Netflix Starz Play Titles Pulled From Streaming

Starz is ending its streaming content contract with Netflix and will be yanking all of its Starz Play titles from the service in the very near future. Starz was one of the strongest Netflix content partners because it was able to bring Disney movies to the platform, as well as titles from Sony Pictures. However, because of the complicated licensing issues between Disney/Sony and Starz, and the agreements Netflix had with the Xbox 360, the companies involved started renegotiating their contract.

Those negotiations reportedly ended in September of 2011, with no success. As a result, Starz vowed to terminate its agreement at the end of its current contract, which is right about now. To fill this void, Netflix has been aggressively trying to bring in new partners, but there's no denying that losing a massive selection of Disney movies is a huge blow to the streaming leader.

As of now, the titles are still showing as available, but they won't be up there for long, so if you want to watch anything listed as a Starz Play movie, now is the time. This is the first high-profile case of a major content provider actually pulling content from Netflix. Meanwhile, about 50 of the same titles are also available through Amazon's Prime streaming platform. So perhaps this is good news for Amazon. For Netflix, though, it will be a tough hole to climb out of.

[via Engadget]