By Rocco Pendola, TheStreet

Even though last week's deal giving Netflix (NFLX) exclusive U.S. rights to movies from Walt Disney (DIS) Studios doesn't begin until 2016, it's a groundbreaking development.

Of course, we don't know what shape Netflix will be in three years from now, but this is big: Disney will provide first-run motion pictures to Netflix, an online streaming company, rather than the traditional premium pay-cable services like HBO or Showtime. 

In one respect, you can say it's all about Disney seeing the future: An on-demand world where "everybody" has Netflix streaming on their smartphones, tablets, PCs and, maybe more important, their Internet-connected television sets. Sales of televisions that link with services such as Netflix continue to increase alongside streaming players like Apple (AAPL) TV and Roku.

Netflix's arrival as a bidder for the television rights to Hollywood movies means that studios can now play the streaming-video option off against traditional pay-TV networks to extract higher fees in contract-renewal negotiations.

Big media companies such as CBS (CBS) had always bragged about padding revenue and juicing profits by licensing only leftover scraps to Netflix and Amazon.com (AMZN). In other words, the content creators were pleased to offer portions of their vast catalogs for on-demand streaming, allowing them to monetize the content through advertising or other means.

That started to change just a little as Netflix became a more important outlet for popular cable series such as "Mad Men." Put a notch on the bedpost for the company here -- Netflix established itself as a driver of ratings for cable. You discover past seasons of a show through your streaming plan and start watching fresh episodes as they air on cable.

But the Disney announcement takes Netflix to a whole 'nother level. If Netflix can duplicate this type of deal multiple times -- and stay solvent as they kick in -- look out.

Don't fix what ain't broken

The dust needs to settle, but, at the moment, it's a bad move by Disney. I prefer the Time Warner (TWX) approach -- do your own digital offering and, until you absolutely must open it up, make it available exclusively to cable and satellite subscribers.

Better for Disney to say something like, "Listen, we're going to put these flicks on our new premium HBO-like channel, 'Disney Movies' and you can stream them if you subscribe." Disney can make sure a new movies channel would be available to loads of households by using the ESPN franchise as leverage with the cable networks.

Why break this golden cable/satellite model? It's so profitable for the content providers and, while there's a petty dispute here and there over fees, the cable and satellite companies aren't complaining that much.

Jeff Bewkes, the chief executive at Time Warner, has the right idea with HBO GO. First, he refuses to open it up to people who do not traditionally subscribe to HBO. Second -- and this is the extra-important part -- he's doing a (very good) digital offering through his own platform. Time Warner sets itself up to be as big a digital/mobile powerhouse.

But Disney chooses to give the reins to Netflix. That doesn't make me as bullish as I normally am on this company and, over the long term, the stock. I feel like I have a decent handle on what they're doing at Time Warner/HBO. I would expect Disney to do the same or something similar, particularly after it took ESPN digital in much the same way that Time Warner did HBO.

Build a digital powerhouse. Take as much of your content inside as you can. Broadcast via your own platforms. And then sell the non-exclusive scraps to Netflix, Amazon and others, who will likely be more than willing to overpay for it.

I must be missing something. Or Disney made a really bad mistake. I would love to hear Bewkes' take on Disney selling the business out to Netflix. 

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