I understand the situation with studios having crazy demands. My question was equally addressed to their reasoning. And I don't agree in general that Netflix has no way to improve things. Distributors have more influence on publishers than single users.
I already wrote elsewhere about GOG. They work with gaming publishers and convince them that DRM is never needed. And it works. Not always, but with some of them. The more it works, the easier it is for them to demonstrate it to others. But one needs a will to put an effort into it. GOG have DRM-free as their core value. Could Netflix attempt a similar effort? They could. But they don't value DRM-free distribution, so they don't want to bother.
No, GOG don't sell just old games only. They changed their strategy a few years ago. They work with publishers on getting new games and successfully (for example Deep Silver). It's a tedious process, but they put an effort into it and it produces results. They gave a few interviews about this in the past. How they have meetings with publishers who ask for graphs, stats and other information in order to decide whether to go with DRM-free or not. It shows that not all of them are lacking common sense. When they are convinced that it only helps their business - things start moving.
With more data to back up their approach GOG have more arguments for these publishers. So the more this grows, the easier it becomes. I wish some distributor would do the same thing for video.
May be gaming is in better shape because there is a higher percentage of good quality indie games than indie films. Independent studios are usually more sensible and don't care about DRM. GOG have that as a base for their statistics. With movies that must be harder, since there aren't that many good quality indie films.
However going back to the "old games" point. If it's easier with old games, what about old films? I don't see any DRM-free distribution for those either.
There are plenty of good indie films - they just aren't desirable in the way indie games are right now. The glut of content is really helping sites like GoG or humble to experiment with different models and push things like no drm. Successful films, and successful indie films, are different.
There is a similar glut of tv content as indie games, so you see many more ways to access this content, but no real push for free-drm here. They are still following the ad-based method.
Netflix/amazon/hulu as they grow their own original content could get to a point where they can disrupt distribution (more than they already have). But all of them already have a culture of drm so it's not clear that they would follow a similar stance as gog given the chance.
> Netflix/amazon/hulu as they grow their own original content could get to a point where they can disrupt distribution (more than they already have). But all of them already have a culture of drm so it's not clear that they would follow a similar stance as gog given the chance.
Yes, I was thinking about that. Netflix sounded apologetic in their W3C discussions, blaming the need for DRM on the publishers. Let them prove that with actions - when we'll see DRM free content that Netflix owns, it would mean that they themselves don't want it. So far I see no indication of any movement in that direction, so their arguments don't sound sincere.
I already wrote elsewhere about GOG. They work with gaming publishers and convince them that DRM is never needed. And it works. Not always, but with some of them. The more it works, the easier it is for them to demonstrate it to others. But one needs a will to put an effort into it. GOG have DRM-free as their core value. Could Netflix attempt a similar effort? They could. But they don't value DRM-free distribution, so they don't want to bother.