WWE Network is failing big time

[Wacokid27]

source? I've talked with people who would know that say you aren't breaking laws by watching a stream of an event

streaming is not piracy. it would be no different than watching a video on a site that had been uploaded by someone that was breaking copyright laws.

I've got a close friend whose wife is an intellectual property attorney. We've discussed it over dinner with the wives and kids.

The way she explained it was that the "unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or exhibition" of a copyrighted work is illegal and subject to copyright infringement laws. The bugaboo (and the point of argument) is the term "exhibition". The debate is between whether or not such exhibition must be public (which is, without argument, illegal) or if private exhibition is similarly illegal. The bad part is that it seems to depend on what part of the U.S. you are in as to whether or not private exhibition is illegal, as the Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue. Different circuit courts have different rulings out there.

The Fifth Circuit (which includes Texas) has ruled that private exhibition is illegal. The Ninth Circuit (which includes California) may have ruled differently.

So, basically, on that point, there's a solid possibility that we're both right.

Of course, then you also have the point (and this has been ruled on by the Supreme Court) that by downloading the data from the feed, you are de facto creating, an illegal reproduction of copyrighted material. The Supremes have ruled that a downloaded, electronic copy is such an illegal reproduction, but their ruling did not include (or exclude, for that matter) watching a "feed", where the reproduction exists only for a matter of seconds (if that long). So far as I know, there is no case law on this point, at least not yet.

Right now, private companies include in their terms of service a statement informing purchasers that "illegal distribution and exhibition" includes the creation of feeds, torrents, etc., and they have every right, as the copyright owner, to eliminate the purchaser's ability to continue distributing and exhibiting their copyrighted material, otherwise known as "shutting down their feed". What you (and others) should watch out for is the possibility of such a clause existing in the terms of service of your ISP. WWE can (and has) contacted ISP's and requested they terminate service to people watching such feeds (and ISP's generally do it). Generally, repeatedly having to terminate service for cause will cause your ISP to no longer be willing to provide service to you or otherwise charging you a higher rate.

wk

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

Yea I knew it was illegal to stream it for others (thus you are distributing the stream yourself) but as far as I've been told (by my friend who is in law school and his understanding from talking to his father, an attorney) if you are streaming something in your own house for yourself you aren't breaking any law. They were quite possibly only speaking for California though, and as you said, we could both be right if it is a state/circuit issue.

ie it would be illegal for me to PM you a link to a stream for a PPV, but if I simply pull it up for myself and watch it alone I would be fine.

I do expect a specific law on this to pop up sooner rather than later, because right now it is definitely murky.

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

Anywho, let's say it is illegal or widely perceived to be illegal (the latter is definitely accurate I would say) I still don't think that is detracting many people from streaming events. Going off of people I know in real life (hell my Mom has streamed NFL games before), forums, ect I just don't see many people avoiding streams because they are afraid to break the law. On NFL forums people openly talk about streaming. On MMA sites everyone talks about streaming and not buying PPVs. Here and on other wrestling forums it is widely known that most stream over purchasing.

Just like with piracy it seems like you have anonymity in your home and I think people are quick to break these types of laws as opposed to more serious crimes or crimes you have to actively do something that doesn't involve sitting on your couch browsing the web.

 

[Snowman1]

What about the bars? If a bar owner purchases 1 subscription and shows it to 50 customers, wouldn't that be a similar situation? (Obviously on a different scale)

But D'Z, it seems like guys like you were the people who were supposed to be enticed by the Network. You're a longtime fan of the product who is a current streamer and would be enticed by all those PPV's from the late 90's while still watching at least some of the PPV's now. So what's your reason for not ordering, just not enough interest in the current product to think it's worth throwing down any money at all?

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

What about the bars? If a bar owner purchases 1 subscription and shows it to 50 customers, wouldn't that be a similar situation? (Obviously on a different scale)

But D'Z, it seems like guys like you were the people who were supposed to be enticed by the Network. You're a longtime fan of the product who is a current streamer and would be enticed by all those PPV's from the late 90's while still watching at least some of the PPV's now. So what's your reason for not ordering, just not enough interest in the current product to think it's worth throwing down any money at all?

I don't even watch the current product lol. I go through spells of watching older shows and then not, and the last few months I've simply been watching other shit besides wrestling. In any event I would never pay $10 a month for something WWE related. I just don't care enough about the company or their product.

as for bars, they pay a special fee to WWE that allows them to show the PPVs. If a bar was just purchasing the PPV for the regular price and showing it like that they would be in deep shit.

 

[Swift]

Since when has something that's "illegal" stopped people ? Lol

Just look at all the potheads everywhere.

 

[Jonathan]

WWE created this mess on their own in the first place.

Offering every PPV on the network is setting yourself up for failure, because there is no guarantee that the network is going to work. And if it doesn't, and after 18-24 months things are still as they are now, or worse, they can't pull the plug and say "hey, you used to be able to get every PPV for $10/month but now we wan't you to pay $60/month again and you can only watch it on your TV, thanks!"

What they should have done is had the B-PPVs on the network, and have the big 4 remain on PPV only. By immediately putting them on the network, they have no big draw to it, they blew everything all at once. What they could have done is offered one of the big 4 on the network at random, and have it be a different one every time. This creates an actual attraction to sign up to the network. You're always going to have your hardcore base. These are the ones who watch NXT, Superstars, Main Event etc. pretty much every show they make, similar to the people who buy TNA PPVs.

Also, take a look at what is on the network now. Fair enough every PPV from history is on, but it's not like many of them, especially the older ones, were hugely popular, obviously some were but for the most part they weren't. Their audience simply aren't interested in the majority of them, apart from the adults or the hardcore who want to watch every PPV. The main things people want to watch on the network isn't legends house or any of that shit, not the old PPVs, what they want to watch is the attitude era, the monday night wars. That's what they want, for the most part, that is what's going to get people to sign up. And of course those weekly shows had their respective PPVs but people aren't going to pay to see like 1/9th of the content from that month.

The sooner they add content that people WANT to watch and want to pay for, and of course expand to other countries (which is fucking rediculous that they didn't have at LEAST US, Canada and UK from launch) then they will get people to sign up and stay for longer than one term.

I wouldn't be surprised AT ALL if when they release their next numbers they're under 500,000, unless before then they can get at least 1-2 years of every RAW and SmackDown from the Attitude Era.

 

[Wacokid27]

What about the bars? If a bar owner purchases 1 subscription and shows it to 50 customers, wouldn't that be a similar situation? (Obviously on a different scale)

But D'Z, it seems like guys like you were the people who were supposed to be enticed by the Network. You're a longtime fan of the product who is a current streamer and would be enticed by all those PPV's from the late 90's while still watching at least some of the PPV's now. So what's your reason for not ordering, just not enough interest in the current product to think it's worth throwing down any money at all?

1 - In order for a bar to show a PPV (or any sporting event, for that matter), they're supposed to get a license to show the event. That license allows them to exhibit the event publicly and to charge a fee (a cover charge or a two-drink minimum, what-have-you) for the privilege.

2 - Actually, I think it's more people like you and me who were supposed to be enticed by the Network. We're the guys who aren't going to walk away and take long sabbaticals from watching wrestling. We're the guys who are actually interested in watching the HBK/Razor Ladder Match and the Rock/Austin Match from X-7. A lot of the guys around here won't get into the huge video library that WWEN provides because they're not interested in watching an episode of Raw from 1993. A bunch of them don't even care what happened in WWE in 2010, much less what was going on in 1983. There's nothing wrong with that, by the way. The way some of us like WWE is far different from the way others do, just like with anything. For the earlier discussion about legality/illegality of streaming (kudos to the edgy people who immediately responded with variations on: "Who cares about committing crimes? Heh heh"; really entertaining when you take the conformist view), most of the people who were already streaming the PPV's are going to continue to stream them, because.......whatever reason they have for not wanting to pay money to watch WWE. I try not to judge people on the Internet.

wk

 

[Dolph'sZiggler]

WWE created this mess on their own in the first place.

Offering every PPV on the network is setting yourself up for failure, because there is no guarantee that the network is going to work. And if it doesn't, and after 18-24 months things are still as they are now, or worse, they can't pull the plug and say "hey, you used to be able to get every PPV for $10/month but now we wan't you to pay $60/month again and you can only watch it on your TV, thanks!"

What they should have done is had the B-PPVs on the network, and have the big 4 remain on PPV only. By immediately putting them on the network, they have no big draw to it, they blew everything all at once. What they could have done is offered one of the big 4 on the network at random, and have it be a different one every time. This creates an actual attraction to sign up to the network. You're always going to have your hardcore base. These are the ones who watch NXT, Superstars, Main Event etc. pretty much every show they make, similar to the people who buy TNA PPVs.

Also, take a look at what is on the network now. Fair enough every PPV from history is on, but it's not like many of them, especially the older ones, were hugely popular, obviously some were but for the most part they weren't. Their audience simply aren't interested in the majority of them, apart from the adults or the hardcore who want to watch every PPV. The main things people want to watch on the network isn't legends house or any of that shit, not the old PPVs, what they want to watch is the attitude era, the monday night wars. That's what they want, for the most part, that is what's going to get people to sign up. And of course those weekly shows had their respective PPVs but people aren't going to pay to see like 1/9th of the content from that month.

The sooner they add content that people WANT to watch and want to pay for, and of course expand to other countries (which is fucking rediculous that they didn't have at LEAST US, Canada and UK from launch) then they will get people to sign up and stay for longer than one term.

I wouldn't be surprised AT ALL if when they release their next numbers they're under 500,000, unless before then they can get at least 1-2 years of every RAW and SmackDown from the Attitude Era.

wowwwwwww I assumed you gained access to most full eps of Raw and SD. Pathetic. BHR can get 5 full years of SD and Raw on his site but WWE can't? lol

 

[Snowman1]

Am looking right now, in the Raw section there's 1 episode from '02, 2 from '01 and 3 from '99.

 

[Jonathan]

wowwwwwww I assumed you gained access to most full eps of Raw and SD. Pathetic. BHR can get 5 full years of SD and Raw on his site but WWE can't? lol

LOL no - they have about, 10 episodes of RAW from 2014? Something like that. And even then they have to wait months to put them on the network, must be something with USA/Hulu (no idea why they STILL plug hulu like HELLO you have your own fucking network which is failing, cancel the Hulu contract even if it costs you money... like, are they really that stupid?)

 

[Snowman1]

Oh don't you DARE mess with Hulu! :tough: But as you say, that's a big part of why I don't have the Network. If I had to pick between the two for my wrestling content it's Hulu for sure.

They have every Raw from this year until the one where Rollins turned. Apparently it's in their NBC Universal contract not to put it up on the Network for a month.

 

[Red Rain]

Ultimately, I'm still not seeing why I should order the WWE Network

 

[Aids Johnson]

I think they overjumped their boundaries. 667k isn't too bad considering they basically did a preview of the company for free for a very short period of time. What they need to do now is move more towards a ppv/the recording style of tv (cant remember the name) and let people choose what they want to watch, when they want to.

No one wants to turn on their online subscription and be told what they are going to watch, the entire concept should be based on control. Give me option on stars, matches, reigns, and feuds and I would gladly do it. Let's be honest, 10$ a month is dirt fucking cheap, and the main issue is that WWE needs to put this fucking thing to the adults instead of the 11 year old kids who beg their parents for it. If the kid is watching it after school and before bed, you have 2-3 hours max, with them not being interested in anything passed what they liked.

Now change that to unlimited ownership? Guys as old as Senhor are gonna be juiced to watch 1987 matches (when he was in high school) and possibly even watching it with their kids. You sell that, you can resell andre the giant and hoke ogan dolls, Ultimate warrior dolls could have been cashed in on like no ones business instead of expecting people to watch a fucking DVD for 60$ on his deal. If you want to really go for this market, WWE needs to go 100%. Heyman and WCW shit has to be accessable, and there need to be more biographies. I am not interested personally atm for only those reasons, as I piss 10$ (and how many of us dont? TGMI probably pisses 10 fucking dollars ffs) daily and would have 0 issue on the matches if they really gave 100% towards the fan. No, I don't even need DZ to be pushed or Zack Ryder (as an individual fan) what i need is the power between shows to be able to relive the experiences I really enjoyed, while having it somehow be connected to the modern era.

For Example, you watch an HBK heart pants 1994 biography on the matches, but halfway through there is a short commercial (and it better be the only one) letting me know there is a great interview with him on who he see's as replacing him in the future. That connects the users past to the present, while allowing WWE users to really look into the future without having to shove it down my throat. If I want to see HBK, sure, i'd love to see 25 minutes with a commercial in the middle on his training of Daniel Bryan and including their feud throughout the last 4 minutes. It would be a great way to connect the past to the present, and really give me a reason for a parent whose kid is a huge cena fan see why their dad loved Yokozuna, even if it only mildly relates.

I know it's a stretch, but to me the extra entertainment would make a lot of sense. Explain how Jerry the King was a great champion before he took power, where Paul Heyman got his start, why WWE beat WCW in the long stretch, and how guys like Austin were not always Stone Cold.

 

[Jonathan]

@GOAT Johnson

what do you mean, ppv/the recording style of tv, I put it into my Aids dictionary but even that failed :dawg:

What they need is to put content on people want to watch. I bet <1k of their 667k subscribers subscribed just to watch Legends house.