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BitTorrent Legit Service Launches
Posted by
Hemos
on Mon Feb 26, 2007 10:39 AM
from the long-awaited dept.
from the long-awaited dept.
The launch of the BitTorrent Entertainment Network came out today; there's the AP write-up, which is decent enough but the interview with Bram about it is more interesting. Tangentially, the the education of lawmakers on video DRM is an interesting countweight to all this.
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News: BitTorrent Video Download Store Falls Flat 195 comments
seriously writes "We've all heard about BitTorrent going legit this week with legal movie and TV show downloads. Ars Technica took a look at the service to see how usable it was and ran into a few snags, including not being able to download or even open the video files on some computers. However, the ones that they did manage to open varied a lot in quality. Overall, they blame DRM: 'Without knowing whether browser compatibility and dysfunctional video files are a rare occurrence or not, it's hard to say whether BitTorrent's service is a good one overall. Our initial experiences have been disappointing and frustrating, and guess what the culprit is once again? DRM. Why the DRM failed to work on 50% of our purchases is not clear, but whatever the cause, it's simply unacceptable.'"
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New BT network is proprietary, apparently (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd be interested to hear what people think of the new BitTorrent DNA 2.0, which apparently uses QOS to dial itself down in the presence of VOIP, etc. But it also apparently won't be open-sourced, and will be proprietary to the Mainline client.
And I'm not a big fan of all the snarky comments, myself.
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There wasn't legitimate bittorrent before? (Score:4, Informative)
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I think the difference is that this is an "official" Bittorrent service (i.e. by the guy who invented it although that may not count for much considering the openness of the system) and that it sells stuff that g
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Re:There wasn't legitimate bittorrent before? (Score:4, Funny)
That's funny. There's this 200+ year old document that people like you accuse President Bush of trashing yet you seem toconveniently forget that intellectual property rights were included even before amendments were proposed. There are even older documents in Europe which grant intellectual property rights as well. Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with these before making such a bold claim that is simply not true. You may not like them but it doesn't make them illegitimate. I don't like that I can't punch people like you in the face, perhaps I can ignore that law and claim it's an illegitimate restraint of human nature and primal urges to beat the crap out of the weaker of the species.
Parent
Re:There wasn't legitimate bittorrent before? (Score:4, Informative)
There's a world of difference between what "intellectual property" means in that 200+ year old document and what "intellectual property" means today.
Parent
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Re:There wasn't legitimate bittorrent before? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps you stop and reread the Constitution before making such a sloppy argument. The Constitution allows Congress "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". Note that Congress isn't required to enact copyrights and patents; it merely has the ability to do so under the Constitution, with a very specific purpose: promoting "the Progress of Science and useful Arts". Copyrights and patents, in other words, are an attempt at social engineering, one which Congress can enact or withdraw at its leisure. They are also transient ("for limited times") whereas real property rights are permanent, passing from one generation to the next until the property is finally consumed or abandoned by its owner -- even presuming such ever occurs.
In contract, regular property rights are barely mentioned in the Constitution, because they were already thoroughly established in the Common Law; real property rights formed a background so obvious to the Constitution's authors that they saw no need to make them explicit; copyrights and patents had to be mentioned precisely because they were not part of that background. Congress can revoke them on a whim because they exist purely by Congressional decree. There are some (badly worded and poorly interpreted) clauses which Congress can abuse to violate traditional property rights under very specific circumstances, but as such rights do not originate with Congress it would take more than a simple decree to eliminate them entirely. (It would probably take a major Constitutional amendment, a change in the very nature of the government itself.)
Parent
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Or until the owner ceases paying property tax. You don't own property, you just rent it from the government.
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i.e., "Intellectual Property"
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Just in case you are unaware of one of the issues taken with your point it is this:
The term property assumes a good part of the argument.
Intellectual rights - may not get the same disagreement.
Then again, even rights may get some arguments. Are they fundamental rights as in the right to life, or more restricted like the right to dri
WMP only??? (Score:3, Interesting)
BitTorrent's content is protected by Windows Media DRM and will only play back using Windows Media Player.
Is there a DRM alternative that is suitable on all platforms?
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BitTorrent's content is protected by Windows Media DRM and will only play back using Windows Media Player.
Note to Bram: just because you invented BitTorrent doesn't make this whorish attempt to ram defective-by-design DRM systems any more acceptable.
Is there a DRM alternative that is suitable on all platforms?
Yes. Strip off the DRM infection using FairUse4M. And then repost it on a torrent tracker. Or don't bother, because somebody else in the fight for our shared culture will already have done tha
Selling content in the modern world. (Score:4, Insightful)
This comes up every time there's a thread about the new "legit" BitTorrent service. I don't think it's possible. If this service attracts enough attention, the DRM is going to be bypassed. I doubt it's even going to be that hard, because the nature of P2P services makes end-to-end DRM impossible. So not only do you have the inherent flaws in the DRM system you choose, but you also have an inherent incompatibility between the DRM (which makes every user's file different) and P2P distribution, which depends on many users wanting files that are bit-for-bit identical with each other.
There's no good way to do both. They can layer on the encryption but it's nothing but turd polish; the data that's coming down the wire from the other clients has to be encrypted on a non-per-user basis (perhaps a per-file basis), and then the application of the per-user DRM needs to be done in the client. Which means the layer of encryption that presumably protected it in transit needs to be removed. So if you can play spot-the-key, and grab the per-file key as the client program decrypts it in preparation for applying the per-user DRM encryption, you can get a key that lets everyone decrypt the file.
In short, you cannot sell content via a service like this. Not going to happen in the long run, I think. What you probably could do, is sell access to the network, where the value is in the subscription to the content and not in the content itself per se. (Of course the movie studios would hate that, since they want to think of each movie "copy" sold as a revenue source.)
Looking forward, the future of services is to market the services and the access, rather than the content. Digitization and the resulting ease of copying makes it nearly impossible to sell pieces of information as distinct products, like aspirin tablets, in the same way that the content producers have grown used to. The game is up, it's just not going to work any more; they're fighting against inherent problems with DRM, inherent problems with P2P distribution, and inherent problems with the nonconservative nature of information.
However, what you can sell, is the access to a large repository or service which lets you access a lot of information in an organized and reliable manner. That represents a value to the customer, above and beyond just getting ahold of the movies/books/articles/whatever themselves. If a customer just wants to watch a single movie, say Pirates of the Caribbean, they can just go download a pirated copy. They are always going to be able to go and download a pirated copy. As long as the studios and "legit" alternatives mess around with DRM, it is always going to be easier for them to go download a pirated copy. However, what the studios could sell, would be instantaneous access to all the films ever made by Hollywood in the past century. Doing that -- putting together the database, organizing everything, providing a method of distribution, etc. -- is a value that's separate from the movies themselves, and the organization and logistics aren't readily copied. That wouldn't even require DRM; it wouldn't be practical for an end-user to copy more than a tiny fraction of the available material, so there's no risk. It's like a cable company and your VCR: the amount of content you can tape is never going to compete with the amount of content that's being pushed down to you all the time (I'd need to have 600+ VCRs running continuously in order to capture what Comcast pushes to me). Without DRM, you can use P2P to distribute without layers of useless encryption. To monetize it, you sell access to the network (the network is managed by a central server that tells clients where seeds and other clients are -- you don't pay, it doesn't tell you).
People don't want to buy content, they want to buy access to streams of content; they don't want to buy data, they want access to repositories of data that contain more stuff than t
Parent
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It's the service not the content. (Score:3, Insightful)
The value provided in a hypothetical P2P service offered by the movie theaters is greater than just the content that it provides. It's about having all that content right there, waiting for you, with a predictable quality, all nicely sorted and reviewed, perhaps recommended to you by a nice Amazon or NetFlix-like smart system.
The value is in the service, in the aggregation, organization, and pr
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It's their fucking parrots that get me.
Yarrrrgh.
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One should always obey the law, no matter how idiotic, obscene, corrupt and morally bankrupt, I presume?
Or not.
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If you live in a democratic country, then yes. The whole point of democracy is to give the lawmakers legitimacy. Of course, you are free to believe that the democratic process in your country is not fit for purpose (I do of my country)...
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Does that mean that any computer program that isn't cross platform is illegal in Belgium? For example, a Windows program would be illegal if it required Windows to run, or a PS2 game would be illegal because it requires a PS2 to run? Or is there an exception that allows for the difficulty of porting between such devices?
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To which you respond, "O RLY? That sounds like A CHALLENGE!"
And you shall not rest until it plays on your Commodore 64.
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Yeah, it's called UNDRM and it works on every platform!
ToS (Score:5, Interesting)
However, it is still good to see BT somewhat more in the public eye. Maybe it'll catch on and more people will realize that they're being ripped off.
So I watched the Oscars last night... (Score:5, Informative)
When I saw this announcement, I went to the site and saw they they had a few movies I wanted to see. Not such a bad selection, and even some free stuff! Hell I'd pay for it if its a reasonable price, I thought.
I clicked on a movie to see how much it would cost to download and watch. $3.99 to "Rent". Oh shit, I thought to myself. Rent. That means, DRM. I looked at the bottom of the page:
Well. Funny, I don't USE windows. Hm, guess I'm not part of their target demographic. Oh well, I'll just head over to isohunt then, or walk down to the movie store and get something older. I'm a little disappointed, but
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We only watched it once. But we don't watch movies on a computer.
They are turning their backs on the enourmous market of people who want to watch movies on
their computers, but are only willing to do it on Linux or Mac OS.
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movies that are winning Oscars.
The second point is why would I care about watching movies on a computer. Computers
are more expensive than DVD players. My computer is not in my living room.
Meanwhile, the average
only support Windows. Outside of
How many people go down to the video rental place to rent a movie or sign up
Re:So I watched the Oscars last night... (Score:4, Informative)
How many of customers of this service want to watch movies on their computer? Pretty safe bet to say 100%.
Macs have about 4% market share overall, linux around 3%. (from some quick googling). Though I'd say its a safe bet that the kind of people who want to watch movies on their computers are more likely to be running osx/linux (also consider setups like mythTV boxes). So maybe 10% of their possible market? more?
Either way, the issue isn't quite as insignificant as you tried to make it seem.
Parent
Limited selection? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't see any: Stargate (SG-1 or Atlantis), House M.D., the only Star Trek is movie 7,no American Idol episodes..
So when can I buy the crap I actually want?
Re:Limited selection? (Score:4, Funny)
Consider it a service for them not having it!
Parent
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I predict dissapointment (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I predict dissapointment (Score:4, Insightful)
Without having tried the service, I'm guessing that for the same amount of money ($4) and less time, I could drive (or bike) to the video store, rent a DVD and get home and be watching it in less time than it would take to download - if this was a new release I would have 48 hours to watch - if it was not a new release I would have a week to watch it.
Oh yeah - I could watch it on any TV to which I could hook up a $30 DVD player.
If I watched 5 movies per month, a blockbuster online subscription would be much cheaper and allow me to watch many more movies for the same effort (pointing and clicking) and would not require my to have a broadband internet access at my house (which I do have, but many don't).
I highly doubt that the quality of the downloadable movies is higher than that of a DVD, and I would expect that it is actually inferior to the quality of a DVD.
I am supposed to be happy with paying the same amount of money for a lower quality less convenient option than I already have?
I think a nickel a pop would be a bit too cheap for what they are offering, but I think that $1/download would probably still be too costly for what you get.
Parent
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But for masochist gourmets only.
This service is totally useless (Score:2)
Quality? (Score:3, Insightful)
OH wow movie downloads via bittorent! (Score:2)
Switch to DSL you say? Unfortunately Bell/Tek-savvy do not currently offer service into my area so i'm SOL. I'd love to hear any (Bitcomet port 1720/1755 workarounds) right about now.
And what about uTorrent? (Score:2)
Looks like it's time to develop another Bit Torrent client.
It's too expensive (Score:2)
Looks lame so far (Score:2)
When are the movie execs going to realize that PPV and PTD (pay to download) are only going to really take off when you can download the movie the same day it comes out on DVD?
Downloading and/or VOD means less distributions costs for distributor, faster and cheaper movie for customers. If they decreased the nu
Bouncing around the Mark Cuban question... (Score:2)
Mark Cuban started things off [blogmaverick.com] and Bram Cohen responded [livejournal.com]. Bram's problem is that he mischaracterizes Cuban's argument when he makes his case. For example, right in the title of his blog entry, Bram claims Mark predicts the downfall of Bittorrent.
What I want in digital downloads (Score:4, Insightful)
For rented items, I'm willing to accept time- and device-restrictions. If I rent a DVD from NetFlix, I don't expect to play it on anything but a DVD player. I expect to pay no more than I would at a video store or DVD-rental-by-mail service for a similar product for a similar rental period.
The advantages of a well-done digital rental service are that when ordering, I can
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
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And, from this one [slashdot.org]:
Is there a box I can un-check somewhere in the preferences so I don't have to look at messages that contain the phrase "oh noes?"
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It's right next to the "No Family Guy References" button.