zlacker

>>meetpa+(OP)
Any consolidation like this seems like a negative for consumers. But at least it wasn’t bought by Larry Ellison, as was considered very likely (assuming this merger gets approved, in the current administration you never know).

From a Hacker News perspective, I wonder what this means for engineers working on HBO Max. Netflix says they’re keeping the company separate but surely you’d be looking to move them to Netflix backend infrastructure at the very least.

>>afavou+Jd
Maybe there are licensing restrictions or other things that prevent it, but wouldn't it make more sense to combine HBO Max and Netflix into a single app? Or at least make all HBO Max content also available in Netflix (and then eventually sunset HBO Max). That would make a Netflix subscription a much more compelling purchase for a ton of people.

>>meowfa+um
Not attacking you in particular, but I've always hated how we talk about "licensing restrictions" as if they're some kind of vague law of nature, like gravity. Oh, Studio X can't do Y... Because Licensing. "Licenses" are entirely conjured up by humans, and if there was an actual desire by the people who make decisions to change something, those people would find a way to make the "licensing restrictions" disappear. Reality is, the people making these decisions don't want to change things, at least not enough to go through the effort of changing and renegotiating the licenses. It's not "licensing restrictions" that is stopping them.

Same always comes up when we talk about why doesn't Company X open source their 20 year old video game software? Someone always chimes in to say "Well they don't because of 'licensing issues' with the source code." as if they were being stopped by a law of physics.

>>ryandr+ZE
> Reality is, the people making these decisions don't want to change things, at least not enough to go through the effort of changing and renegotiating the licenses.

Which is a perfectly sensible reason for a business decision.

> "Well they don't because of 'licensing issues' with the source code." as if they were being stopped by a law of physics.

So laws should just be ignored? Issues created by human social constructs are very real.

>>jimbok+0N
We can change the laws. Radio stations don't have "licensing issues" with playing songs.

From another angle, if copyright were more like it was originally in the US, every single show I watched as a kid would be in the public domain, since I haven't been a kid for 28 years.

>>aidenn+tP
Radio is a lot simpler. Used to work in that realm back in the Napster and Kazaa days.

You have a broadcast station. You know that estimated 30k people are listening. You sell those numbers to advertisers. Now you play a song 1x, you record that fact. At the end of the month, you tally up 30k users for that artist and you cut a check to ASCAP or BMI. Thats it. You just keep track of how many plays and your audience size, and send checks monthly itemized.

They were downloading pirate Britney Spears over Napster and playing it on air. And since 100% royalties are paid for, was actually legal. Not a lawyer, but they evidently checked and was fine.

I'd like something similar for video. Grab shows however, and put together the biggest streaming library of EVERYTHING, and cut royalty checks for rights holders. But nope, can't do that. Companies are too greedy.

>>mystra+f51
That shows how tech monopolies are bad for content creators.

Like Spotify monopolizing music streaming, and now creators have the choice of getting virtually nothing from Spotify or literally nothing by avoiding Spotify (unless you're already Taylor Swift).

With radio stations, no single radio station could really hold you over a barrel, because there were still a lot of other radio stations to work with.