Disney is Taking Full Control of Hulu (cnn.com) 100
Disney's takeover of Hulu is just about complete. Comcast on Tuesday agreed to sell its ownership stake in the streaming video service to Disney. The sale won't happen for at least another five years, but Disney will take full operational control of Hulu right now. From a report: The deal is a sign of how much streaming video has changed in the last few years. Hulu was at one time a joint venture between several media titans: Disney (DIS), 21st Century Fox, Comcast's NBCUniversal and Time Warner (now WarnerMedia). None of those companies had majority control. Now Hulu is effectively a Disney product. The company became the majority stakeholder in the streaming video service after it closed a deal for most of Fox's assets in March. Last month, WarnerMedia -- now owned by AT&T -- agreed to sell its 9.5% interest back to Hulu. Comcast owns roughly a third of Hulu. Under the terms of the deal, Comcast will sell its interest to Disney for Hulu's fair market value no earlier than 2024. Disney has guaranteed that the sale price will reflect a minimum total equity value of $27.5 billion for Hulu at that time, according to a press release.
So now I'm more confused (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So now I'm more confused (Score:5, Informative)
Which is disney's goal... aren't they releasing their own streaming competitor to compete with hulu and netflix? Or are they planning to combine them?
Who knows? There's one company that sells like 20 brands of laundry detergent. I think their goal is to make money from you.
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Re:So now I'm more confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is disney's goal... aren't they releasing their own streaming competitor to compete with hulu and netflix? Or are they planning to combine them?
Who knows? There's one company that sells like 20 brands of laundry detergent. I think their goal is to make money from you.
Hulu and Netflix don't really overlap that much already. The plan is to keep Disney+ more family friendly and put more "mature" content on Hulu, plus Hulu streams ABC shows and some of them don't really fit in well with the Disney+ idea. Since Fox uses Hulu for streaming and Disney owns a lot Fox now, this might be a way for Disney to make money off anybody who wants to stream Fox shows. I read that NBC is moving to their own streaming service but it won't be ready until next year, so for now Disney will make money off people who watch NBC shows on Hulu.
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You are right, The Tick is no match against any of the marvel crew. Our only hope is BBC. Doctor Who can time travel and fix it before Disney gets control of all superheroes capable of overthrowing its nefarious plan.
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Which is exactly why every Dr Who episode doesn't involve the Doctor going back a few minutes before the trouble started and stopping it all. Ie it doesn't make the current time line they are in any better, it only splits the
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Think of it this way, many parallel universes where each one is separated by a single decision that caused a split. You can jump to any of these universes and push it in one direction, but your universe still exists as it
Re:So now I'm more confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you own your competition, you are a monopoly. You no longer care what people actually prefer since it is all your product. You laugh and laugh and heat your pools by burning money. People watch the Star Wars/Hannah Montana crossover because there is literally nothing better. You snap your fingers, and 50% of the world's movies go back in the vaults only to be re-released as "live action" versions. You already own the rights to any superheros that could stop you.
For all people talk about breaking up Google, or Facebook, or Amazon, the arguments there always seemed a bit weak. But Disney OTOH has been accumulating a monopoly on our culture, and that's very dangerous. People have been complaining for decades that fairy tales and half of the public domain stories were effectively copyright Disney, and now they've piled on that most of geek culture, and a fair amount of mainstream entertainment. At what point do we start talking about breaking up Disney?
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Also, no disrespect to Star Wars and superhero movies -- OK, maybe a little disrespect -- but these shouldn't comprise "most of geek culture" to you after you graduate middle school.
Re:So now I'm more confused (Score:5, Insightful)
Better option. Don't break up Disney, but revert copyright back to the original 14 years plus an optional, one-time 14 year renewal. They can own as much of our culture as they like, but after 28 years it's ours again (Public Domain).
I'd even be willing to phase in the new copyright terms for older content. Start with everything from the 1930's. Then, every 3 years, release content from another decade. At +3 years, the 1940's are released. At +6, the 1950's. And so on. In 24 years, everything would be caught up with the new copyright term length and Disney (now including ten other companies they acquired) would only have a lock on content for a relatively short period of time.
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28 years is too short for novels.
Really, I think the problem with copyright is more fundamental: a shorter term should apply to characters and setting (derivative works) than to originial published works. I'm fine with e.g. the movie Star Wars being still in copyright, and even with Luke Skywalker being covered by trademark and usuable for profit, but anyone should be able to write and sell a story set in the Star Wars universe. (Trademark is the right answer for "merch".)
Similarly, we need some kind of b
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28 years is too short for novels.
It worked just fine for novels for the 180+ years from 1790 until 1978, when that was the copyright protection term length.
Strictly speaking from 1790 to 1831 copyright was 14 years only.
1831 to 1978 it was 28 years max, an initial 14 and allowed for another 14 year extension.
Only in the relatively tiny last 40 years, since Disney paid off congress, has copyright been longer.
Oh, and Disney had it extended past 28 years for their movies, not for their novels.
So history disagrees with you, the market disagree
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28 years should be fine for novels. I've published one novel (and have a second in the beta reading stage as well as a couple of novellas in the pipeline). My novel was published in 2016. I'd happily give my novel to the Public Domain in 2044.
Yes, you might encounter issues where movie companies look for 30 year old books to turn into movies without compensating the author, but they could easily be beat to the punch by movie companies who pay the author for the rights and make a movie at the 20 year mark.
Re: So now I'm more confused (Score:2)
I think trying to decide who should and should not be broken up is an impossible task. Instead we should start taxing market caps at a higher and higher rate. If for example a company with a market cap of 2 billion had to pay twice the taxes as a company with a market cap of 1 billion then companies would start voluntarily splitting themselves up instead of the way it is currently where companies continue to merge into larger and larger mega corporations.
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Won't work in practice - Alphabet could easily be organized so that it's worth very little, while retaining full control. When I worked for Amazon, the actual incorporated entity that I was paid by changed every couple of years - all a shell game.
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Star Wars hasn't been good since Episode 3, and that's a stretch.
I'm sorry, but please turn in your geek badge at the door on your way out!
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I'm not worried. Until Disney tries to buy Pornhub.
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I'm not worried. Until Disney tries to buy Pornhub.
I don't know... then we could get Pinocchio crossover events: "Yes, tell another lie Pinocchio... another... another..."
Re:So now I'm more confused (Score:4, Informative)
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So you mean porn. Or specifically pregnancy-causing porn?
Well there's Handmaid's Tale on Hulu, which is kind of pregnancy torture porn, so yea. I guess.
Re:So now I'm more confused (Score:4, Interesting)
There's little point in having separate infrastructures, but Disney has had Touchstone and Miramax for making money on stuff that isn't for kids.
Pulp Fiction was a Disney release.
They intend to monopolize all childrens' entertainment and lock it up with government monopolies and SLAP-ish government lawsuits. This is just another arrow in their quiver.
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Disney is evil.
Whooow, take that back! Evil is not that bad.
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Well, this being Disney, I'm guessing their goal is to crush their enemies, see them driven before them, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
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Hulu has been on my chopping block for a few months now. I planned to take the axe to it a few months back but they lowered the price a few bucks.
Hulu used to have some good shows that where worth it. Lucifer moved to Netflix and The Expanse is on Amazon. The only show on Hulu I actually watch is The Orville. The question is The Orville worth 5 bucks a month? So far it is to me.
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The Orville isn't worth being paid $5 a month to watch.
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Which is disney's goal... aren't they releasing their own streaming competitor to compete with hulu and netflix? Or are they planning to combine them?
Disney's goal is obviously to get you to pay them $20 a month - $6.99 for Disney+ and $12.99 for ad-free Hulu.
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Disney's goal is obviously to get you to pay them $60 a month - $26.99 for ad-supported Disney+ and $32.99 for ad-supported Hulu.
Re:Their goal (Score:2)
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Disney's goal is to have Disney+ for all your child-friendly movies shows. Everything G rated, plop your kids down and all is well. They also want to have Hulu, for all their more mature content. Anything not appropriate for a 7-year-old. So the Simpsons (or Deadpool) doesn't impact the Disney brand. Heck, did you know that Disney made "The Waterboy", "Co
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This leaves them with an adult channel(hulu) and a kids channel(disney+). So no competition between each other and once they offer a discount if you purchase both a lots more competition for netflix.
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Self-owned or unaffiliated:
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"Spoiler: The next new Avenger is Winnie-the-Pooh!"
* Digitally replaced with Xi Jinping in Chinese version.
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Spoiler: The next new Avenger is Winnie-the-Pooh!
Nah, like everything, it's Shrek: https://youtu.be/fTMyjXl5ZqA [youtu.be]
Shrek is love. Shrek is life.
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Shrek is love. Shrek is life.
Shrek is DreamWorks?
Since I don't like monopolies ... (Score:4, Funny)
..and now they'll jack up the price. (Score:3)
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But they can't jack up their prices. If they do they'll face competition from one of the two or three other megacorporations that own pretty much everything now.
That is, assuming they don't collude with one-another--which they almost certainly will.
But no worries, I have a solution. Let's give them more tax breaks. That'll fix everything.
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Drink a Verification Can to continue.
The Mouse Consumes All (Score:2)
Corporate tax cuts -> Consolidation -> Cutting redundant jobs
How long until Disney owns all of media?
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infinite supply of money available
Read a book instead.
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That's the old way. The new way is to convert your characters into trademarks, which already last forever.
Trademark can't be used as ersatz copyright (Score:4, Informative)
Exclusive rights in a trademark under the Lanham Act cannot be used to extend the effective term of an expired U.S. patent or copyright. Kellogg v. Nabisco, 305 U.S. 111 (1938) [wikipedia.org]; Dastar v. Fox, 539 U.S. 23 (2003) [wikipedia.org].
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For Kellogg, we can all agree that "shredded wheat" is a descriptive term. For Dastar, it (a) had to do with one single work and (b) involved stripping identifiers like trademark, not infringing a trademark. What Disney does is use Mickey Mouse as a logo to identify the company. I think they'll win that case. Marvel comics use a small image of the character as a trademark to identify the source of the comics as well.
And even if they're wrong, it'll be like WB and "Happy Birthday". Who's going to pay mill
Shrek 6 (Score:2)
What Disney does is use Mickey Mouse as a logo to identify the company.
The Walt Disney Company would probably have a stronger claim to the "stylized 1-color mouse head with ears" as the logo of the entire corporation than to the mouse character with a face.
Who's going to pay millions to sue for it to be in the public domain*?
To solve this problem, first you need to find someone in another MPAA studio who is really not a fan of Disney. You could start with the team behind Shrek. Comcast's DreamWorks Animation would jump at the chance to complete the circle by including Mickey in Shrek 6 or maybe a Felix the Cat crossover.
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Well, sure they use the mouse head. But they've also used a specific still of the Mickey character as a trademark. And, for a while, they've tried using a clip from Steamboat Willie as the little studio animation before a movie.
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Their current method is to convert cartoons into live action movies for some as yet unknown method of protection.
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Its BS of course, as Disney takes anything they can, makes something with it, then claims its their IP while suing anyone who dares to disagree with them.
Throwing money at a live CGI reboot of something i
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The traditional method of renewing trademarks is to create trading cards. Costs pennies and resets the clock.
Of course, the e.g. Beauty & the Beast remake was so insanely profitable, it's more likely to be about profits.
Authors Guild opposes another extension (Score:2)
they keep getting the US Congress to extend copyright
Doubt it. The 1976 and 1998 extensions were intended specifically to harmonize with Europe, but the European Union hasn't since extended its copyright term. Furthermore, Disney would have to fight the Authors Guild, which opposes another extension [arstechnica.com].
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Hulu premium is ad free but for very short (15 seconds I think) commercials at the start and end of ABC content.
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The previous poster wasn't completely correct. It isn't all shows, it is for these 3 ABC shows:
-Greyâ(TM)s Anatomy
-Marvelâ(TM)s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
-How to Get Away with Murder
So, if you want to be pedantic, Hulu ad free has no ads on all of their shows except these 3.
It sure would be nice (Score:2)
My favorite argument is that we have to let these companies buy out and merge because otherwise they won't be big enough to compete with all the other mega conglomerates we let do buyouts and mergers...
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Nah, my guess is NBCComcast buys DC. After all, you want two members of your oligopoly so you have "competition"
Warner owns DC (Score:2)
WarnerMedia owns DC. Would AT&T sell WarnerMedia to Comcast, or would Comcast sell NBCUniversal to AT&T?
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When Comcast or AT&T merges with Disney, the other will own NBCUniversal and WarnerMedia. Because the FTC will force that divestment for "competition"
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I don't think Disney cares about Marvel/Simpsons in the park space. DisneyWorld/DisneyLand are already crazy overcapacity and expanding, and they don't want to mess up the branding with something too "edgy"*
*No, it's not really edgy. Unless your brand is iconic cute cartoons aimed at children.
CBS and Viacom are already the same company (Score:2)
Right now Star Trek itself is fragmented between CBS (the TV side) and ViaCom (the movies), but CBS is likely to merge with ViaCom and fix that issue.
Both CBS and Viacom are 80% owned by the Redstone family's National Amusements company.
As you can see... (Score:5, Funny)
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Comment of the year.
moral hazard (Score:2)
So, wait, Disney has 5 years to run Hulu into the ground to reduce its fair market value in a takeover? This deal structure makes no sense to me...