[HN Gopher] Stream thoughtful films with your public library or ...
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Stream thoughtful films with your public library or university card
Author : philonoist
Score : 143 points
Date : 2022-06-26 09:28 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.kanopy.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.kanopy.com)
| astrolx wrote:
| For people in Sweden, there is a similar service at
| https://www.cineasterna.com/sv/ with a usually pretty interesting
| film selection.
| unfocused wrote:
| If you are in Ottawa, Canada, the Public Library can give you
| access to:
|
| Browse > Online Resources > Watch (streaming video) > Then pick
| what you want to access: * Access Video on Demand
| (Educational) * Curio.ca (CBC material, and has teacher
| related material) * Hoopla (Audiobooks) * Just for
| Kids * Kanopy (My favourite. Limited to 4 movies a month.
| * Kanopy For Kids (unlimited) * Medici.tv | EDU (Music e.g.
| Classical) * Naxos Video Library (Music e.g Classical)
| * Many newspapers and magazines, all searchable and online!
|
| Additional info: Ancestry Online (this is now only possible on
| the library's computers, and not from home. Used this a lot for
| finding info on my past relatives, and
| mjmsmith wrote:
| Some libraries offer movies through Hoopla
| (https://www.hoopladigital.com/browse/movie).
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Many people who could be watching kanopy via a public library
| probably don't know it, more marketting would be helpful, from
| either libraries or kanopy.
|
| But...
|
| > Stream thousands of films for free, thanks to the generous
| support of your public library or university
|
| Kanopy isn't non-profit is it? Either way, libraries and
| universities are paying fees to kanopy for licensed access. This
| is an odd way and potentially misleading way of putting it,
| "generous support". Will Elsevier start telling users they are
| getting "free access thanks to the generous support of your
| university" next, as if universities pay elsevier it's enormous
| fees out of "generosity"?
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Certainly true, though presumably Kanopy in turn has to pay
| license holders for the films they offer? If it turned out they
| were gouging libraries I'd be incensed, but I would tend to
| think it's at least as likely the the studios and distribution
| companies are charging Kanopy a lot.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| I'm just saying "generous support" makes sense as a word when
| it's NPR talking about donors, but is a weird word to
| describe the payments of your customers for a commercial
| service. Which makes me think they're trying to sound like
| they're NPR or something, when they are a commercial service.
| Universities and libraries don't pay for kanopy out of
| "generosity" or to "support" it -- it's a commercial service
| they subscribe to!
|
| I have no idea what profit margin Kanopy makes, which is I
| guess how we'd determine if it was "gouging"? I don't know
| from "gouging".
| miiiiiike wrote:
| This is a terrible deal for libraries.
|
| Side note: In the mouths of marketers "thoughtful",
| "intentional", and "purposeful" are null words.
| imilk wrote:
| Been using Kanopy for a few years and the quality of the content
| on there is an order of magnitude better than any other streaming
| service. In the Seattle area you only get 5 views/month, but
| that's plenty for me.
| [deleted]
| languagehacker wrote:
| I'm a big Kanopy fan and love to at least browse what they've
| got.
|
| Another digital library functionality I use is
| [Libby](https://www.overdrive.com/apps/libby), which lets me read
| library books on my Kindle or Kindle App. Saves me and my wife
| hundreds of dollars a year on books!
| gffrd wrote:
| Want to second what a great app Libby is: it's like a
| "management" layer on top of your regular library experience,
| paired with integrating services seamlessly (libraries,
| eReaders) that makes it wonderful.
|
| Also, some really smart UX/UI decisions in the app. And: I'm
| super-jaded about this stuff, but find the subtle "delighters"
| and microinteractions actually helpful and enhance the
| experience.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Another nice thing is that their UX changes actually feel
| like steps forward. For example if you live in an area with
| overlapping libraries, the app has gotten much better at
| unifying the catalog info.
| gedy wrote:
| My son is a voracious reader and Libby is wonderful!
| arafalov wrote:
| Libby is - also - awesome. I use it with Kobo (choose on phone,
| then sync to reader). And they have both books and audiobooks
| too, so I stopped my Audible subscription for now.
| stinkytaco wrote:
| Incidentally, Libby and Kanopy are owned by the same company
| and they are planning some further film discovery focused
| enhancements in the Libby app this year.
| dewey wrote:
| If you are curious what kind of films they have available you can
| check out the listing on JustWatch:
| https://www.justwatch.com/us/provider/kanopy
|
| One thing to keep in mind is that the selection is dependent on
| your local library, so the listing is a sum of the subsets but
| you can get a general idea of the content that's available there.
|
| Disclaimer: I work at JustWatch
| brunoqc wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| JustWatch is awesome.
|
| Is there any way to know, with JustWatch, which free streaming
| services are available in Canada?
| dewey wrote:
| > Is there any way to know, with JustWatch, which free
| streaming services are available in Canada?
|
| Yes, once you sign up there's a provider selection wizard
| that allows you to see a list of free services in your
| selected country. You can then also "batch add" all of them
| to your providers so they are always selected automatically.
| jnsie wrote:
| NYPL stopped offering Kanopy a couple of years back
|
| > As of July 1, 2019, The New York Public Library will no longer
| offer cardholders free access to video streaming platform Kanopy.
| The Library made this decision after a careful and thorough
| examination of its streaming offerings and priorities. We believe
| the cost of Kanopy makes it unsustainable for the Library, and
| that our resources are better utilized purchasing more in-demand
| collections such as books and e-books.
|
| https://www.nypl.org/press/press-release/june-24-2019/statem...
| brylie wrote:
| I like Canopy but wish it wouldn't show unavailable movies in my
| region. I ended up uninstalling the app in frustration after, on
| several occasions, spending many minutes finding a movie that
| seemed interesting, only to learn it was region restricted when
| pressing play.
| jacobbudin wrote:
| Many library systems do not provide Kanopy to their patrons (such
| as the New York Public Library), and some participating libraries
| only offer a subset of the "available" titles. So even if you
| have access to Kanopy with your library card, you can click
| "Play" on a title only to discover it's not available to you.
| eltondegeneres wrote:
| It looks like it costs libraries $2 per view and universities
| $150/year after a film has been viewed once:
| https://filmquarterly.org/2019/05/03/kanopy-not-just-like-ne...
|
| I generally prefer to walk over to my local library branch and
| browse their film collection in-person.
| gedy wrote:
| So why exactly do libraries use Kanopy? If they aren't
| partners, Kanopy can't just send the library a bill, or am I
| missing something in that article.
| stinkytaco wrote:
| The library signs up with Kanopy. Sets restrictions on who
| can use the service and how often, then makes it available to
| their patrons.
| gedy wrote:
| Sure, my question is why would they sign up for Kanopy if
| the pricing is predatory, excessive, etc that others are
| implying.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| Yeah, a lot of universities required librarian approval to add
| a new film to limit the costs. Similar to an ILL request where
| the library pays a small fee but typically doesn't pass that
| forward to the requester, as long as one lab/person doesn't use
| an extreme amount of requests.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's understandable why you "hide" these costs from the user,
| but it would be nice to know they exist.
|
| This offer here would be something I'd look into, except
| learning it hurts the library _more_ than expected is a
| downer.
| mmanfrin wrote:
| Wow, that feels absolutely predatory.
| stinkytaco wrote:
| A few years ago, I attempted to work out what a circulation
| cost us calculating things like our collection budget, staff
| budget, etc. vs number of circs. It came out to about $2.50
| or so. Keep in mind there are some serious limitations; for
| example, the buildings are a fixed cost and there would need
| to be a precipitous drop in circulation to lay off staff, but
| it gave a rough idea of what it costs to buy something, check
| it out, re-shelve it, etc.
| TylerE wrote:
| That's higher than I expected.
|
| Sounds like it's not that far from a point where it'd be
| cheaper to just print a book on demand, mail it, and tell
| 'em to just keep it or pass it on.
| justinator wrote:
| _I generally prefer to walk over to my local library branch and
| browse their film collection in-person._
|
| There's an app and it's nice to d/l a film to watch when I'm on
| the spin bike.
|
| Books cost libraries money, too. Budgets come out of the taxes
| I pay.
| jacquesc wrote:
| Tough to justify watching a movie when I know it might be
| costing my library $152 for choosing to watch an obscure title.
| gnuj3 wrote:
| I'm not an expert on US law but arent the libraries funded
| from tax?
| mcculley wrote:
| This differs vastly by locality. In some places, taxes fund
| libraries entirely or in part. In others, NGOs fund them.
| There is often a local non-profit that raises money to keep
| a library running.
| BeetleB wrote:
| I like to think that my library's management knows how to do
| cost benefit analyses. I can assure you that my library
| didn't subscribe to this because of unreasonable demands from
| patrons, but because they felt it was a worthy option for
| their patrons.
|
| Put another way, if my library dropped Kanopy, almost no one
| would notice. So it's hard to claim Kanopy is being
| "predatory" as another commenter mentioned.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| For me personally, $150 seems obscenely high. Especially
| considering it would be far more economical to just buy the
| DVD. The cost is high enough that I would genuinely feel
| quite guilty for making my community pay that much.
| Ironically, I would feel no such guilt for torrenting the
| movie at that point.
|
| I get that the infrastructure for streaming isn't cheap,
| and neither are the licensing fees, but this feels like
| price gouging. I know price gouging is a specific legal
| term but I'm speaking in the vernacular sense.
| BeetleB wrote:
| I understand where you're coming from.
|
| I also understand that my library has a lot more data to
| make the decision than my feeling of guilt. There's no
| need to speculate. Email your library and ask them:
|
| "Would you prefer I stream title X from Kanopy, or check
| out the DVD?"
|
| And also ask
|
| "Would you prefer I stream title Y from Kanopy, for which
| you don't carry the DVD?"
|
| Feel free to provide the context, expressing concerns
| that it'll potentially cost them over $150, and you're
| worried that they are being abused by Kanopy.
|
| If the library's not willing to tell me to prefer the
| DVD, then I'm not concerned.
| beanders wrote:
| $150 does seem very steep... given these numbers, I would
| feel a lot better simply buying films to donate to my
| library.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Be aware that very little you donate to the library ends
| up on the shelves. Most of the time they sell whatever
| you donate (e.g. "Friends of Library sales")
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| It's $2 per view for libraries, _or_ $150 /movie/year for
| universities. The rates are separate.
|
| I feel better about $2, but it would still make me really
| think about whether I'd want to watch a movie that badly.
| aaron695 wrote:
| gordon_freeman wrote:
| One great benefit of Kanopy is that you can access pretty much
| entire catalog of Great Courses free with Kanopy here [0]. I love
| the breadth and depth of Great Courses when I want to learn
| various topics such as gardening, space exploration, ancient
| history etc.
|
| Just add your multiple library cards and each video or set of
| videos would use a credit from your library for that month. Once
| all credits for a given library expire, you can connect Kanopy
| simply to a different library card with just one click.
|
| [0] https://www.kanopy.com/en/category/915
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| I have to agree about the Great Courses. The ones I've watched
| have been very high quality, as good as the university courses
| that the universities will charge several thousand dollars to
| sit in. (Some fancy schools are hitting $8000 per course these
| days, at least at the list price before financial "aid" kicks
| in.)
|
| Enjoy them. There's no reason to get poor to get an education.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I have Kanopy. They offer some good films, but not the ones that
| tend to have very large licensing fees, I would guess.
|
| People who say "they should just buy the DVD" are imagining that
| the library can just pay $20 or whatever, and then offer it to as
| many users as want to watch?
|
| I don't think it works that way for libraries. Maybe someone who
| knows for sure can tell us? I'm guessing that they get the right
| to loan out the DVD _physically_ but not _electronically_.
|
| I ran the Cinema Club at Google for 10 years, and we made our
| lawyers happy by always paying "public performance rights" (PPRs)
| for all our flicks. When you buy a DVD, you get a license for
| "home viewing." That does not allow you to invite members of the
| public in to watch. You cannot show it in your bar or restaurant
| or at a place of business. Maybe you, Fred Hacker, can get away
| with it, but a large multinational company cannot.
|
| When I negotiated PPRs with a film distributor, they always asked
| these questions:
|
| 1) Is the film showing advertised outside your company?
|
| 2) Is attendance limited to employees and their guests?
|
| 3) How big is the room? (or maybe it was "what's the average
| attendance?")
|
| I didn't look into what public libraries pay for their movies,
| but I'm pretty sure it's more than you would pay to just buy the
| DVD.
| _tom_ wrote:
| Yeah, kaboom is a complete non-starter. The first thing they do
| is ask you for you login credentials for the library.
|
| "Then, we'll ask you for your public library card number and
| PIN/password"
|
| That's a hard no.
|
| Don't give your password to anyone
| dewey wrote:
| This is generally sound advice but it's not a random side
| project of someone in that case. It's an official partner of
| the libraries so your suspicion is a bit misplaced.
| shkkmo wrote:
| It's a for profit company that sells its services to
| libraries.
|
| I think suspicion of any company that asks for your password
| with a third party is warranted. Asking for credentials like
| this not only teaches bad security practices, but even if
| Kanopy is trustworthy today, the company could easily be sold
| to a less trustworthy owner and all the data from your
| library account siphoned and sold to data brokers.
| arafalov wrote:
| Kanopy redirects you to the library's own website to do the
| actual sign-in. And re-validates about once-per-month.
| gorner wrote:
| It would be safer to do something where the sign-in occurs on
| the library's website as opposed to Kanopy's. But you should be
| able to verify on the applicable library website that they have
| a legitimate partnership with Kanopy and that this is a
| permitted use of your login credentials, e.g.:
| https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/kanopy-help/ and
| https://www.vaughanpl.info/databases/index/alphabetical/K
| arafalov wrote:
| While most of the views use limited credits, Kanopy has some free
| titles. They are not often easy to discover, so I wanted to
| mention it here.
|
| The especially interesting free set is (at least through my
| library), is a nearly full collection of the Greater Courses, a
| very high quality educational materials. You can see the official
| source here: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses It is also a
| good way to find the actual course and then plug it into Kanopy.
|
| Finally, searching Kanopy on the mobile phone app, bookmarking
| and then switching to TV app to actually watch is an easier
| workflow than trying to type things in TV interface.
| cato_the_elder wrote:
| Please don't. Piracy needs you.
|
| There are already more great movies/shows than one can watch in a
| lifetime, and we shouldn't incentivize the business of remakes of
| remakes of remakes.
|
| Public libraries could use their funding for cooler stuff like
| letting people borrow musical instruments.
| TylerE wrote:
| Did you read the article? I know you didn't, because this is a
| service offering exactly the kind of content you are bemoaning
| the lack of.
| cato_the_elder wrote:
| > Did you read the article?
|
| I did not. I don't see an article, just a landing page.
|
| > because this is a service offering exactly the kind of
| content you are bemoaning the lack of.
|
| I'm sure the Pirate Bay has a much larger catalog, with much
| less censorship.
| TylerE wrote:
| Ok, so you're just trolling, got it.
|
| PS: The Pirate Bay (and torrenting in general) is actually
| terrible for non-mainstream content. Like, look at the
| audiobook section... it's basically Harry Potter and a lot
| of "self help" psuedo-cultists.
| slickdork wrote:
| While I can't speak to TPB, there are many private
| trackers solely dedicated to maintaining obscure content.
| cato_the_elder wrote:
| > Ok, so you're just trolling, got it.
|
| Not really, I really mean it.
|
| > Like, look at the audiobook section... it's basically
| Harry Potter and a lot of "self help" psuedo-cultists.
|
| I agree, piracy hasn't done well when it comes to
| audiobooks.
| jrhizor wrote:
| I recently started using Kanopy. They have many great movies that
| aren't available on other paid streaming plans.
| ct0 wrote:
| Well i'm off to get a library card now!
| ortusdux wrote:
| Grab some books while you are there! My local branch totals up
| the money you save each year.
| EvanAnderson wrote:
| Kanopy recently revamped their UI and the site has turned to
| unresponsive garbage for me. The new player glitches frequently
| and hangs when buffering. The old player wasn't stellar but it
| wasn't this awful.
|
| The old search interface was nice. It was easy to get a list of
| newly-added items, sorted by date, with thumbnails and metadata.
| The new UI is just thumbnails in a horizontal "carousel" and you
| can only see metadata by clicking the thumbnail.
|
| I don't know how anybody thought this was a good idea.
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