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YouTube Now Streams Free Ad-Supported Movies -- Including 'The Terminator' and 'Hackers' (techcrunch.com) 86

Posted by EditorDavid from the Zero-Cool dept.
YouTube's "Movies & Shows" page added a "Free to Watch" section last month. They're trying to compete with free ad-supported online movie offerings from Roku, Walmart, and Tubi, while "Amazon is rumored to be working on something similar," reports TechCrunch: Before, YouTube had only offered consumers the ability to purchase movies and TV shows, similar to how you can rent or buy content from Apple's iTunes or Amazon Video.... Currently, YouTube is serving ads on these free movies, but the report said the company is open to working out other deals with advertisers -- like sponsorships or exclusive screenings.

YouTube's advantage in this space, compared with some others, is its sizable user base of 1.9 billion monthly active users and its ability to target ads using data from Google.
The 99 free movies include the first five Rocky movies, and four movies in the Pink Panther series (all from the post-Peter Sellers era, including the forgotten 1993 film in which the title theme is sung by Bobby McFerrin), as well as Pauly Shore's dreadful 1996 comedy Bio-Dome (which received a 4% rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Also available is James Cameron's original 1984 film The Terminator, the 2010 documentary With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story and the 1995 film "Hackers" starring Angelina Jolie.

"In this cyberpunk thriller, a renegade group of elite teenage computer hackers rollerblade through New York City by day and ride the information highway by night. After hacking into a high-stakes industrial conspiracy, they become prime suspects and must recruit the best of the cybernet underground to help clear their names."
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YouTube Now Streams Free Ad-Supported Movies -- Including 'The Terminator' and 'Hackers' More

YouTube Now Streams Free Ad-Supported Movies -- Including 'The Terminator' and 'Hackers'

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  • Makes cord cutting that much easier (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Sunday November 18, 2018 @11:18AM (#57663378)

    Content with adds is most of what you pay the cable company twice for.

    • Re:Makes cord cutting that much easier (Score:4, Interesting)

      by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Sunday November 18, 2018 @12:30PM (#57663562)

      >"Content with adds is most of what you pay the cable company twice for."

      No, because I record everything on a TiVo and skip whatever I want. I haven't been forced to watch ads for 25 years and won't start now. Perhaps some people can tolerate it, I can't. This is why "streaming" is particularly dangerous- it is easy for a service to start adding ads that can't be skipped or fast-forwarded through.

      Haven't listened to ad-laden radio for just as long.

      • Not to be nitpicky but the content still has adds, you're just removing them. Or did TIVO ever get it's ad skip feature back ?

        Either way if you're comfortable with it, more power to you.

        • >"Not to be nitpicky but the content still has adds, you're just removing them. Or did TIVO ever get it's ad skip feature back ?"

          Both. And yes. Most content still has ads, you can fast forward through anything, and some shows allow a skip feature.

          >"Either way if you're comfortable with it, more power to you."

          As long as we don't move to a model that forces unskippable/forwardable ads on most content, I am happy people have choices.

      • Re:Makes cord cutting that much easier (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Tom ( 822 ) on Sunday November 18, 2018 @02:43PM (#57663940) Homepage Journal

        I haven't been forced to watch ads for 25 years and won't start now.

        This is how I feel about the Internet. I cringe every time I sit on some computer that doesn't have an adblocker installed, and I wonder how the heck do these people get anything done and not get seizures or something?

        Once you get rid of ads in a part of your life, you understand just how much of an annoyance they are and you don't want to go back. In fact, I'd like to get rid of them in many more ways. Someone invented a prototype of glasses that filters out billboards. I'd buy that if it became available.

      • Nothing aggravates me more than having to fast forward through ads. Eventually I get so tired of doing it over and over again I just give up and watch them. Honestly, I find it better that way. If any box would auto-skip them, that would be fine, but a lot of the time I want the TV on while I'm doing something and having to grab the remote every 7.5 minutes is really annoying.
    • Yes, but cutting the cord AND staying away from ad-supported content means you're free from ads entirely. (with a helping of NoScript and Adblock)
      Try it, you won't go back.
    • I would rather not watch a movie than watch one with ads during its playback. don't think I have watched a movie with ads at all in the last 5 years.

  • Not available in your country (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Seems Google didn't make these available after all.

    • Re:Not available in your country (Score:5, Insightful)

      by j-beda ( 85386 ) on Sunday November 18, 2018 @11:50AM (#57663472) Homepage

      Seems Google didn't make these available after all.

      I wonder if this is likely to increase piracy of the movies in question that are "video blocked in country".

      "Hey, that Stan Lee thing seems interesting."

      "Oh, not available. :-("

      "I wonder if there is a torrent...."

      • Re:Not available in your country (Score:5, Informative)

        by grep -v '.*' * ( 780312 ) on Sunday November 18, 2018 @03:11PM (#57664040)

        "Hey, that Stan Lee thing seems interesting."
        "Oh, not available. :-("
        "I wonder if there is a torrent...."

        Obligatory Link: I tried to watch Game of Thrones and this is what happened. [theoatmeal.com]

        I don't know of an XKCD link, sorry about that.

      • Of course it does. In my case it does so for ebooks, or rather it used to do so.
        "We're sorry but this ebook is not available in your country (but we are happy to ship a hardcopy)"
        Oh well maybe I can fool it by paying with credit card... Nope
        Ok, maybe I can fool it by using PayPal and entering the address of some random US hotel... Nope
        Oh look, the Pirate Bay has the torrent.

        I do try to buy my stuff legally. Music is generally available these days, legally, with decent terms, no DRM, at a decent pric

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by j-beda ( 85386 )

          Of course it does. In my case it does so for ebooks, or rather it used to do so.

          I get irritated by authors/publishers who do not even have ebook versions of their books. How hard would it be to take the torrent of the fan-transcribed book and sell that one? OK, maybe you want to read it over to make sure that it doesn't have too many typos but it seems like it would be almost pure profit.

    • Re: Not available in your country (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I got "not available in your state" back to piratebay I guess.

  • Video not available. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hamsterdan ( 815291 ) on Sunday November 18, 2018 @11:31AM (#57663416)

    And content producers are probably still wondering why people download stuff

  • Does it delete ads from your memory in return for watching Hackers?

  • Trying to compete... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Sunday November 18, 2018 @11:43AM (#57663446)
    Trying to compete with Kodi and the Pirate Bay?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Trying to compete with Kodi and the Pirate Bay?

      No, because it looks like these are 480p.
      Reliving my 1980's childhood with low quality video, complete with ads isn't really my thing.

  • In the meantime (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bobstreo ( 1320787 ) on Sunday November 18, 2018 @11:46AM (#57663456)

    Criterion Collection (AKA WarnerMedia) has announced their plans to make their entire collection available for $9.99 a month or $89.99 for a year (for charter subscribers) to replace FilmStruck. It will be known as the Criterion Channel.

    https://www.criterion.com/curr... [criterion.com]

    Bio-Dome? I don't even think they play that on cable.

    • Criterion Collection (AKA WarnerMedia) has announced their plans to make their entire collection available for $9.99 a month or $89.99 for a year (for charter subscribers) to replace FilmStruck. It will be known as the Criterion Channel.

      I'll pay $10 a month for the Criterion Collection in a heartbeat.

      Bio-Dome? I don't even think they play that on cable.

      Pauly Shore was robbed in the Oscar nominations that year. ; )

  • Not Available On Your Country. (Score:3)

    by martiniturbide ( 1203660 ) on Sunday November 18, 2018 @11:49AM (#57663466) Homepage Journal
    Take that "Rest of the World" !!!!

  • Hackers, heh, I need to watch that again now that I know better.

    I was pleased while rewatching Wargames though. It has aged well since it was pretty good about using actual hacking techniques.

    Rewatching Manhattan Project was...weird. Totally fine film in and of itself, but man, the world is a very different place now.

  • ...by country (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tom ( 822 ) on Sunday November 18, 2018 @11:57AM (#57663486) Homepage Journal

    Not everyone gets to watch. They are all blocked in my country. Maybe some of the 99 aren't but I didn't try them all. Those I checked are all marked as "not available in your country".

    *sigh*... ok, here comes the VPN. Why they do such nonsense to us?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      they are all blocked for me.

      * fires up torrent client *

  • Movies available were mentioned in the story (and a lot of the bad) Everything else they have available... You're gona' have to pay me to watch ($275. per hour, 50% discount on travel time)

  • Need to fix the ads first (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hackertourist ( 2202674 ) on Sunday November 18, 2018 @12:01PM (#57663496)

    In about 50% of ads I see on YouTube, the player fails to return to the video I want to watch at the end of the ad. I have to reload the page.

  • The combination of Pihole and Adblock has meant that I don't see ads on Youtube, except on our Nvidia Shield. On the Shield, Pihole blocks nearly all ads that interrupt a video, but not the ones that play at the beginning. This is just barely acceptable.

    I turned off Pihole for an hour to solve an unrelated problem and experienced the full-fat ad experience on the Shield. This is not something I could stomach and would pay for Youtube Premium...at least for the winter months when the weather pushes me into

  • Please combine them. (Score:3)

    by kaoshin ( 110328 ) on Sunday November 18, 2018 @12:12PM (#57663504)
    We need a terminator+hackers crossover sequel where the believed to be crashed Gibson is acquired as an asset of Cyberdyne Systems, and naked people come from the future to hang out with Mac PowerBook users who are mankind's last hope.
  • YouTube used to have a movies section with a ton of free classic movies. Most of them not as recent as Hackers but there was lots of movies across many genres. They then disappeared it and now they're back with more current films and ads.
  • I don't know about terminator but you can catch Hackers on the local over the air station once a month or so.
  • I was demonetized for not having enough views so I don't care.

  • There are a ton of old movies that are periodically put up that studios don't seem to be interested in investigating whether or not there would be any public interest in them. For the price of scanning them in (which they may have done already), they can put them up on YouTube and gauge customers' interest while bringing in a few bucks.

    For the public, this could mean finding lost classics as well as giving scholars a chance to look back in history. There are a few movies I'd love to go back and watch ("Th

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      For the public, this could mean finding lost classics

      archive.org already has been filling that need. They archive classic movies for posterity, without ads and other nonsense youtube foists.

  • If you want to see a good film noir on YouTube right now, check out THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS (1946), starring Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin and a 24 year old, smoking hot Lizabeth Scott. It's good nasty fun and there are no commercials. It was directed by the great Lewis Milestone.

    Here's a link. Don't ever say I ain't done nothing for you.

    https://youtu.be/wHVGP8S984c [youtu.be]

  • Ok, it's great to have free films made available but sounds like most of these are leftovers from the Blockbuster bargain bin. You can't give away most DVDs now, they are literally worthless.

  • “Rocky” was a great movie (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday November 18, 2018 @03:40PM (#57664110)

    Thank goodness Stallone and his team didn’t succumb to avarice and produce any cookie-cutter sequels.

  • I.
    HATE.
    Geoblocking.

    Just saying.

  • At least this is a start so we will see as this goes.

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