If you tried to watch The Social Network, Grown Ups, or any other Sony movie on Netflix streaming this weekend, you were likely disappointed. As of Friday, all Sony movies have disappeared from Netflix’s streaming service, with no clear indication of when they will return.
Netflix’s official explanation for the disappearance was posted on the company’s blog by VP of content acquisition Pauline Fischer:
“You may have noticed that Sony movies through StarzPlay are not currently available to watch instantly . . . This is the result of a temporary contract issue between Sony and Starz and, while these two valued partners work through their differences, we hope you are enjoying the wide variety of new movies and TV shows added daily,”
The rumored real reason for the content disappearance is that Starz allegedly asked Netflix to temporarily remove the Sony content because Starz’s IP distribution cap with Sony had been reached. Nobody in Hollywood, including content provider Starz, foresaw Netflix’s rocket-like growth over the last few years.
How long do you think Sony content will be missing from Netflix’s streaming catalog? Are we going to see more content outages as Netflix continues to rapidly expand beyond previous expectations? Is Starz going to play hardball, as other studios have with Netflix, when the two partners’ contract comes to an end next year?
Most of the Starz movies on Netflix have crappier-than-usual picture quality anyways.
So Starz is breaching their existing contract with Netflix because of Starz’s IP distribution cap with Sony?
The sign of times to come. They have crap for a selection as it is anyways. Their shows are old, their movies are older. I don’t know why I pay them anything. Watch though, as their current contracts expire, we’ll see more and more studios pulling their content until they get a better contract in place.
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