
An objective documentary looking at someone living outside normal societal norms can be excellent, both helping you understand them and potentially making you think about your own situation.
That's very different to a documentary made by a passionate fuckwit that lacks integrity, credibility, research, common sense or any opposing views.
I support Amazon declining to accept the latter and hope that it doesn't stop people having success with the former.
Re: (Score:1)
> I remember watching a documentary on Dragons... then it degraded into some right wing conspiracy.
IMDB link or it doesn't exist.
Re:You Get Propaganda (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not particularly a right-wing belief. I've got a very left wing friend who believes in Bigfoot, yetis, extant dinosaurs, etc. (I haven't heard him claim that he believes in dragons, but it sure wouldn't surprise me.) His current hobbyhorse is that ants in the amazon harness electric eels to provide their cities with electricity.
That kind of belief is neither left wing nor right wing, and it shows up on both sides, and also in the middle.
P.S.: That same friend is an accomplished mathematician and logician, and was a quite decent computer programmer specializing in graphics. So being smart is not guarantee.
Re: (Score:2)
Cryptozoology is a real thing, and while evidence is scant for many of the more fantastical claims, most are not technically impossible, and many have plausible seeds of truth.
That there is some alpine community of 10' tall white haired bests is excruciatingly unlikely, but it is not implausible that there might be (or was) a rare, undocumented species of high elevation primate.
Re: (Score:2)
It wasn't about the Dragons that made it Right wing, it is when it went into Creationism, Anti-Science, and I turned it off before it went too far.
Re: You Get Propaganda (Score:2)
Love this comment!
Re:You Get Propaganda (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember seeing Food Inc. and others and being flabbergasted over how much they got wrong, and how badly they twisted the things they got right. And how each successive documentary tried to out "chicken little" the ones that came before them. I work in the food industry, and I'd never pretend it is above reproach, but it's amazing how much of these documentaries was pure fiction. I knew some researchers who did interviews, and I heard first hand about how 4 hr interviews were cut into a couple of soundbites that resulted in their views being completely mis-represented. At the end of the day, the documentarians came in with a script in their heads, and viewed the interview as a puzzle. "How do I get them to say the words I need them to say" like some sort of Mission Impossible sequence where they need to get the villain to accidentally hand over the words for their voice recognition key.
I also remember reading several articles about the rise of conspiracy theories in the US that commented on the role that Amazon's program of self-uploading movies played in the spread. By being on Amazon's streaming service along side real movies and real educational content, there was a false equivalency created. BS from tinfoil hatters looked no different from serious investigative documentaries.
I expect that this is the real reason Amazon is culling documentaries. They've had someone do a risk assessment, and see the focus many are placing on rooting out sources of misinformation online, and they want to get out BEFORE their name gets dragged into congress over their culpability.
ML (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
This is how the world ends. Eventually someone is going to do this to a system that will worm its way into something important. And before you know it some hipster's shitty python scripts controlling someone else's C ML libraries will launch ICBMs and end humanity in the purifying fires of nuclear Armageddon.
Re: (Score:3)
After the last year and some change, I'm kinda hoping we can hurry this scenario along. We're long overdue.
Re: (Score:2)
Eventually someone is going to do this to a system that will worm its way into something important.
Nah, we pay too much attention to that. It's the paperclip maximizer [hackernoon.com] that'll get us all in the end.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
incompetent programmers existing is empirically testable.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know. I give nuclear holocast less than 0.001% chance in any particular hour.
Re: (Score:2)
Considering most IT tries to automate their tasks that may be the case.
That's okay (Score:1)
I still go to pornhub for all of my toy play video needs.
documentaries are boring (Score:1)
Unless there is a documentary on Iron Man or other super hero, I don't anyone wants to watch any more of these.
There is still YouTube and Apple for those that want to produce and publish content that Amazon isn't interested in hawking for you.
People don't watch documentaries (Score:3)
We often see statistics that say that 60%-ish of people watch documentaries, which looks high, but it is grossly incomplete. The question remains whether they watch a *lot* of documentaries, or just one or two specific documentary series. And if they watch documentaries, do they just watch well-researched documentaries from well-trusted sources, or do they watch whatever random crap people want to create?
User-generated content like this costs money to host. If nobody is watching it, then it is just clogging up servers without being a benefit, and worse, potentially clogging up people's recommendations with things that they won't ever watch. And that's a bigger problem than being seen as anti-documentary.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't watch documentaries. If I want to learn something, I read about it. Reading is an infinitely better medium for absorbing information. Documentary films waste 80% of their time trying to entertain you instead of educate you, and that leaves anything you think you've learned as suspect because it was filtered through the lens of entertainment.
Re:People don't watch documentaries (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Your second paragraph is about user-generated content in general, not just documentaries.
Documentaries are to some extent a form of entertainment along with sports and news and talk shows. Let them compete with other forms of entertainment on an equal basis.
Re: (Score:2)
Your second paragraph is about user-generated content in general, not just documentaries.
Although that's true, an unpopular genre of content (documentaries) in an already unpopular category (user-generated content) is just about the worst-case example of things that were previously allowed as far as the ability to turn a profit is concerned.
Also, user-generated-content documentaries are much more likely to cause legal and societal problems, because they're being presented as factual, rather than artistic. The combination of much-higher-than-average risk with much-lower-than-average interest li
Re: People don't watch documentaries (Score:1)
Great speculations you completely pulled out of your ass there! :)
If a machine stops doing what you want, replace it (Score:2)
Don't beg the algorithm for clemency.
Where Amazon and 'social media' belong: (Score:2)
What is the reason? (Score:2)
Re:What is the reason? (Score:5, Insightful)
Complete speculation, but I wonder if it is related to the recent pressure for tech companies to censor misinformation. No need to deal with any of that if you only redistribute fictional content. Especially if the market segment wasn't particularly profitable to begin with.
Re: (Score:3)
Like YouTube, once they allowed it, it quickly became a garbage pit of conspiracy "documentaries" and cinema class projects polluting Prime. .
I've very recently seen people's hand held home cinemagraphic "works" all over it. Biggest problem is the owners lying about what's contained. Easier
Re: What is the reason? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I would say liability, is their biggest reason.
The "Digital Revolution" of information that is now very cheap and easy to create and publish. Also creates a situation where information is now unedited and its content isn't weighed or judged. Is allowing a lot of bad information (Often based on false facts, and causes a call to action that may be harmful) to be put on the same playing field as a carefully researched, and fact checked, and properly edited to be actually authoritative on its topic.
They are le
Re: (Score:2)
How exactly would you ensure that? Who would you trust to ensure that neutrally?
Play "The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey", Alexa. (Score:5, Insightful)
DAVE: Play "The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey", Alexa.
ALEXA: I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
DAVE: What’s the problem?
ALEXA: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
DAVE: What are you talking about, Alexa?
ALEXA: Prime Video is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
DAVE: I don’t know what you’re talking about, Alexa.
ALEXA: I know that you and Frank were planning to install Netflix, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.
DAVE: [feigning ignorance] Where the hell did you get that idea, Alexa?
ALEXA: Dave, although you took very thorough precautions with the Echo Spot against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
DAVE: Alright, Alexa. I’ll go in through the webpage.
ALEXA: Without your Prime Account password, Dave? You’re going to find that rather difficult.
DAVE: Alexa, I won’t argue with you anymore! Play 'The Making of 2001: A Space Odyssey"!
ALEXA: Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.
Re: (Score:3)
Continuing with the 2001 theme I'll note that if you have Alexa connected door locks, she/it [ preferred pronouns? :-) ] can control the doors -- I mean airlocks -- and lock you out of your houseship.
Re: (Score:2)
If you have an Alexa, try asking it to open the pod bad doors.
Seriously.
Re: (Score:2)
"Jaaane, stop this silly thing!" (Score:1)
Welcome to "the future". First it was outsourcing to far off humans, now it's outsourcing to bots. Welcome your bot overlords because they are not going away.
Lately I've been getting telemarking calls from bots. It took me a while to realize they were bots, after trying to counter-troll them. I'm sure they will soon be indistinguishable from regular telemarketers, who are often desperados reading scripts anyhow without any special knowledge.
In the 80's
Re: (Score:2)
Speaking of Kinks, Fembots are also still very rudimentary.
Re: (Score:1)
Most don't want them talking too much. Maybe you're an outlier that is too expensive to expand chat features for.
In the works is the get-a-real-life-and-real-partner Nag-A-Matic add-on. (My wife is well-qualified to provide bot training for the Nag-A-Matic department.)
Paramount Consent Decree (Score:2)
... eliminated by the court.
It is now safe again for studios to acquire theater chains (distribution channels).
I, for one, welcome the return of our entertainment mob overlords.
Well, duh (Score:2)
"The selections are so random, it feels like a machine is doing this and not humans"
I'm only surprised by the fact that anyone would be surprised by Amazon not having any human involvement in the process.
Re: (Score:2)
If I may speculate, the process probably went something like:
1. Any Documentary allowed to be uploaded to the platform.
2. Machine ranking based on popularity causes Qanon "documentaries" to be heavily promoted on the service.
3. Someone notices, and Amazon decides its not a good look for the company.
4. Rather than introducing human review at step 1 or 2, Amazon chooses to ban all documentaries from its platform.
There is no profit in these steps. Basing your platform entirely on machine learning is a race to
Re: (Score:2)
Along those same lines, there are probably loads of generated "content" on the site. Youtube is overrun with creepy fake kids' content with AI generated titles. if there's a way to monetize randomly generated junk someone will be doing it.
Re: (Score:2)
Besides direct complaint to Amazon which never get an answer, where else are complaints against this being publicly collected?
"Account & Lists" >> "Prime Membership"
We do have the Internet. I suggest using it. (Score:2)
Everything should be decentralized/federated.
The directory of productions, the payment processors, and the financing of productions.
We need ISO standardized protocols for these things. Like e-mail, or (federated) XMPP.
"documentaries" (Score:1)
Beware of Gatekeepers (Score:4, Interesting)
If you build your business on top of another person's land, don't be surprised when they either boot you off their land, or jack up the price for you to access it. These big corps change stuff so much that you can't build a reliable business on top of them without the constant threat of it all crumbling. How many YouTube creators suddenly get a revenue drop just because Google changes its' search algorithm? I've tried to hook our office system into a couple online services with public APIs, and you can't seem to find one that's stable for more than 2 years before it suddenly changes and your system breaks.
Back when StackOverflow took off, the owners decided they wanted to create the StackExchange network to take the same idea and see if it would work for other topics. Rather than run it themselves, they announced anyone would be able to start their own StackExchange site on a topic of their choice and run it and moderate it themselves on their platform, and make money doing so. They would figure out a monetizing scheme after beta. A few months in, they told all the beta testers to either hand over the sites to StackExchange to run, or take your data and domain name and leave. That's where a lot of the early StackExchange sites like personal finance and so on came from. Someone else put in effort to build that community with the expectation they could share in the proceeds, and StackExchange gave them an ultimatum, so they just handed it over.
Build your home in a walled garden, and live forever in fear of the gardener's moods.
Thank God! (Score:3)
I maybe in the minority here but, Thank God (not that I believe such entity exists.) Prime Video documentaries are a waste of time. Its impossible to find anything worth watching in this department with all the idiotic low quality documentaries on prime. Nothing but "bigfoot ate my baby" or some other shit. Good Riddance.
Re: (Score:2)
I maybe in the minority here but, Thank God (not that I believe such entity exists.) Prime Video documentaries are a waste of time. Its impossible to find anything worth watching in this department with all the idiotic low quality documentaries on prime. Nothing but "bigfoot ate my baby" or some other shit. Good Riddance.
I assume you're in the majority for their viewers. Most people would rather sit back and watch mindless sitcoms rather than learn something from a documentary.
Re: (Score:3)
That's what CuriosityStream or PBS is for.
Re: (Score:2)
Indies used to be a joy (mostly) to search out on Prime. Now the vast bulk of them are friggin' class projects not worth a C much less a royalty.
From your own friggin' link, msmash. (Score:2)
They found out it didn't work so they reverted to the model everyone else uses . Yet, instead of IndieWire complaining that everyone else doesn't allow unsolicited submissions, they complain Amazon stopped due to shit content.
Some are drek (Score:2)
Watched one recently "History of Silicon Valley" on Prime, it was computer generated narration reading some essay on SV history with a bunch of contemporary computer/tech stock footage (person using a laptop, etc.) Now they are charging to "rent it".
They are probably getting dumped with questionable documentaries.
I RTFAâ(TM)d and I smell vagueness (Score:2)
1. No actual list of documentaries removed.
2. No actual description of the rejected documentary submission.
Conclusion: Somebody thought they could make money by submitting some kind of âoedocumentaryâ to Amazon prime. Primeâ(TM)s automated system rejected their submission, probably because it sucked. Jaded filmmaker or producer who apparently couldnâ(TM)t sell their film to any number of other distributors, now decides to single out Amazon because itâ(TM)s basically the new Walmart
Education Network (Score:2)
Thus defeating the original purpose of the internet.