YouTube is adding ad-supported free movies

[mongeese]

Forward-looking: In response to demand from users and advertisers alike, YouTube has now added a library of over a hundred free movies and plans to increase that number as much as possible, as soon as possible. Since quietly sliding the free option into their “movie” section last October, they’ve added popular but cheap titles like The Terminator, Rocky, Legally Blonde, Zookeeper and Agent Cody Banks.

The traditional path of a movie is to go from cinemas, to DVDs, to TV. However with the introduction of various digital marketplace models such as paid subscription, digital download and free with ads, things have gotten a lot more complicated. Studios are still evaluating the profitability of this model, so it could be a while before we see some newer hits become free.

YouTube Director of Product Management Rohit Dhawan says that they’re still experimenting. "We saw this opportunity based on user demand, beyond just offering paid movies. Can we do ad-supported movies, free to the user?" he said to Adage. "It also presents a nice opportunity for advertisers."

The reasons users are supporting the change are obvious; everyone likes free movies. Several other platforms, such as Tubi for smart TVs and the Vudu app use the same ad-based model. But the main reason YouTube is integrating more movies is that advertisers have been asking for content that is guaranteed to be family-friendly.

In the last couple of years YouTube has been struggling to keep advertisements off videos promoting violence, hate speech or even terrorism. At the start of this year, they claimed they had solved the problem with better filters, but it was later revealed that their strategy was an absolute failure. By exclusively putting a companies’ ads in front of movies, YouTube can guarantee the brand image is protected.

Hopefully, this provides an incentive for YouTube to push movie studios enough to release some major hits for free.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/77484-youtube-adding-ad-supported-free-movies.html

 

[Misagt]

Or we could simply say that author's life +70 years is an absolute insane amount of time for a Copy-write and go back to 25 years before Disney started getting the rules changed very time mickey mouse is about to lose copy-write.

Think of this you would be free to create your own products movies, books games in the following universes.

Everything pre 1993 would be up for people to use and enjoy for free. If Hollywood wanted to survival they would actually have to made something new and different and GOOD!

 

[EClyde]

Man...How many times can someone watch this stuff, good movies or not. There are movies that I only watch scenes from such as Terminator or II and that's only if I have DVR'ed them. Money grubbing liberals

 

[amghwk]

YouTube already forces watching ads within it's videos. Watching movies will no doubt be as annoying, for longer duration with more interruptions.

 

[cliffordcooley]

No thank you! My hatred for ads have grown to where if just one ad starts, I stop watching. And they can blame their selves for this. Making the ads more annoying and irrelevant not to mention longer. Half the time the ads are adult oriented so kids shouldn't know what was being advertised.

So once again, no thank you. Take your ads (all of them) and place them were the sun doesn't shine.

 

[ZackL04]

“Mostly classics like The Terminator, Rocky and Legally Blonde”

Legally Blonde???? Wtf lol

 

[mongeese]

“Mostly classics like The Terminator, Rocky and Legally Blonde”

Legally Blonde???? Wtf lol

ikr

 

[cliffordcooley]

Why is Legally Blonde a strange addition to classics? The movie is 17 years old now. It has been viewed and forgotten as many years as any other classic.

 

[psycros]

I don't really have a problem with creators being able to copyright their ideas for the duration of their lives but companies are NOT people and they don't create a thing.

 

[kapital98]

Why is Legally Blonde a strange addition to classics? The movie is 17 years old now. It has been viewed and forgotten as many years as any other classic.

It is weirdly one of the best movies about law school. It's an excellent movie in hindsight (though, intentionally superficial). It's also aged much better than other similar era classics (pretty much every teen horror movie except Scream).

 

[kapital98]

I like this addition. As noted, this has been around for awhile. Nothing new from youtube. Plus, for cord cutters, they are basically getting all the perks of regular cable (say, a network like USA), without the need for cable.

It seems likely Youtube is doing this probably as a slow but steady attempt to take away market share from Amazon Prime/Hulu/Netflix.

 

[Kytetiger]

Are we talking US (16min/hour) or EU (12min/h) kind of TV commercials?

 

[ShagnWagn]

So... the huge question for me, and why I dropped hulu and netflix before my trial ended, is they only had 2-channel audio. Is audio going to be at least 5.1? Otherwise I won't go anywhere near them. You lose income, all of you streaming companies. You want my money? Move beyond 1970's audio.

Can you imagine watching something like Terminator on 2-channel audio? Might as well make it mono! :/

Also, if you are making me watch 2 minutes of adverts for 1 minute of movie, forget it. That is the way some games have got to.

 

[James00007]

This may seem like good news and is one of the better ways to combat piracy but Google have burnt a lot of smaller Youtubers in the last few years. Youtube is moving further away from a place where anyone can post a video about pretty much anything to a much more censored, restrictive and commercialised model.