If You Can’t Beat ‘em, Join ‘em
In what appears to be a deal with the devil, Hollywood (20th Century Fox, Paramount and Warner Brothers) has decided to join forces with the popular peer-to-peer technology maker, BitTorrent, to create an online store will offer thousands of classic movies and television shows, as well as a large library of PC games and music videos.
It an important development from a number of different angles but one thing resonated with me is how the movie/video industry has addressed the P2P issue in a much different way than the music industry. Rather than try to bludgeon the video world legally, Hollywood has decided to play ball and create win-win situations. These deals don’t mean free video downloads will evaporate but at least Hollywood is trying to address the P2P in a pro-active way rather than following the music industry’s nasty legal agenda.
Can you imagine what would have happened if the music industry has co-oped Napster, which was a wonderful discovery tool (see my earlier post today on the need for discovery tools), instead of treating it like the devil? Napster’s emasculation was a sad development for a service with so much potential. Who knows, maybe Napster could have been a bigger and better iTunes if it was nurtured rather than neutered. Who knows whether the alliance between Bit Torrent and Hollywood will be successful but at least they’re trying.
For more, check out Mathew Ingram, who believes the Bit Torrent-Hollywood deal is doomed to fail, and IP Democracy, which points to the fact DRM issues could stop consumers from using the new service.
February 25th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Personally, I would gladly pay a few dollars to download a movie legally. I just hope they have a rental business model, instead of a retail one. If they want $20-$40 (price of a new DVD) to download the movie forever, I’m not interested. If they charge $5 (rental cost) to download a movie that expires after x days, I would give it a go.
Better yet, $5 for a DRM free copy of the movie that won’t expire. People who spend money on DVDs will still go out and buy the DVD for the higher quality and hard copy. People who would rent the move from a store can spend the same amount and save the trip to the video store.
February 25th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
I think it will be a rental kind of service with DRM limiting how you can use the download. Not sure whether it will come with a time limit.
February 25th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
[...] Additional Reading: paidContent, Mark Evans, DSL Reports [...]
February 26th, 2007 at 9:09 am
The BitTorrent webite has movies for $3.99 (U.S only) that have to be watched within 24 hours. Three problems I see with this are: 1. 24 hours is not long enough; 2. The video resolution is not good enough to watch on a home theater system; 3. We live in Canada. If the price was better then folks might reconsider.
It would be nice to see downloads available in Divx HD which offers a level of video quality that will look good on larger screens. Of course then we have another problem: how well does the BitTorrent model with files that are 2 to 3Gb in length? And how thrilled will Mr. Rogers be when people started downloading large files over his network (and bypassing his video rental stores)?