# Streaming companies burying shows - HBO Max and possibly others. Is this allowed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 21, 2022, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032 "2022-08-21T14:10:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/61 "2022-08-23T13:49:26Z")
> [@Great\_Antibob](#): > > He’s cutting costs and doing so in the manner he judges the quickest and most expedient. Yeah, that’s exactly it. The company is in a ton of debt (it’s why AT&T got rid of it) - also makes CNN+ even more of a ridiculous idea by WB previous management. He’s tasked with dealing with that issue. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/62 "2022-08-23T13:55:38Z")
The issue is not that he’s cutting costs, it’s that he’s doing it with a grating combination of clumsiness and unearned arrogance that will leave the company with no long-term prospects. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/63 "2022-08-23T14:37:52Z")
Update to the earlier note about market cap. [https://mobile.twitter.com/somebadideas/status/1562073791232196610](https://mobile.twitter.com/somebadideas/status/1562073791232196610) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/64 "2022-08-23T15:04:06Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > > [@Wilson](#): > > > > I’m just waiting for the Game of Thrones / 90 Day Fiancee crossover… > > _My Big Fat Incestuous Wedding_ _My Big Fat Incestuous RED Wedding_ ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/65 "2022-08-23T15:05:38Z")
Here’s some outrage fodder for the creative types > [@](#): > > # [Holy Freaking God. The Batgirl Movie Wasn’t Just Canceled. Now It’s Been…Deleted?](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/23/2118232/-Holy-Freaking-God-The-Batgirl-Movie-Wasn-t-Just-Canceled-Now-It-s-Been-Deleted) > > I cannot actually believe this. Feel free to say I am full of crap and this article is untrue. Because damn it, I WANT to be wrong. > > From The Direct: > In an interview translated from French with Skript, as seen on [Youtube](https://youtu.be/HZw_4rIbKX4), Bilall Fallah, one of the directors for the recently canceled _Batgirl_ movie, revealed that his fellow director, Adil El Arbi, tried to get him to salvage some of the footage on his phone. > > Sadly, when Fallah went on the server, **“everything was gone,”** including all of the scenes with Michael Keaton’s Batman: > > “No, we have nothing. Adil called and told me, ‘Go ahead! Shoot everything on your phone!’ I went on the server… Everything was gone. We were [like]… ‘F\*\*ing shit!’… We did not [even] keep [the scenes] with Batman in it.” > **[Holy Freaking God. The Batgirl Movie Wasn't Just Canceled. Now It's...](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/23/2118232/-Holy-Freaking-God-The-Batgirl-Movie-Wasn-t-Just-Canceled-Now-It-s-Been-Deleted?utm_campaign=recent)** > > I cannot actually believe this. Feel free to say I am full of crap and this article is untrue. Because damn it, I WANT to be wrong. From The Direct: thedirect.com/… In an interview translated from French with Skript, as seen on Youtube, Bilall... Also, this > **[Cartoon: Vanishing video](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/23/2118233/-Cartoon-Vanishing-video)** > > A report surfaced that the Batgirl footage had been deleted from the server the filmmakers were using (the article is a bit unclear, but it sounds bad. Hat tip to DK diarist Matt Z). The reason given for these actions is cost-cutting: a tax break... ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/66 "2022-08-23T18:17:57Z")
It’s really perplexing. I can understand a decision to retrench. The expense of producing new material of quality standards to keep viewers signed for your service may make being a streamer a losing proposition going against Amazon, Netflix, and Disney. Go cheap instead and fewer subscribers keep you in the black. But you paid for HBOMAX and then discard that which the subscribers sign up for?? (Not old Sesame Street, everything else) The time to go small was before that. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.E](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.e/32/8932_2.png) [@Mr.E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.E)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/67 "2022-08-23T18:31:57Z")
> [@Heracles](#): > > > [@WildaBeast](#): > > > > Heck, if you had a working VCR and and RF modulator you could connect your streaming device to your VCR and record streaming shows to VHS. > > This might work, but the industry has the ability to prevent it. A streaming application or website can be restricted to only company-approved operating systems or devices, and to only output the signal to digital outputs supporting DRM protocols such as [HDCP](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-bandwidth_Digital_Content_Protection), which is basically end-to-end encryption to your digital screen. No analog output for your VCR to record. Yes, and it would be trivial to use a video capture card and/or software like OBS to record video off of a streaming service, but the thing about any of of this is it violates 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1), enacted by the DMCA, which criminalizes circumventing technological access controls placed on copywritten work. You are not allowed to make your own recordings, because to do so would circumvent Netflix’s access controls. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/68 "2022-08-23T18:39:28Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Here’s some outrage fodder for the creative types > > > [@](#): > > > > # [Holy Freaking God. The Batgirl Movie Wasn’t Just Canceled. Now It’s Been…Deleted?](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/23/2118232/-Holy-Freaking-God-The-Batgirl-Movie-Wasn-t-Just-Canceled-Now-It-s-Been-Deleted) > > > > I cannot actually believe this. Feel free to say I am full of crap and this article is untrue. Because damn it, I WANT to be wrong. > > > > From The Direct: > > In an interview translated from French with Skript, as seen on [Youtube](https://youtu.be/HZw_4rIbKX4), Bilall Fallah, one of the directors for the recently canceled _Batgirl_ movie, revealed that his fellow director, Adil El Arbi, tried to get him to salvage some of the footage on his phone. > > > > Sadly, when Fallah went on the server, **“everything was gone,”** including all of the scenes with Michael Keaton’s Batman: > > > > “No, we have nothing. Adil called and told me, ‘Go ahead! Shoot everything on your phone!’ I went on the server… Everything was gone. We were [like]… ‘F\*\*ing shit!’… We did not [even] keep [the scenes] with Batman in it.” [There’s a lot of comic book films on this list that might have been better off never having been released.](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/the-36-worst-comic-book-movies-of-all-time/#16) For all you know, we just avoided the next Catwoman or Green Lantern. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/69 "2022-08-23T19:34:07Z")
I’m willing to bet A MILLION DOLLARS confidently that the Batgirl movie wasn’t deleted permanently, the studio probably expected upon hearing the film was shelved for workers to immediately attempt to leak it, so we’ll before the announcement they probably took all the raw footage and moved it to a protected storage drive somewhere so they can still monetize it in the future. Considering the Directors first reaction was to try to record the footage on his phone to release it, they weren’t wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/70 "2022-08-23T19:41:07Z")
Right. I assume the film and the raw footage still exist someplace. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/71 "2022-08-23T20:06:03Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > Well for the people in the industry its upsetting to see your work just disappear. Maybe this is an off-topic question, but I have an assumption that I’d be happy to see corrected if it’s wrong: isn’t most of the history of “TV” (or “film” . . . or “audio/visual storytelling”? . . . not sure what the right word is in 2022) littered with art that has “disappeared”? Hasn’t it always been the case that, as someone who works on a TV series, the best you could expect was that you hit whatever number you needed for syndication, and then someone might or might not re-run your show at some point? Or maybe the show will get released on VHS or DVD or BlueRay . . . or streaming. Maybe. I’m just not picking up where the big crisis is, as this is fundamentally how I’ve always experienced TV for the 40+ years of my life. Stuff runs. Then it disappears. Sometimes it pops up again, or doesn’t. It seems to me that it must be a relatively new expectation that any show I work on must just kind of be accessible to the average consumer in perpetuity, and that something has been taken from me if it is not. Are “people in the industry” really that upset by a show or two or twenty dropping off of streaming? How is this more significant than the business decisions around providing public access to materials that has been going on forever? ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/72 "2022-08-23T20:19:44Z")
In the past, the people who created those shows could have reasonably expected to get a personal physical copy and/or have access to production materials. That’s no longer true and it is very upsetting to some of them that there is no longer any evidence of something they put a considerable amount of time and effort to make. With streaming, at least there was the expectation/hope that as long as they had an internet connection, it was accessible. Forget consumers, they literally cannot see their own work for themselves. A lot of it is only on computers which have been made inaccessible to them or wiped. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/73 "2022-08-23T20:30:38Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > I’m just not picking up where the big crisis is, as this is fundamentally how I’ve always experienced TV for the 40+ years of my life. Stuff runs. Then it disappears. Sometimes it pops up again, or doesn’t. > > It seems to me that it must be a relatively new expectation that any show I work on must just kind of be accessible to the average consumer in perpetuity, I’ll be honest here and say how it was then, was not how I liked it. How it could be - new work is available in perpetuity (and heck, all that old work as well), is how it should be and what I want. Or in other words, the old days sucked ass. Now maybe I’m being a bit “I want a pony AND an ice cream cone” and a little unreasonable in my desires. However the argument that that’s how it always has been doesn’t really work for me. Despite the pull of nostalgia, few things were genuinely better back in the day 🙂. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/74 "2022-08-23T20:48:59Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > Maybe this is an off-topic question, but I have an assumption that I’d be happy to see corrected if it’s wrong: isn’t most of the history of “TV” (or “film” . . . or “audio/visual storytelling”? . . . not sure what the right word is in 2022) littered with art that has “disappeared”? I think you are correct. In fact, some television from the 1960s has literally disappeared. The film stock was reused, or thrown away, or lost, and is gone forever. The shows that HBO is pulling aren’t actually gone. I’m sure if the creators of Sesame Street, or anyone else, wrote a big enough check, HBO would happily turn over the old episodes, Because capitalism. ---
**Author:** ![Heracles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heracles/32/487_2.png) [@Heracles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heracles)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/75 "2022-08-23T21:36:09Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > I’m willing to bet A MILLION DOLLARS confidently that the Batgirl movie wasn’t deleted permanently I’m not a betting person, and I agree that there’s probably a backup somewhere. But it’s also possible for it to have been deleted completely and deliberately, for legal or fiscal reasons, or just to make a point. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/76 "2022-08-23T21:44:29Z")
I thought I read somewhere that the Children’s Television Workshop was going to make the pulled episodes available on YouTube. ETA > **[‘Sesame Street’ gives HBO Max the Big Bird](https://wegotthiscovered.com/tv/sesame-street-hbo-max-full-episodes-on-youtube-for-free/)** > > The iconic children's show posted full episodes on YouTube for free ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/77 "2022-08-23T21:49:56Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > isn’t most of the history of “TV” (or “film” . . . or “audio/visual storytelling”? . . . not sure what the right word is in 2022) littered with art that has “disappeared”? Yes, but much less so in the past 40 years or so. Absolutely, a lot of old videotapes of old TV shows got re-used, because the networks and content owners didn’t see much value in keeping it (plus, videotape was expensive, and storage space was limited). Similarly, [much of Hollywood’s output from the silent era is gone forever](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2013/12/most-americas-silent-films-are-lost-forever/355775/). But, starting probably in the late '70s or '80s, the growth of both home video, and cable TV, meant that there was more of a market for tapes and films of old TV shows and old movies, and the studios and networks became far more vigilant about maintaining and curating their libraries. That doesn’t mean that every episode of every TV show made since then has been lovingly preserved, but it’s much less likely now that that older content will be willfully deleted. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/78 "2022-08-23T22:28:44Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > The issue is not that he’s cutting costs, it’s that he’s doing it with a grating combination of clumsiness and unearned arrogance that will leave the company with no long-term prospects. Eh, WBD will be fine. They kept Bloys as head of HBO and put the Max stuff under him and gave him more money to do stuff. And there is a lot that is coming out (the sizzle reel before House of the Dragon showed a lot). I remember when HBO Max started and people were pissed that AT&T was devaluing the HBO brand by sticking ‘inferior’ programming with it. I think Killar at one point said he wanted “quantity and quality” and everyone freaked the fuck out. It seems like Zaslav is trying to go back to the less output but high quality that HBO was known for before Max. It’s likely not going to be great for a while, but in the end WBD will be ok. Especially as HBO continues to put out award winning stuff. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2022, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/79 "2022-08-23T22:36:35Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > But you paid for HBOMAX and then discard that which the subscribers sign up for?? They are retrenching around HBO. They are discarding a lot of the Max stuff (and some of what they are keeping are going under the HBO department) aside from a smaller group of Max Originals. And seemingly giving HBO more money in programming as a result. It’s likely that the new app will have HBO as one of the Hubs. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2022, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032/80 "2022-08-25T13:07:34Z")
The Hollywood Reporter has a [story](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/batgirl-canceled-hbo-max-film-gets-secret-screenings-1235205323/) that private screenings of Batgirl are being held for cast, crew, representatives (I’m guessing agents) and executives. So the film was not erased. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/streaming-companies-burying-shows-hbo-max-and-possibly-others-is-this-allowed/970032.md?page=5)