If you've been enjoying the Marvel television shows developed by Netflix (NFLX +1.53%), you may be in for some bad news.
In this video clip from "The Virtual Opportunities Show," recorded on Feb. 15, Motley Fool contributors Rachel Warren, Demitri Kalogeropoulos, and Jose Najarro discuss new moves Walt Disney (DIS 0.44%) may be making to take back some of its intellectual property, and what that could mean for subscribers of several streaming services.
Jose Najarro: Netflix is actually removing all its Marvel shows. For those not familiar with what some of those stores would include, things like Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, where some of the Marvel shows that were originally introduced in Netflix. As we all know, Marvel is part of Disney. There's a lot of talks right now that Disney is just being pulling off all of its assets to be able to bring it to Disney+, or whatever other types of streaming platforms it has. They haven't really mentioned, that's the thing. But I think this is story shows that nowadays it's digital IP. Your strength of your digital assets are very important for companies to have. I think it was last week where we mentioned how certain people only pay for certain subscriptions because of the content that they have or whatever type of show these companies have. I think Disney is being able to do this. It just shows that, hey, we have this IP. We're going to keep it to ourselves. I just wanted to know any thoughts on these news.
Rachel Warren: Well, not being a Disney+ subscriber and I was a little devastated about this. [laughs] I honestly think it makes sense. Man, I think it's going to be a downside for a lot of Netflix users because we've already been seeing that the company's growth seems to have peaked in North America. Now I do think a lot of investors and even users are discounting the potential growth in other markets than Netflix can still tap into. But that being said, I'm not really sure how big of a draw that Marvel content has been for its audience. But I know like for me personally, that's been a huge draw. I do think [laughs] that could be a little bit of a headwind will be interesting to see. Maybe that will balance out and it will have a minimal impact. We know that Netflix is constantly working on bringing out new slates of new and original content in some fantastic things coming down the pipeline. I know, the second season of Bridgerton's coming out soon, that's much awaited. I'm not really worried about their content as a whole suffering too much, but I do wonder if you might see some users maybe retreat and head on over to Disney+.
Demitri Kalogeropoulos: Yes, I have some potentially worse news for you, Rachel, because I was looking at the the article there and these were shows that where collaboration between Netflix and Disney. The article mentions that it's unclear about the exact licensing rights here. What could be happening is Netflix could own the actual license rights but not be able to stream it anymore. Disney might not [laughs] even be able to. It's possible that these shows go into just the etherworld and don't get broadcast anywhere for decades or ever again, depending on whatever happens.
Warren: Oh man I didn't need to hear that. [laughs]
