Streamnation Offers New Approach to Sharing Movies and TV

Streamnation is a comprehensive solution for storing and streaming photos and videos. Version 2.0 now allows users to share movies and TV shows that have been ripped to their computers and uploaded to the cloud. Founder Jonathan Benassaya, who navigated digital rights for years as the co-founder of streaming music service Deezer, is confident in Streamnation’s approach. He sees it as similar to physical borrowing but in the digital realm, since no copy is made.

“Sharing works like this: you upload a video, choose to make it available on your profile, and add some friends. At this point, friends can see your shared videos within their library and stream them on demand to any Internet-connected computer or iOS device,” explains The Verge.

If a friend begins to watch a movie, you are not able to access the same movie.

“We’ve recreated physical borrowing in digital, with same restrictions,” Benassaya explains. “The concept of borrowing inside of fair use is restricted to friends and family, and since there is no copy involved, you are not distributing multiple copies of the same content to your friends.”

This service also assumes that people know how to rip DVDs. However, the masses may not be the target audience right now.

“Twenty-five percent of our users are pro photographers,” says Benassaya. “We are also attracting small video production studios if they don’t want to use Vimeo or Ooyala.”

Streamnation users store more than 150GB in files, which is more than the average person stores on their whole computer. According to Benassaya, these people are the movie lovers, the people who use apps such as Plex.

“And like Plex, Streamnation pulls in metadata from the Web like the IMDb rating, poster art, and cast for your movies and shows,” notes the post. “Benassaya wants Streamnation to be your ‘media hub,’ the place where you can store all your photos and videos, regardless of source, and share them however you want.”

Streamnation 2.0 has been visually revamped for Web and iOS. Although Version 1.0 was passable, it was not that high quality.

“The latest version feels much more well-rounded, adding modern fonts, better use of negative space, and iOS 7-esque icons, while maintaining its own personality. Combined with its new sharing features, extensive range of supported file types, and enticing pricing tiers ($9.99 per month for 500GB of storage — half the price of Google Drive, and one fifth the price of Dropbox), Streamnation 2.0 is an impressive genre-spanning service and application,” states The Verge.

“Ten years ago, you could buy a DVD, rip it, and put it on computer, but now, you buy something on iTunes, and if tomorrow you have a Surface tablet, you can’t watch it,” Benassaya says. “Why spend the same amount of money for content that has more restrictions?”

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