[HN Gopher] TV Has Always Disappeared. This Feels Different
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TV Has Always Disappeared. This Feels Different
Author : marban
Score : 43 points
Date : 2022-12-18 16:31 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vulture.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vulture.com)
| LarryMullins wrote:
| > _For decades before the invention of the VCR, any TV show that
| aired on any given Tuesday night might never be available
| again,While I was doing research for The Encyclopedia of New
| York, I spoke with a curator at the Paley Center in New York
| about how to find out what aired on NBC in its earliest years as
| a TV broadcasting company and learned there was no way to watch
| any of it. There were no tapes. The only record is a filing
| cabinet, which is part of the Paley collection, full of the
| carefully typed index cards where secretaries kept track of
| everything that aired on the network. and certainly never in a
| way that viewers could control._
|
| Yeah okay... but we _are_ in a post-VCR world. Are any of these
| [modern, but removed from streaming] shows not preserved and
| available through online filesharing? I think they probably all
| are.
| hakfoo wrote:
| I'd expect that there's a fair amount of local-release content
| that might not have surviving recordings. Individual episodes
| of things like local newscasts, public affairs shows, those
| weird weekend "lifestyle" shows where all the guests are local
| advertisers basically paying for a 10-minute ad spot. There
| might be a representative episode floating around, but does
| anyone necessarily have the December 16, 2007 episode of the
| Channel 83 Action News at Noon? If they do, is it publically
| accessible, or sitting in some dusty records room at Channel
| 83, on decaying tape?
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| crtasm wrote:
| They're talking about the shows recently removed from HBO.
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| LarryMullins wrote:
| The article isn't about pre-VRC shows.....
| nopenopenopeno wrote:
| The quote is, though.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| When I asked _" Are any of these shows not preserved and
| available through online filesharing?"_, I am asking if
| any of the shows _the article is about_ aren 't available
| online. The article is about modern shows from 2022 being
| removed from online streaming.
|
| > _Did you even read the_
|
| Right back at you buddy.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're mis-reading the quote, or don't have the
| implied context for the quote, which is that television
| broadcast did not originally pass through any persistence
| layer. It went from the camera to the television, never to be
| seen again.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| The article isn't talking about pre-VCR shows, which indeed
| were ephemeral. The article is hand-wringing about _modern_
| shows getting dropped from streaming services in 2022. These
| shows are almost certainly preserved online through file
| sharing.
|
| The article ignores filesharing and tries to suggest that the
| ''disappearance'' of modern shows is somehow worse than the
| disappearance of pre-VCR shows: _" TV Has Always Disappeared.
| This [disappearance of shows in 2022] Feels Different"_
|
| The real reason it's different is because these modern shows
| haven't actually disappeared, unlike those pre-VCR shows.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Oh, sorry, I misunderstood "these shows" to mean the shows
| referenced by the quote, rather than by the article.
| rthomas6 wrote:
| I really don't understand why people are surprised. If you don't
| have access to the file itself, you don't own it. "Buying" a
| movie on a platform or paying for a subscription service are both
| just paying for a revokable license to access a movie. You do not
| own it and access can be revoked at any time according to
| whatever platform's ToS.
|
| If you want to own an actual copy of a TV show or movie, buy the
| physical disc. Optionally you can rip it and store/stream it
| digitally. Nobody can take that away from you no matter what
| anyone decides. It's yours forever. If you can't download the
| file, you don't own it.
|
| Also, most of us are comparatively rich, adult, first worlders.
| If you like something and want to support it, pay for it! If you
| literally can't get some obscure media, or if the company is no
| longer selling it, that's different. But piracy of things you
| like and want more of is not only unethical, it's shortsighted
| and immature.
| dave78 wrote:
| A decent portion of the article was devoted to the physical
| disc option and how it's increasingly uncommon for that to even
| be offered as a choice.
| rthomas6 wrote:
| Like I said, if the company isn't selling the movie/show
| anymore, well, what choice do you have?
| pmontra wrote:
| Some people buy (rent?) videos and books, then download a
| DRM free copy from bittorrent.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >If you don't have access to the file itself, you don't own it.
|
| This isn't the full story either though. You can be in
| possession of a file that has a DRM encryption applied. If the
| service revokes you keys, that encrypted file in your
| possession is worthless. So, do you really own that file?
| watt wrote:
| The "file" OP refers to is the encryption key. And, I will
| reiterate, if you don't have "the file" you don't have shit.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| Or the converse! Think of the way GOG sells DRM-free
| installers -- GOG sells you a license, sure, just like
| everyone else, but they _give_ you a DRM-free installer,
| which is bit-perfect to the version of that installer shared
| on the Pirate Bay 's eternal decentralized tracker.
|
| Can I pirate that installer? When I'm caught, which file is
| the pirated version, and which is the legitimate one I got
| from GOG's servers? If I wave around my emailed receipt, is
| that (moral) license enough?
| crawsome wrote:
| unity1001 wrote:
| It feels like this is a problem that requires wearing a very
| specific hat to solve. A stylish, black one. With white
| insignia...
| dochtman wrote:
| Happily, so far the estuary for buccaneers has proven to be much
| more robust.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| I'd still like to watch the old episodes of HBO's Real Sex. As
| far as I know, that was never available on their streaming
| platforms. I guess they were going for "Prestige TV", and Real
| Sex was too close to late-night smut. Even on torrents, I can
| only find a few episodes.
| kulshan wrote:
| Thankfully there are still torrent sites archiving movies, series
| and shows. Pirates save the day!
| foruhar wrote:
| Usenet too, old as the hills, continues to archive via
| NZB/NNTP.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I think part of the reason this is a big deal is that it breaks
| HBO's brand. They have always been seen as a prestige channel
| that had a catalog of original programming you'd never see
| anywhere else. Westworld appeared to be part of this original
| programming portfolio and something that would live on as part of
| what it meant to be subscribed to HBO, like the Sopranos. Having
| the series disappear is like finding out that Disney is
| jettisoning Toy Story.
| samtheprogram wrote:
| This seems like a smart money grab. Keep the hot titles on
| streaming to keep your subscriber base, and those who really want
| to watch the fringe shows will probably pay for them, earning HBO
| more money.
|
| Just recently paid for Angry Boys. It's totally obvious why they
| would want to remove it from their platform in this culture, and
| even more so when they are still selling it elsewhere.
|
| I wonder if other titles removed are similarly as politically
| incorrect, or if it's another reason like not drawing in a huge
| audience.
| twoodfin wrote:
| The most likely theory is that HBO (under the former ownership)
| signed deals on streaming residuals for these shows that make
| them more expensive to keep available than they're worth.
|
| They expected _Westworld_ , for example, to do _Game of
| Thrones_ -class numbers and continue to draw subscribers for
| years as a catalog title. It didn't sustain that level of
| interest. And the new ownership doesn't seem to believe in the
| value of catalog titles in the first place: I wouldn't be
| surprised if _The Wire_ and _The Sopranos_ eventually get moved
| or sold elsewhere.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Well I guess they need to do later seasons good in that case.
| Westworld season 2 was a joke. From a drama in S1 to mindless
| b-action in S2.
| dbspin wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. It's the most rapid descent from
| prestige television to soap opera in television history.
| Just took some people longer than others to realise it.
| twoodfin wrote:
| I'd disagree that S2 is where the show went wrong. It holds
| up quite well on rewatch, with probably 3-4 of the best
| overall episodes.
|
| Ironically, I think Nolan & Joy made the same kind of
| mistake Dr. Ford criticizes in the premiere: They forgot
| why people wanted to watch _Westworld_. Fundamentally, the
| show was about the park, with all its mystery and detail.
| They seemed to think it was actually about the ideas around
| AI, consciousness & free will they wanted to explore.
| Those were modestly compelling, and enough to ride the
| momentum of the first couple seasons to some passable
| storytelling assisted by some great performances. But not
| the same show at all & the plummeting audience reflected
| that.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Ye I agree with the later. People wanted a Western with
| cowboys. It also had this "Greec theater thing word" were
| the audience, the guests, knew the story but the actors,
| the hosts, didn't.
|
| Concerning the former I guess that is a matter of taste.
| I watched it with my wife and she was extremely
| dissatisfied with the change of genre and pace. Lets
| pretend you know her. You understand why she disliked it
| right? She loved S1.
| twoodfin wrote:
| Yeah, I can imagine a version of that show that's
| basically S1 but stretched out much longer. I can also
| imagine it being quite enjoyable, there was a lot of
| story space back and front to explore that they didn't
| get to before things went to hell in the park. Some of
| the best parts of S1 were in this mode: "Ooh, Pariah...
| that's new and different!"
|
| On the other hand, I think it would have required robbing
| S1 of the coherent, two track, beginning-middle-end story
| that made it as compelling as any single season of any
| show.
| hedora wrote:
| In the short term, you are probably right. In the long term,
| people will move to the most convenient option. That means the
| experience has to be better than bit torrent.
| croes wrote:
| Some shows are permanently canned as a tax write-off.
|
| Final space for instance https://gamerant.com/final-space-
| warner-bros-discovery-tax-w...
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| And this is why I unsubscribed. You can't sell me Westworld, and
| then, after I've subscribed, take Westworld away so you can
| license it to some other revenue stream. I'm not paying for some
| percentage of HBO.
| drumhead wrote:
| This is why the high seas matter so much. There will always be a
| record of the shows there somewhere, in some hoarders collection.
| easton wrote:
| https://archive.vn/cxPbT
| letmeinhere wrote:
| Apparently some of these series are going to be re-licensed to
| ad-supported networks. [1]
|
| I don't think this undermines the premise of this article, that
| the current crop of streaming execs are moving TV backward to a
| more ephemeral medium. It's gonna be essential for independent
| archivists to preserve assets that are being discarded.
|
| [1] https://www.polygon.com/23513277/westworld-hbo-where-to-
| stre...
| twoodfin wrote:
| The ephemerality seems like a side effect of the underlying
| "problem": Media consumers want what's new and hot, that's
| where the audience and money are.
|
| Prestige TV imported the creative standards and financing
| levels of Hollywood films into dramatic television. Now, just
| like the movies, it's become hit-driven.
| Schnitz wrote:
| There's a platform where they won't disappear. (:
| CharlesW wrote:
| If only that were true. Sometimes it disappears while you're
| downloading it.
| rthomas6 wrote:
| Yes, physical media.
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(page generated 2022-12-18 23:03 UTC)