My guess is you are right for some properties that WB owns outright, but legacy IP that has rights shared, especially pre-streaming rights will still have a lot of barriers/untangling to do.

I think Netflix is the most well run media company today by a mile, but also on the spectrum of quality/art -vs- straight money/tech domination they fall into the latter category, and they are the among the least friendly to creators as far as contract/rights.

We will see.

In their books (e.g. "No Rules Rules" Netflix seems extremely attractive to creators because they pay top dollar, as a general policy, and have the internal decision-making processes that support making bold bets on art without committees that push "safer" creative choices.

I haven’t read that book so forgive the ignorant question here, but how am I to parse that title?

“No Rules Rules”, as in “no rules is awesome! It rules!”

Or

“No Rules Rules”, as in “the only rules are that there are no rules”.

The difference in interpretation matters because the tone is quite different.

And this is precisely because Netflix doesn't have to hit the jackpot with each new movie. They just have to keep people hooked on that subscription. It's one of the few times where the subscription model works best.

Totally fair. The rights around a lot of media is a giant mess. Is why songs used on some movies are not the same as the ones that were used in theaters. And is just baffling for people from the outside to consider.

Equally if not more baffling is that songs used in one region for DVDs might not be the same as other regions because of the same licensing issues

Netflix really struggles to make quality content. If we could somehow divorce the studios from the platforms, that would be ideal. But that ship sailed a long time ago.

They don't need to make quality content, most people just watch Netflix on their second screen or mobile while doing something else.

If you want quality you'd go to something like mubi

Netflix is a terrible media company. They don't invest in their library and are happy to cancel shows without concluding them screwing the creators and the fans. They canceled a show within the same month it released!

If a show does somehow get more than one season they can also be painfully slow. Stranger things took a 9 years to drop just 5 seasons. The Witcher was 6 years for just 4 seasons.

I mean, I'm not going to try and defend them from never having made bad calls. But, I'm not clear that they are any worse at this than other media companies?

To wit, finding a show that was canceled the month it was released probably isn't that hard? Same for shows that had trouble keeping cadence. Especially during COVID.

Do we have data that shows they are worse?

(Also, I think it is perfectly valid to object to this acquisition on other merits. I just would love some old backlogged cartoons to get wider distribution.)

You're right about covid for sure. That really screwed with just about everyone's production schedule.

And to be further clear, I don't mean that as a way to assert you are wrong. I legit don't know if Netflix is better or worse than the norm in this area.

"Never adjust to the streaming world" implies the studios were wrong.

Netflix is buying Warner Brothers and you think Netflix was wasting money on licensing costs?

More like Netflix's bet that if it didn't share usage information it could keep underpaying for what it was getting paid off.

Licensing being a giant mess for media is not exactly news? Netflix reportedly got some really good deals early on, but of the kind that nobody was willing to do again.

They didn't have the luxury of first sale to protect their market, though. Which is a very sharp contrast to how they ran the DVD side of things.

So, it isn't that they were wasting money on licensing. Licensing kept getting more and more expensive. Not fully for nefarious reasons, but that doesn't change that it was so.

Licensing in media is relatively straightforward, you pay per view.

Netflix decided it didn't want to and caused the whole uproar.

I mean, I just have to point out how that isn't even close to the pricing models that are in use. That is, if you "rent/buy" through the places that offer it, you don't pay more the more that you watch it. Similarly, if it was that straight forward, then you could make more as a content owner by basically bot farming out a steady stream of watchers for your content.

But the point was that the older "pre streaming" deals would be on catalogs of films and would apportion out royalties based on several factors. This is why some shows have been forever on late night television. Turned out, getting that catalog to offer on streaming was valuable, but not if you started having to pay primetime rates for every single view.

So, the "uproar" was that Netflix got a deal that was very valuable to them at the start, and then refused to cave to a deal that was not at all valuable to them when the studios had a chance to renegotiate.

To be clear, it was fair for the studios to want to renegotiate. It is also fair for Netflix to question if it is worth it to them in some of the newer negotiations.