Quote:
Originally Posted by stumped
I appreciate that video streaming needs big infrastructure, but simultaneous worldwide launches are surely the best anti-piracy strategy.s
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If you have the infrastructure.
Big if.
Netflix does it because they can. It is their competitive advantage for being first.
Others don't because they can't, not because they don't want to. They literally have no way to do it.
What do you want, for a competitor to sit on a Money-makng system in the US, letting Netflix get even bigger, while they wait for the system in lower elbonia to come online?
No business works that way.
Nobody likes international piracy, not the Hollywood crowd and not the Japanese anime producers. But if they can't do global they won't. They'll take the money where they can make it and shrug off lost income where they never could make it.
The BBC is getting ripped by some pundits for not going global and streaming all their content. They actually took time to point out their deals and partnerships with Netflix, Warner, Amazon, PBS, etc limit what they can put out until those contracts expire and by then the "pioneers" will be so far ahead it'll be much tougher to launch anything. Their best strategy for now is to stick with the distribution channels they control and license everywhere else.
CBS ALL ACCESS has a different problem: STAR TREK is their calling card, it has global appeal, but they have no platform outside tbe US. Initially, they licensed STAR TREK DISCOVERY to Netflix outside tbe US but STD turned out to be so...non-TREKish, and expensive, that it soured any future NETFLIX interest. For Picard, they went with PRIME in the UK. They are still years away from being able to afford expansion they have no choice but to license out to whoever they can find.
The CW is a different case. They started streaming their TV shows on Hulu, then switched to their own ad-supported app for next-day streaming and NETFLIX for bingeing a week after the season. Starting with this year's new shows, all their content will go to HBOMAX. And starting next month they'll be doing (experimentally?) a windowed approach with STARGIRL. That one will run weekly on DCU Universe, Warner's comics niche service, ad free. Next day, it will run on ad-supported TV and the third day it will run on the ad-supported CW app. At season's end, it'll go to HBOMAX. They'll make money wherever they can because going by the trailers the show will be the most CGI-intensive show on CW. Also the most comics accurate.
There is big money in streaming, even in the niches.
Anime is big enough to support multiple services, with at least one doing streams an hour after they air in Japan. The anime comanies don't have the resources to do global, so they license. And ignore piracy because it is meaningless to them. In their business model, streaming licenses are a bonus source of revenue, welcome but not essential.
Like with so many things in life, anime producers work with what they have and do what they can. They don't waste time or money fretting over the inpossible.
A lot of book publishers both tradpub and Indie do the same.
You can tell by their DRM-free content.
They let pundits and DRM vendors worry about piracy and focus on making money off things they can control.