Hacking NetFlix

Thanks for a Wonderful Year

Happy New Year! I can't believe that I've been working on HackingNetflix for more than 4 years now, and I've really enjoyed the experience. Thanks for reading, commenting, e-mailing, chatting, and in many cases, becoming my friend. Best wishes to everyone. - Mike

Sometimes It Is The Newspaper Delivery Person

When Netflix envelopes go missing, sometimes the guilty party is the newspaper delivery person. According to the Stowe Reporter:

Police allege Ray Crickard, 48, of North Troy he stole about 25 checks and two-dozen Netflix videos from at least 16 mailboxes, most of those in Stowe.Crickard is charged with multiple counts of larceny, false pretenses, forgery and computer crimes.

In addition to stealing mail — which is a federal offense — Crickard is accused of using the personal information on the stolen checks to pay off his personal credit-card account online. Police allege he also altered at least one stolen check and tried to cash it.

Old 'DVDs Releasing This Week' Page Still Working

I'm still getting e-mails about this, so I figured that I would post the link to the old 'DVDs Releasing This Week' page again:

http://www.netflix.com/AllNewReleases?lnkctr=NavAllNewReleases

Now that you've had some time to get used to the new 'New Releases' page, what do you think of it?

I Still Really Hate DRM

Here's yet another reason why I really hate DRM: I tried to watch The Heartbreak Kid on a Windows Vista machine, and I got the following error:

Other movies played fine, and this was a rented copy that played fine on a standard DVD player.

New Releases for January 1st, 2008

Click here for the full list of new releases this week (26).

Interesting movies include War, Shot 'Em Up, Resident Evil: Extinction, September Dawn, The Tudors: Season 1, Solstice, Anne of Green Gables: The Sequel, Indie Sex, SeaQuest DSV: Season 2, Weird Science: Seasons 1 & 2, and Kanon.

Apple to Rent Fox Movies via iTunes

Update: Apple has also signed Disney, but Variety reports that "Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. are unlikely to participate for various competitive reasons."

The Financial Times reports that Apple has signed a deal with Fox to enable movie rentals through iTunes. There have been a number of clues that Apple will rent movies, and I expect we'll see an updated Apple TV and iTunes service on January 15th at Macworld. As part of the deal, Fox will also include a FairPlay DRM version of the movie on Fox DVDs, enabling customers to legally "rip" a movie for playback on Apple computers, iPhones, and iPods.

Is this a Netflix-killer? Doubtful, but I think Apple is uniquely positioned to enable the viewing of rented movies on TVs, phones, computers, and portable media players. However, Apple has a very limited collection of movies, and NBC recently removed content from iTunes because it wasn't profitable. To threaten Netflix, Apple has to expand the number of movies from hundreds to tens of thousands, and fix the Apple TV to improve the resolution.

Netflix is also expected to unveil a strategy for watching downloaded movies on TVs in January, and I expect we'll also hear from Blockbuster, Microsoft, and others, too.

Reuters reports that Netflix and Blockbuster shares are down on the news.

Thanks to Matthew & Timothy for sending this in.

Droplifting DVDs Into The Netflix Pool

A reader wondered if an enterprising filmmaker could use Droplifting to sneak a movie into Netflix.

Droplifting (aka shopdropping) is the act of surreptitiously placing politically or commercially subversive messages or products in stores, a form of "culture jamming" or "meme transmission". It originated in its modern context by small music bands who reverse shoplift their CDs onto the shelves at music stores and other music retailers.

Droplifting is starting to spread to clothing and other products, and will inevitably be adopted by big business as an accepted guerilla marketing technique if such activity has not in fact begun already.

Is it possible to do something similar in a DVD rent by mail environment such as Netflix? Given its volume, it is reasonable to assume that Netflix receives a large number of non-Netflix originated DVDs each day. Hacking Netflix wrote about this in February 2005, August 2005, March 2007, and it was covered on Consumerist.

Most of those items are returned to a Netflix distribution center mistakenly. When they are returned, are they added to the Netflix inventory? Would there be any benefit for someone to attempt to promote a DVD by inserting it into Netflix's inventory, or to boost the number of circulating copies?

Could droplifting DVDs into Netflix be used as a way to promote indie films?

Blockbuster Trademarks "Blockbuster Media Minutes"

Trademork discovered that Blockbuster has trademarked "Blockbuster Media Minutes." Here's the description of the service planned for the trademark:

CONSUMER LOYALTY INCENTIVE PROGRAM FOR COMMERCIAL, PROMOTIONAL AND/OR ADVERTISING PURPOSES WHERE PARTICIPANTS ACCUMULATE VALUE FROM PURCHASES WHICH CAN BE REDEEMED FOR MERCHANDISE, DISCOUNTS OR CASH PRIZES.

Thanks to Davis Freeberg for sending this in.

Wal-Mart Closes Movie Download Service

Did you know that Wal-Mart was in the movie download business? Or that they had a Netflix-like DVD-by-mail service that they shuttered, and then worked out a deal to send customers to Netflix?

According to paidContent, Wal-Mart has shut down the movie download service because HP is discontinuing the service that powered it.

But Wal-Mart’s decision not to look for another partner meshes with HP’s own explanation that the company discontinued its merchant store services for video downloads because the market did not perform “as expected.” The HP spokesman also told Reuters the internet video business remains uncertain and is changing rapidly. (Not exactly sure what suddenly clued them in to that or why anyone would rely on HP for technology in emerging areas following an example like this.) HP just announced in October that it had signed up 30 digital content partners to use HP Video Merchant Services; trying to find out now where that leaves them. The shut down of the IE-reliant, Windows DRM-based service also is a loss for Microsoft. The move follows AOL’s decision to outsource its video download sales to Amazon.

Netflix New Release Page Petition

Heather posted a petition to bring back the Netflix Releasing This Week page.