kanopy: thoughtful entertainment. what are you watching now?

The last movie I watched on Kanopy was The Great Silence (Corbucci, 1968), which was pretty sweet.

That one's great! So grim.

It's insane - you have to click through to the movie, past even confirming which subscription you're using (which makes it seem like you'd be using one of your credits, but that doesn't happen til you actually click on the video window to play) and THEN there's an add-to-list button.

maybe you guys are losing part of the interface to an ad blocker or something? i have been running safari on osx with no ad blocker for a while, just the built-in anti-tracking stuff, and i get an overlay with watch now / add to watchlist buttons (in the space where the title is) when i mouse over the art for a title in the front-page discovery interface.

in search results there's no equivalent (each item is less interactive in that way) but if you clock through to the result's page the add button is right there under the controller.

maybe having more than one subscription adds a complication that they didn't really integrate into their initial design scheme.

Okay, you are correct. Once it feels comfortable that it knows which library I am using, I can see the button + My List.

Also, now it says Expires in 23 hrs.

Ray, S. (Director). (1955). Pather Panchali [Video file]. Janus Films (The Criterion Collection). Retrieved December 26, 2018, from Kanopy.

Now playing with the Transcript feature, which is actually pretty nice.

awww, thanks, JRatB! I've been around since 2005 or 2006 but not on all the threads.

multi-subscription or ad-blocking issues both seem plausible.... oh well. guess I'll just do the browsing from android.

Here’s another glitch, which this time I’m seeing in the iPhone app. Sometimes it will just lose my Continue Watching list and My Watchlist will come up as
THE GENERAL
THE GREAT DICTATOR
MODERN TIMES
KEDI

But if I switch libraries, it gets fixed. It’s like there are some buggy servers out there with same bad databases.

Okay, was fixed for a while, now back to the state where I have to choose a library again. I think I have thoroughly limned this phenomenon for now.

forgot these were ones i watched on there:

HOT SUMMER NIGHTS: hot summer trash! feels like something chalamet filmed two years earlier and which was shelved because it wasn't very good, and was now getting pushed out cause he had the buzz. definitely not the fun coming-of-age drug-dealers-in-over-their-head movie it suggests, and all the lust-for-the-crush-object stuff feels just like a straight shitty 80s take rather than some kind of retro commentary on those 80s tropes. soundtrack is also very chronologically confused.

THE LITTLE HOURS: can't tell if this was bad or if we just weren't in the mood for what it was doing. raunchy medieval nun comedy where the gag is, medieval nuns are raunchy. there are a couple of big, funny bits but then there are more serious emotional things that wander their way through and leave no impact. feels like a funny sketch that didn't need to be a full movie but i could imagine it being funny if you were in the mood for it.

lol nuns

Watching a bit of
Pabst, G. (Director). (1929). Diary Of A Lost Girl [Video file]. Kino Lorber Edu. Retrieved December 31, 2018, from Kanopy.
before my credits reset.

Hm. There is a character named Meta in this. The only other such film character I am familiar with is in Out of the Past.

Of which I missed the 9PM showing at Lincoln Center this evening, I guess.

signing up for this

P great Tropicalia doc, compiled almost entirely from contemporaneous sources, it looks like

Been meaning to watch that one.

Looks like I will finally get to see Ace in the Hole

Cool.

anyone know a way around the library sign-in? i'm not a member of one that has a subscription :|

oh hold up my old university login worked. YAYYYYYY

yes! libraries are literally in the business of giving you access, I love that about them

Really going to rep for Astra Taylor’s “What Is Democracy?”, for the bits with Silvia Federici, Cornell West, and Angela Davis on top of everything else

Not two minutes ago I learned Kanopy pulled Girlhood as my students were writing papers about it (comparing it to The Rules of the Game no less).

Ugh.

I have never really understood the business reasons for why films come and go on streaming services

the streamer wants to pay less and the film rights owner wants to get more?

I have 183 films in my Kanopy queue, which at a 5-per-month limit even for two-minute-long shorts, would take three years to watch. If rights periods lapse, that just makes picking something easier.

I was pretty sure the third of Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy was available a year ago. when I went to watch it it was gone. The streamers vs film rights owners thing makes sense, but I didn't really think about it applying to a 60-year old film. I guess there's no reason why it shouldn't

I live just a few blocks from where they are located, I should stop in to chat, it would be interesting to know more about them

http://kanopy.com/goethe

^ german movies regardless of your library courtesy of the goethe institute

cool!

Maren Ade's The Forest for the Trees looks like one to watch.

I really liked Forest for the Trees

Oooh, thanks for the tip, I adored Toni Erdmann and would love to check out her earlier films. They're short, too!

I watched it last night and really enjoyed it. She has a way of making me laugh at the most painful moments.

The hidden costs of Kanopy:

Recently, an increasing number of scholars have become aware of a simple fact about the service: university and college libraries do not pay a flat fee like individuals might for Netflix, Hulu, or the (now defunct) FilmStruck. Instead, Kanopy’s platform drives “patron-driven acquisition” in which three viewings (defined as 30 seconds or more of a title) trigger a library license fee per title. (The figures I’ve seen are $150 for a year, $350 for a 3-year license, though the price might vary or change over time.)

Those fees can add up quickly, and some libraries have felt a strain on their budgets. For instance, Stanford University called Kanopy’s cost “no longer sustainable” as they announced their switch from an open-platform version to a limited-access, request-only version (the only way libraries can turn off the license fee trigger of patron-driven acquisition). However, these issues do not affect public libraries, which pay Kanopy per view (current fee of $2), similar to a transaction video on demand (TVOD) service like iTunes. Still, patrons do their local public library’s budget no favors by streaming the “free” Kanopy titles, even if those libraries presumably factor in the streaming costs as part of their mission....

Ultimately, the decision around Kanopy or other streaming websites lies with the libraries. But it might be wise for film scholars housed at higher-education institutions to be aware of the pricing constraints that streaming services place on their university libraries’ overall acquisitions. I do not intend to paint Kanopy as the bad guy in the story of streaming access – the company has brought an innovation to an underserved marketplace, added convenience, and expanded the audience for many films – but as an educator, film scholar, and general cinephile, I am particularly sensitive to the imperative to support physical media and independent distributors, and remain committed to searching out streaming alternatives featuring independent content, even for my personal use....

https://filmquarterly.org/2019/05/03/kanopy-not-just-like-netflix-and-not-free/

unsurprising but informative, thanks!

yeah we've got providers like Criterion shut down on Kanopy and requests have to be evaluated for educational value

I really do hate streaming shit on my computer and vastly prefer physical media, but what's an educator to do? I'm teaching my film course face-to-face in June for the first time and might rewrite the syllabus so as to use films in my or the library's physical collection.

my school / system makes available a media-serving service, looks like youtube or other video sites, i used it to host ahem borrowed copies of films on my syllabus so that i could have students watch them via the usual lms. outside-classtime viewings were essential, and i doubt i could have gotten much compliance any other way.

coincidentally half my films are CC films hosted on kanopy, but that doesn't help with the others.

Kanopy will be discontinued at NYPL effective July 1 pic.twitter.com/ykGjer0tQj

— Screen Slate (@ScreenSlate) June 24, 2019

uh oh

what a shame; hopefully kanopy will be able to survive. the massive cost of subscription deals is obvs a problem for all libraries but astonished that the nypl don't feel the cost is sustainable. currently have access through a uk institution, which was already limited compared to the US offering and has now switched from general access to a system where you have to ask the library to get access to individual material.

ideal result would be that this prompts kanopy to work out a business model far more affordable/sustainable for public libraries, but we'll see

once i read that my library might have to pay $2 per view i was definitely less enthusiastic about this

yeah i'm very bummed abt the NYPL/BPL cuts. guess i'll try n do some very focused viewing this week. ordering DVDs in to your local branch remains like 90% reliable if you can deal with the wait times, tho obv they don't have everything.

welp, I never watched anything.

I invite you all to join me in borrowing DVDs as Edison intended.

Lol

Is it time to go back to the ghost of Fandor?

does anything still exist there? my free membership expired shortly after they fired everybody that worked there, and they hadn't added anything new in months at that point...

... whose business model turns out to be way too expensive for all the libraries who've terminated the relationship, sadly

Los Angeles County Library system still works with Kanopy. I think I'm watching more there than any other streaming service.

SF Library still has it too, and I've been working my way through Wiseman's films (so far 24/44). Most recently watched Rainer Sarnet's November

Atlanta/Fulton Co library system still offers it too. God, I'd pitch a fit if they ever dropped it.

I've been working my way through Wiseman's films (so far 24/44)

Probably seen 15 scattershot, but I wish I were disciplined enough to follow through on something like that.

Our Wiseman count is 39 rn.

Big recommendation for The Experimental City - newish doc from the director of Pruitt-Igoe Myth and the Jandek doc

watched Andrzej Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds today, it's really interesting

the film was made in 1958 but takes place in 1945. Zbigniew Cybulski’s role as Maciek Chełmicki seems more modern than a character from 1945, in a good way.

Cybulski has been compared to James Dean. I think the film is another example of historical movie-making reflecting the era in which it was made

that's one of a trilogy with canal and a generation. i need to watch them again.

Polanski is in one of them, another has a tiny tank...

No streaming service has LOVERS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE...except Kanopy :(

Wonder what Projectr is about? Looks like docs, mostly.

Oh, fiction films too. Just got in with my library card.

Some good stuff. JustWatch doesn't even know about it.

Been around for three years, looks like: https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/grasshopper-film-streaming-virtual-cinema-platform-projectr-1202238474/

Turns out one of my library cards still gets me into Kanopy, seems to have a limited but still okay selection.

I have Kanopy up and running again, focussed on catching up with a few Wiseman films. Does anyone else find their streaming shaky? I was having persistent trouble with State Legislature last night--hiccups, buffering, etc.--then switched over to something on Criterion, and no trouble whatsoever. I've got a laptop hooked up to a TV.

When I first began using Kanopy a few years ago, films would take about 30-40 seconds to fully buffer or whatever and the picture would be pixelated until it wasn't. Haven't had the problem in a while, though, or any problems really.

I experience movies getting briefly fuzzy, first at the beginning, and at occasional odd spots afterwards, none lasting more than 10 seconds before clearing up. It is annoying.

But thems the breaks for a free service with no ads.

I was surprised Kanopy was on a list of KKR (private equity) properties (in the news they were buying Boiler Room). Doesn't seem like a huge growth opportunity.

Thanks. I'll probably end up watching it on the desktop--it's not like you watch a Wiseman film for visual splendour. It's more the sitting at a desk that bothers me.

I've seen a few social media posts about various library systems around the US dropping Hoopla and Kanopy thanks to funding cuts from you know who. Fingers crossed my system can hang on, because I use those services a lot.

My local library dropped it two years ago. I was able to...(low whisper)...reactivate an old library card I technically shouldn't have.

My town's library cancelled Hoopla access for patrons last week.

Just got the email that my library is canceling this service next month :(

Nooooooo. Are such libraries tending to cite costs?

I constantly fear I'm going to (help) make someone's bill look not-so-trivial one of these months, so I spread use across a bunch of municipalities. (Nothing dodgy: I've always had an insane number of distinct library memberships across this here urban sprawl.)

Yes, they cited costs as the main reason.

We were always given a set number of monthly "tickets" through my library's subscription, which meant you could only watch so many things (even though I never managed to use them up), so I'm guessing that was put there as a way to limit costs in the first place. I've thought about trying to get a card in another county, but the truth is my streaming is so minimal as it is that I'm not sure it'd be worth the trouble.

I have to decide which Wiseman docs to prioritize in the remaining weeks we have the service.

^ Those would certainly be a priority here too. I never seem to get around to them.

I only learned yesterday that that ticket allowance is quite variable. They're all set to 30/month around here so it never occurred to me. (I now get the impression that's a generous allowance. It might help that Kanopy doesn't seem especially well known in these parts?!) I *think* I'm a fairly light user (I've rarely watched >3 things/month) but I guess I assume that good things don't last and fret about losing access to some genuinely uncommon domestic stuff especially.