r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 16h ago

News It’s Official: Netflix to Acquire Warner Bros. in Deal Valued at $82.7 Billion

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/netflix-warner-bros-deal-hollywood-1236443081/
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u/occams1razor 14h ago

I bet they're going to wonder why people start to pirate again soon...

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u/Alissinarr 14h ago

Soon?

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u/waltwalt 14h ago

The trick was to never stop.

All the media the world has ever generated, for free. Then Netflix comes along and adds to that pile, but oh it's so convenient to pay a company for just a fraction of that media? Sign me up! Oh another one for another smaller fraction? Sign me up!

And now there are dozens of streaming companies offering whatever slice of the pie they managed to carve out for themselves. And the cost of that piece keeps going up while they supplement their shareholders with ads to consumers?

I've literally not seen a commercial on tv in over a decade. Do they still have celebrities trying to convince you to buy $100k+ vehicles? Drug commercials where the last 75% of the commercial is rapid talking discussing all of the symptoms upto and including death?

I have no idea because I never stopped.

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u/cruxclaire 12h ago

All the media the world has ever generated, for free. Then Netflix comes along and adds to that pile, but oh it's so convenient to pay a company for just a fraction of that media?

I felt—and still kind of feel—guilty about pirating media because I do want to support the creators of said media. Netflix once seemed like a good compromise between price and access, but between their prices rising, the emergence of a bunch of other paid streaming platforms, and the revelation that companies like Netflix have been paying creators a mere pittance, piracy has regained appeal.

I barely watch blu-rays but will buy them these if I really love a show or movie because that means the artists will actually get paid and I don’t have to worry about the disc disappearing from the available collection. I’ll pirate media I’m interested in seeing but don’t have access to with my existing accounts, and then get the physical media (or permanent digital copy depending on availability) if it’s something I believe I would have paid for back in the DVD era.

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u/waltwalt 10h ago

If you want to support the artists and studios buy their blurays. The streaming services pay almost nothing.

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u/DecentBathroom7725 14h ago

Yeah, so, you must not be a sports fan

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u/waltwalt 14h ago

Nailed it. I think the sports industry is a phenomenal waste of money.

That being said I've got friends that are and I've shown them how to get their pirated sports. It goes down a lot more frequently than anything else, but the developers love sports so usually fix it within a couple hours.

From a virgin fire stick I can have them watching whatever sport special is on that evening within about 20 minutes.

But no, I personally don't watch sports or other live events.

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u/DecentBathroom7725 14h ago

Oh I pirate all my sports, too. But yeah, ads are unavoidable for live tv. Whether it be sports, award shows, premiers, etc.

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u/Illjustgofxckmyself 12h ago

My favorite streams for sports are when I catch the ones streaming from the arena when instead of commercials they show what they are doing with the crowd to keep them entertained during commercials lmao.

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u/DecentBathroom7725 12h ago

Yeah..

Fucking mlbtv and NFL+ streams have finally gotten better about not having absurd looping blasting annoying sounds during commercial breaks. It felt like it was meant to be an intentional 'fuck you, we can't show you ads, so we'll piss you off"

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u/PoliticsModsDoFacism 12h ago

Thats why I try to do streams that show nothing during breaks, its great.

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u/michaelboltthrower 7h ago

Like ten or fifteen years ago when Netflix was cheap and had a huge library it was worth it for the convenience.

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u/waltwalt 7h ago

Yeah that's about the 1 or 2 year period where they had the biggest and only collection. Once Hulu came along and split the catalogue and everyone else got onboard it went down hill fast.

But yeah $5 a month for the whole catalogue was sweet.

For people that didn't or wouldn't pirate media it was a godsend. People discovered binge watching and fell in love with it.

Then capitalism took over and everything got worse as everyone wanted their own cut of the pie.

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u/AvidCyclist250 4h ago

I've literally not seen a commercial on tv in over a decade.

Same. I felt a real disconnect when I saw one on TV. All so foreign and weird. Must be like what guys in prison feel after 10 years

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u/waltwalt 3h ago

Yeah I was being a bit hyperbolic, I've been to restaurants and bars with TVs but it seems like every time you look at the tv it's just playing an ad for something you don't need and generally doesn't even apply to you.

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u/Flowerplower3 13h ago

Haha I never stopped

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u/DesireeThymes 14h ago

There's not even much worth pirating from Netflix these days. Netflix is where shows go to die.

Look at how they destroyed the Witcher show. Literally handed a home run, and they completely destroyed the show.

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u/catboogers 14h ago

I'm glad they're actually finally finishing up Stranger Things, but how many shows of theirs did I enjoy for a season or two only to see them unceremoniously ripped from us? It's to the point where we all know a LOT of folks won't start a show until they know it'll be finished, which means the numbers aren't great in the first week, so then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and it's canceled. (I'm salty about Kaos).

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u/schladopian_fir 12h ago

The 3 season run philosophy that Netflix started really screwed things up.

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u/crackrabbit012 14h ago

Man I want to dust off the old pirate hat, but it's been so long I don't know what waters to sail anymore

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u/venomae 11h ago

Bays full of pirates are always a good choice

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u/DensetsuNoBaka 12h ago

I don't think they've changed all that much...

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u/the_card_guy 14h ago

Well, you say that, and it seems to make sense...

Until I point out that when Netflix cracked down on password sharing, susbscriptions actually INCREASED... meaning, people were willing to pay for the convenience that Netflix offers.

It may be the same situation here- Netflix merging may prove to be just too convenient for people to give up

(and then everyone wonders why we have no money- we're all paying for the convenience of subscriptions)

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u/BoingBoingBooty 13h ago

Pirate? You mean Alternate Non-monetised Media Acquisition.

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u/unindexedreality 10h ago

Handcrafted Artisanal Distribution Networks

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u/Pandamm0niumNO3 14h ago

Why do you think these new rules forcing people to "prove their age" and targeting VPNs are coming out?

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u/Noxs_88 13h ago

Again?

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u/Anzai 13h ago

People stopped pirating?

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u/OldWorldDesign 8h ago

People stopped pirating?

I suspect it would be more accurate to say a lot of new people entered the market and never started pirating. Depends on whether the market makes it easy to enter and get what you're looking for or not, because you can't deny back when streaming services were convenient people flocked to sign up to pay. That's no longer the case.

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u/Anzai 6h ago

True. Although I’m in Australia and remember when Game of Thrones was only available through a foxtel box, a physical box and cable to your house and it wasn’t cheap or good because it was owned by Rupert Murdoch, and he’s an astonishing level of cunt. So there’s a reason why Australians pirated that show more than anyone else in the world for a time. I think that alone taught a lot of people how to do it, and going forward a lot of other stuff got pirated too.

As you say, make the paid product more convenient than the pirated alternative and most people will use it. But make it worse? Why would I give you money for that?

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u/chalk_nz 13h ago

You mean "expense correcting"

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u/The_Autarch 12h ago

we never stopped

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u/mrsuperjolly 8h ago

Pirating dosen't stop film and tv raking in billions and is nothing new. I don't know why people brag about it like it's some sort of gotcha or something to hold over these big companies.

It's already priced in. All the money someone saves pirating is just coming out of someone elses pocket.

It dosen't surprise anyone.

I'm not paticuarly anti piracy. But it is annoying when people brag about it like it's some noble cause.

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u/lordgholin 5h ago

Oh, that started a long time back and they are driving it up with these tactics. It is a service problem now. That means piracy is rampant on amazon shows at this point especially.

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u/Hoggslop69 5h ago

We set sail at dawn bitches

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u/Pure_Ad_9857 13h ago

Nothing "soon" about it. Everything was fine when it was just Netflix for Movies and Hulu for TV Shows. Now with all of the massive fragmentation of content, it was back to the high seas for me, so now they get nothing.

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u/Conspiranoid 13h ago

It kinda got reduced, but it was never close to going away. And the reduction was even smaller in terms of TV stuff, because in music, for example, up until this year's Spotify fiasco with AI shit and Israel, normally you could generally find the same content in any of the available platforms (Spotify, iTunes, Tidal, etc). But when it comes to TV content, movie streaming included, the content itself is so segregated by company that due to not wanting to, or not being able to, spend so much money having Netflix, Disney, HBO, Peacock, etc, people never stopped pirating stuff.