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Sony-Owned Columbia Pictures Pulls Movies From Xbox Netflix
by David Jenkins
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November 19, 2008
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All Columbia Pictures movies have been pulled from the Xbox Live version of Netflix, following the launch of the New Xbox Experience dashboard update.
Columbia Pictures is a subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment, but the move does not appear to be malicious on the part of Sony executives -- all movies distributed by Sony Pictures still remain accessible through the service.
"A few hundred titles are temporarily unavailable to be streamed via the Xbox game console," Netflix corporate communications VP Dave Swasey told consumer website MTV Multiplayer.
"Those titles are still available to be watched on subscribers’ computers and on TVs via other partner devices, and we hope they’ll be licensed for Xbox 360 shortly."
Swasey was evasive on whether the timing with the New Xbox Experience was coincidental, but suggested that "titles regularly come in and out of license and there is a natural ebb and flow to what we have on license at any given point in time."
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Although I like Penny Arcade's take on the matter: "You can use MediaMall's PlayOn to restore this functionality to your box, along with the other cool channels it has available. I don't know why people ever, ever try to stop nerds from doing things. It's really the most incredible waste of time."
In reality, I just think it's a licensing issue. The contracts probably didn't mention the 360 as an allowable source.