DramaHeroine

I just can't understand this. Was this decision made by the people from Dramafever itself or by the people from Warner Media/AT&T? Because if it was the people at Dramafever, I'm severely disappointed in them. That wasn't a smart move.

The website says everyone will be refunded, and it does look like people are starting to get refunds, but I'm still kind of cautious about it. If they're willing to shut the whole site down without notice to anyone, would AT&T really be above stiffing it's customers their money? I don't know.

A couple sites have said they plan on getting some of the licenses. I think Viki has said they plan to acquire some, and OnDemandKorea has an entire ad campaign featuring only pictures of the Dramafever exclusives saying something like 'New fully subbed dramas coming soon!' I don't know that I feel particularly optimistic about any of that, but at least it's something? As far as subbing goes, I don't use any of the illegal sites almost at all so this could be totally wrong, but from what I understand, a lot of them just steal the subs from Dramafever, so now they have nowhere to get the subs from.

I'm not personally worried about Chinese dramas, at least for those of us in Canada and the US and some European countries. I think China wants the western market enough to find a way to get their dramas in front of our eyes. I wouldn't be surprised if we started seeing their dramas showing up on Netflix or similar places. Of course, I could be totally wrong about that.

I'm definitely pretty upset about the Japanese dramas thing. The advertisements made it seem like we were going to start really getting more Japanese dramas, something I've been wanting for ages now, and now that's dead in the water.

Thanks AT&T!!!!!!

No. Dramafever is owned by AT&T, and AT&T has already announced they are opening their own streaming service at some point. That's most likely the reason behind shutting Dramafever down. Any streaming service they currently own, no matter how small/niche, would be competition and take away money from building their new platform.

What makes this all very confusing is that there's no way to know if it was the people at Dramafever itself who turned the deal down or the higher ups at Warner Media/AT&T. If it was the people at Dramafever itself, then color me surprised, because I would have expected them to jump as such a deal.

I fault them for two reasons. 1) They have generally terrible business practices and customer service, so I already don't want to use any streaming service they build. 2) They shut Dramafever down with no notice. To their users Or their employees. I was a volunteer for the site, and I knew people who actually worked there, and we were 100% not informed. I get the business reasons, and if they hadn't shut the site down the way they had and weren't such a terrible company already, I wouldn't necessarily be so bothered by this, but as it is, I'm pretty livid.

The only countries I know of that make using a VPN illegal are places like China that make it illegal as a form of censorship.

It was reported today or yesterday that another streaming site Warner Media/AT&T owns (this one focused on classic films) is shutting down in a month, so that definitely confirms that they are shutting down all are the streaming services they currently own in order to focus on their new media platform. What makes me really livid about it is they gave that sites users a month's advance notice of the shut down. Why not for us, huh?

I get shutting it down so that time and resources could go into their new streaming platform. Still don't like it, but I at least understand the reason. But doing it this way, without any notice to anyone, was completely unnecessary. Give people at least a month's notice so they can marathon some dramas and refunds could have been more properly handled. What makes it worse is that news came today or yesterday that another niche streaming site AT&T owns (focused on classic films) is officially shutting down in a month, so I'm entirely confused as to why they couldn't give us Dramafever users the same courtesy. I wouldn't have supported their new streaming platform even if they Had given us fair notice, because AT&T is a terrible company. But Come On, guys. Get your ish together.

I sincerely hope that their new media platform is unsuccessful, because they don't deserve our business.

Ah, that sucks.

Glad you got your refund. I've been worried that people weren't going to get their money back.

Dramafever is owned by AT&T. AT&T plans to build it's own competitor to Netflix, so they're shutting down the streaming sites they currently own. That's why Dramafever was shut down. Since Viki is owned by someone else entirely, there's currently no need to worry about this happening to them as well.

It sounds like Viki is trying to get ahold of some of Dramafever's licenses as well, so I wonder if there might be a bit of a bidding war happening?

You're welcome.

Apparently, Kocowa tried to create a joint deal with Dramafever initially (I assume similar to Viki), and Dramafever said no. Someone high up in Kocowa said that in one of the articles on Dramafever shutting down.

Yes, I understand that. My point is AT&T has the money to buy the licenses. They just would rather put that money somewhere else. In this case, their upcoming media platform.

It's not exactly walking away from the market, cause I'm sure they'll have Asian dramas on their Netflix competitor site, but it's doubtful that they will put a very heavy focus on them

Well, On Demand Korea is advertising that they will be picking up a bunch of these dramas now that Dramafever is gone, so here's hoping they're telling the truth and it's soon.

It looks like licenses for these dramas are going, or very soon will go, to other streaming sites.