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As of this very second, you can stream the Stephen King movie In the Tall Grass on Amazon Prime. (UPDATE: As of 3:02pm today, October 22, “This title is currently unavailable,” according to Amazon. This happened less than one hour after Decider reached out to Netflix for comment; that’s pretty fast!) That’s pretty weird, because In the Tall Grass is a Netflix original film, and the whole point of Netflix original films is that they are exclusively available on Netflix, is it not? No TV syndication, no DVDs (at least not for a long, long while). How is it then that all 90 minutes of In The Tall Grass, which debuted earlier this month on Netflix, is currently streaming free for Amazon Prime subscribers?
According to the user comments on the video, In the Tall Grass has been streaming on Amazon Prime for at least four days; Amazon user “Norm de Plume” (lol) even says “I thought this was a Netflix Original?” in his one-star review. The film even opens with the Netflix logo and now famous, two note “ba-dum” noise. So, what happened?
The film was almost certainly uploaded via Prime Video Direct, a function that allows content creators to upload their projects directly to Prime Video, giving them access to a wide platform of people. It’s much like the way YouTube allows anyone to upload videos to its platforms. However, like YouTube, you’re obviously not supposed to upload copyrighted material. Before adding any videos, uploaders must first accept the license agreement, which states that, “You hereby represent and warrant that (i) you have the sole, full and unencumbered right to grant to Amazon and its Affiliates, and have obtained all necessary clearances and releases to grant to Amazon and its Affiliates,” and a bunch of other legal jargon that essentially boils down to “don’t upload copyrighted material.”
But, apparently, Amazon hasn’t yet caught on that In the Tall Grass is indeed copyrighted material. The user who uploaded the video listed their name as “Laysla De Oliveira,” which is the name of the lead actor in the movie. (We highly doubt Oliveira did this, of course.) The user also made some fake art for the thumbnail of the video, and copy and pasted the official logline from IMDB.
In an interesting twist, you can also currently rent AND purchase the movie via Amazon, too. (Don’t do this, though!)
This reminds me of the early, pirate-friendly years of YouTube, before it cracked down on copyrighted material, when you could binge entire seasons of Yu-Gi-Oh!. Simpler times. We’re sure this upload will be gone soon, of course, so the best way to watch this disturbing and fun horror movie is to head over to Netflix, where it is streaming legally.
Decider reached out to Netflix, who offered no official comment, but confirmed Amazon had been contacted and asked to take the film down. Decider also reached out to Amazon for comment, but has yet to hear back as of publish time.
