BitTorrent Partners with TV and Movie Companies 155
An anonymous reader writes "BitTorrent Inc just announced that they teamed up with several TV and Movie companies. The new list of partners includes 20th Century Fox, Paramount PicturesG4, Kadokawa Pictures USA, Lionsgate, MTV Networks (Comedy Central, MTV and more), Palm Pictures and Starz Media.
These deals will add a great deal of content to the BitTorrent video store, including popular movies like Mission: Impossible III and X-Men The Last Stand and popular TV-show such as "Prison Break" and "South Park""
Does anyone have details on this one? (Score:2, Funny)
Not details, but strong suspicions. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been thinking though about how you could do DRM on bittorrent-delivered files, and it seems like a problem. Bittorrent only works because you have many people distributing the same file; if each client's copy is encrypted with a personal key (which is the only way to keep people from redistributing them) then P2P won't work.
I suspect that they try to dodge this problem by using a client program that's really, really ugly -- lots of obfuscation, use of keys stored on remote servers, encryption of everything that's written to disk, etc. I assume that all peer nodes are authenticated against a central database as well, and that their communication is encrypted or at least obfuscated (and naturally, the whole thing will be a 'Trade Secret').
There's really not going to be anything good about this service, except as a technical challenge to hackers. Maybe there are some recently-unemployed programmers in Russia who'd like to give it a go?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The o
You're overthinking it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Upon downloading the file, you use a program to unlock it. The program would interact with a web-service. It would charge your credit card, give you a username/password, and it would decrypt the file and merge in your unique signature. You'd never see the key that's used to decrypt the file. It's never stored on your PC and it's encrypted itself with SSL during the key-retrieval.
I'm not suggesting this is how i
Neither method would work (Score:2)
And of course, the "thousands of keys" technique is still predicated on a single symmetric key protecting the file... that's the only one you care about breaking, where you focus your efforts is just different.
Bittorrent can't be used as a sustainable business model to profitably distribute DRM co
Re: (Score:2)
It's like buying a TV and then waking up in the middle of the night to find out they have been using your truck to deliver TVs to other people and thus make money.
To me, it seems like they are taking the wheel we made, making it square and then selling it back to us.
Re: (Score:2)
You really don't know what you're talking about. (Score:2)
This is like saying "A dvd john type could just break AES encryption"
Please. Let's try to have at least a minor understanding of the subject matter before espousing our opinions as facts?
Re: (Score:2)
SSL encryption is to allow A to send data to B without C being able to copy it.
DRM is to let A to send data to B without B being able to copy it.
Except that *by definition* B has to be able to read it. If he can read it, he can copy it.
Re: (Score:2)
Read what you just said. (Score:3, Insightful)
And THAT'S where you strike. The only catch is that not only do you have a free-and-clear copy, but so does anybody else (the key is easier to distribute than the now-un-DRM movie itself). In a non P2P model, the content provider can limit the spread of a key that breaks an official file by using seperate per-file encrpytion keys for each registered user.
No amount of mucking about with SSL or PKI will fix that problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course if I then choose to distribute the private key anyone anyone can decrypt the original file and play it themselves. As soon as one person breaks the client app to save the private keys, the whole DRM scheme is broken.
Re: (Score:2)
The thing is, it's much easier said than done.
Don't be naive.
Re: (Score:2)
Which, as I just mentioned in another comment, is much easier said than done. It's like saying "All you need to do to crack PGP is to "strike" the PGP client." It's true, but you haven't actually seen it done.
DRM isn't perfect, but it doesn't need to be. The only test is whether it's sufficiently difficult to brea
Re: (Score:2)
Huh?
The PGP client app is just a program that does some math. The math is public key encryption. [wikipedia.org] "Cracking" a PGP client app doesn't invalidate the underlaying math but could comprimse the security of those using the cracked app. Attacking an app doesn't always mean you're attacking the math. For example the Buffer overflow in PGP Outlook Encryption Plug-In [mitre.org]
Re: (Score:2)
I was waiting for you to slip into such hyperbolic drivel that you releived yourself of all credibility. I knew it would only be a matter of time, and I was right.
I'm not going to go 15 rounds with an A.C. who, apparently, lacks basic reading comprihension skills. The fact is that I never sugge
Re: (Score:2)
In DRM, you are always given both the ciphertext and the key needed to read it. The DRM tries to stop you getting at the plaintext and the key.
In PGP, you have the ciphertext and the key. But PGP doesn't attempt to stop you getting at the plaintext - that is the purpose of the tool. It is meaningless to attack the PGP client: what more do you want from it?"
This is a perfect example of your jumping to conclusions. Once again you ASSUMED you knew what I meant, so you attacked it.
Dude, you s
Re: (Score:2)
With PGP, I supply it with the key and the cipher text, it gives me the decrypted data.
In the DRM example, I provide the application with a key and the cipher text, the application then shows me the content but refuses to give me the decrypted data.
In the PGP case I can't break the app - it does everything I ask of it anyway.
In the DRM example, all I have to do is persuade the application to return me the decrypted data and there are lots of ways of doing that, e.g. writing a video driver that streams th
Turn in your application developer license. (Score:2)
You can't "crack" PGP anymore than you can "crack" DHM key exchange, or "crack" finding a trivial solution for factoring large composite numbers, or find a weakness in SHA-1.
If any of those things were possible, not only would PGP be broken, BUT SO WOULD SSL.
Face it. DRM that isn't assisted by resin-blobbed cryptohardware is intractable, especially when using irresponsbile, single-symmetric key encoding schemes. Bittorrent and DRM are NOT a good mix, which is my in
Re: (Score:2)
First, you would have to have an account to use this service. That means the "original distributor" has your name, address, phone and credit card numbers. When you sign up, a certificate is generated for you to sign any files you have "purchased". The certificate has a public/private key pair. Doesn't much matter in the scheme of things where the private keys are stored, as the distributor can impress upon you that this key uniquely
Re: (Score:2)
This is basically what I said. But in your example the Public Key would still need to be kept secret. In my example, the distributor encrypts w/ their pub key and the dole out their private key after you purchase the file. The priv key is not revealed to the user, and it's downloaded thru an SSL protected connection.
The point is, there would need to be one one single encrypted version of the file that gets
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
The DRM will be such that you have to use their player, or a player that is compliant with their DRM. It will then not play until you pay - that video for that player on that machine.
Yes, someone could crack it - theoretically. So what.
Don't buy DRM anything!!! It is just heroin and crack for the entertainment industry. If they think they can get away with it because people are buying it, they they will continue to do it. If they get no revenue from it, they will discontinue it. That doesn't mean that
Re: (Score:2)
I can't be the only person who's thought this (Score:5, Interesting)
Take that data, encrypt it with the victim's assigned key, and distribute the video in 2 parts. The encrypted part is personally downloaded, while the bulk data is torrented. Then you just have a special plugin for windows media player or something else that reads both file streams and reconstructs on the fly, never recreating the real file.
20megs out of a 600meg movie would be trivial for them to serve to people and they'd still get the benefit of 600megs torrented.
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, their heads are still up their asses. Gotcha. Thsanks, but when I miss Stargate:SG1 and forget to set my hauppauge to record it, thepiratebay.org and torrentspy.com can fill my timeshifting needs.
Call me when the DRM is dropped, and THEN I will gladly pay for timeshifted shows I forgot to record myself.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Then I guess you won't be a customer, then.
The entertainment studios have already laid down the rules. "We're cool with this as long as the consumer is limited as possible". On the Xbox 360, you can buy TV shows -- for only that Xbox. You can rent HD movies -- for only a couple of days. Even the iTunes store is getting slowly backed into a wall (the restrictions on movies and television shows are a lot more onerou
Re: (Score:2)
2) Private trackers will almost always max out your download speeds, except for the first few minutes after a new post, and they'll frequently have a new title available as soon as, or sooner than, iTunes.
3) The quality on iTunes just plain sucks.
4) $2 is exactly $2 more than I spend on my morning coffee.
Personally, I just PVR everything I want to watch. No fuss, no wait, just done, and if I ever want to watch it on something else, (which i
Re: (Score:2)
Free coffee rarely tastes any good. Especially if the company provides it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm lost (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Cohen's gone (Score:1)
seed? no thanks (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:seed? no thanks (Score:4, Insightful)
Step 1. Get TV and Movie companies to provide content
Step 2. Get end-users to provide storage and bandwidth
Step 3. Profit!!
Re: (Score:2)
This just seems like a way for the publishers to lower the operating cost at my expense.
So lets get this straight (Score:4, Interesting)
The RIAA are working against AllofMP3 (a RU company) to move their business away from legally selling material to a non-existant case.
Something's a bit twisted about that.
Re: (Score:2)
Not to say I'm defending the RIAA or the MPAA; I hate them both with a passion. But it certainly makes sense, and it's not as sinister as it sounds.
Re:So lets get this straight (Score:4, Insightful)
> case.
They'll profit from selling movies.
> The RIAA are working against AllofMP3 (a RU company) to move their business away from legally selling material to a non-existant
> case.
They're not profiting from someone else selling their IP.
Re:So lets get this straight (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll also save money by distributing said movies using your bandwidth, instead of theirs. They're capitalizing on the idea that "torrents are cool" and hope that by simply inserting the words "download using bittorrent" that the geek side of you will be more willing to buy.
It's a shame that in some bid to legitimize itself to the media companies, BitTorrent has quite literally been used like a cheap whore. MPAA gets to save money on bandwidth and distribution costs, and your computer gets to run what I can only imagine will be a constantly-running, branded bittorrent client in the background, using up your bandwidth to save the MPAA money.
BT sold out, or were really stupid - one or the other.
Re: (Score:2)
BitTorrent has quite literally been used like a cheap whore.
Uh...unless Bram Cohen has been pimping his employees out for inexpensive sex, I don't think that it's exactly literal. ;)
What exactly is the motivation behind Bittorrent, Inc.? Its namesake is an open source program with relatively little need for support. They can't really make a "real" business out of that, so they need to partner where they can. What would be an acceptable, "non-evil" way to make money for them, when all they really ha
Re: (Score:2)
The RIAA are working against AllofMP3 (a RU company) to move their business away from legally selling material to a non-existant > case.
They're not profiting from someone else selling their IP.
Then the RIAA should work to shutdown every music retailer in Russia. Allofmp3 pays the same to the record "industry" (as it were) in Russia as every other music retailer, and the RIAA gets the same cut from every track sold on Allofmp3 as they do from any other legit sale in Russia.
Re: (Score:2)
Nothing to see here (Score:1)
That's irrelevant (Score:2)
Does this effect me? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm also curious, if Peerguardian or the like has bl
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't get excited; they're not that cool. (Score:2)
So what's new? (Score:5, Funny)
But I already get those from Bittorrent...
Re:So what's new? (Score:4, Funny)
Does anyone... (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
damn leechers..
Current method illegal (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
absoultly not illegal, if they released the copyright to all the PublicDomain your free to re-broadcast (does even PBS do that???)
on not free as in GPL. Their broadcast, and comerical sponsered.
it is pretty clear re-broadcasting is not allowed by FCC statutes, unless it is exactly synched with the licensed broadcaster (IE you can probably use something like a slingbox and forward
Aaaaaay! (Score:5, Funny)
My Only Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Will I be able to play the files?
I'm deliberately not saying what platform I'm on or which media player I'm using, because, if I need a specific media player or platform, the answer to the question is "no".
Re: (Score:1)
I'm deliberately not saying what platform I'm on or which media player I'm using, because, if I need a specific media player or platform, the answer to the question is "no".
c'mon, MSDOS is dead already - time to upgrade :P
Re: (Score:1)
So, in fact, you don't have a computer, do you?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
the answer via your own criteria is also probably no, due the the 800 different mp4/divx implimentations each of which causes divide by zero errors on each other's players and codecs and generally creates a total nightmare for someone like me, who missed an episode of Lost and just wants to watch that one without having to spend 6 hours hunting through download pages and message boards just to get the entire house of cards perfectly balanced on my PC long enough to w
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What's that supposed to mean? BitTorrent is just a distribution mechanism. The movies you download through it can be in any format whatsoever.
``the answer via your own criteria is also probably no, due the the 800 different mp4/divx implimentations each of which causes divide by zero errors on each other's players and codecs''
Can't say I've ever had a problem with that. But then, I don't download a lot of movies.
Anyway, what I was really getting at in my earlier post is th
Re: (Score:2)
You should try the CCCP:
http://www.cccp-project.net/ [cccp-project.net]
I hear it works well for windows.
OTOH, you could switch to mplayer on linux and have everything work automatically.
Re: (Score:2)
But all that was already available... (Score:2)
Why should I pay to get an inferior product? (inferior in both resolution and filetype)
If they want to make a go at it and entice people, they need to do two things. 1- make it full HD res and SD res at the highest quality possible, make it a filetype that will play on most anything, and finally create
BOGO (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Where does this benefit the consumer? (Score:1)
I like that they are being creative, but if they use consumer bandwidth to reduce their expenses, they need to give the consumer something in return. Karma for sharing that gives
Re: (Score:2)
I think you are falling into the trap of thinking the media companies think of you, and want to treat you like a valued customer, or a customer at all, rather than a criminal from whom they have a right to be paid money.
And it's still... (Score:3, Insightful)
So where's the incentive for me for downloading it via bitorrent and letting MPAA profit from using my bandwidth ?
Re: (Score:2)
Good old Slashdot.
Why should we buy from the bittorrent.com table... (Score:1)
I doubt this extends to DVD rips but I've certainly been able to get a hold of the latest South Park episodes a few hours after they're shown on Comedy Central over the
Right idea, wrong protocol (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider it a discount... (Score:2)
If they use HTTP or some other similar strategy, they will have to pay for whatever connection/infrastructure that can support 500 KB/s * num of concurrent clients. To acheive that, the price they need to charge per their business case is 15 dollars a month.
Now with Bittorrent (or something like it), they can skimp a little on
Re: (Score:2)
I will be very (but pleasantly) surprised if the cost savings are passed down to the consumer.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Right idea, wrong protocol (Score:4, Informative)
This substantially reduces the cost on a content provider that would otherwise need to provision expensive hardware and bandwidth to deliver content via FTP/HTTP. Now they can use the resources of the downloaders and use CacheLogic's infrastructure to provide service even better than the one current BitTorrent networks have and perhaps even better than they could possibly afford to provide by using FTP-like central servers.
Users are motivated to pay BitTorrent and content providers, and not download for free, simply because BitTorrent combined with in-network caching gives a better service than plain BitTorrent. Users that don't pay cannot access Cachelogic's infrastructure. If their pricing is reasonable, I can see this scheme taking off rapidly. I know i would pay 5-10$ to download a movie i want to see now in a couple of hours or less, instead of waiting 2-3 days, while using all my uplink and slowing down my browsing speeds. From the article: "In a joint announcement made today by CacheLogic and BitTorrent, a global network of cache servers has been organized under the name "VelociX". VelociX is the network protocol that governs the actions of a theoretical global community of cache servers. With potentially thousands of networked cache servers at the disposal of the end user, network costs are cut and download speeds are increased significantly.
For example, let's take a look at a CDP enabled client on the prowl for a specific 4.5 gig file. The CDP looks for the closest geographical area for a VelociX swarm, in addition to conventional peers. The VelociX swarm provides the bulk of the file sought after, greatly reducing the reliance on peers. This equates to greatly accelerated download speeds, and since this takes place largely on dedicated servers and not peers, the ISPs costs are reduced.
Unless you plan on downloading authorized content, the network probably isn't for you. In the CacheLogic press release, VelociX will allow "legal content (infringing content is not accelerated) to be inexpensively delivered in minutes instead of hours." Content that is authorized to function on the VelociX network must be manually published via specific hash codes to a central data base."
Re: (Score:2)
And how is this better than simply using Akamai's strategically placed caches to automagically download directly from via http?
Ah, that explains it (Score:1, Troll)
Possible advantage to end user. (Score:2)
And why shouldn't they? The services did nothing that could make them any money. In most cases, P2P did lit
its crap (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
That frustrates me in ways the human brain cannot comprehend. We can send you to the moon, replace your eye so you can see, but we cannot develop a simple little 100 dollar black box that reads ebooks in an ergonomic and easy-to-read way.
Re: (Score:2)
-dave
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not simply lets write some software, it's a hardware issue, which is much more complicated. What constitutes ergonomic and easy-to-read? The size of a PDA? The size of a sheet of paper? Of a standard paper-back book? Color or black and white? Fixed form factor or something that rolls up to make it easy to store.
Look at the eInk stuff, it's cutting edge, just out, not yet perfected, yet you assume that there should
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
When I think of an eBook reader being perfected, this is what I envision.
Something the size of those old apple PDA's...roughly about the size of a small paperback. 512mb of internal flash memory with a CF card port. Adjustable brightness and contrast on the screen, adjustable font size, standard times new roman font, the ability to read the major ebook formats.
Why is that so d
Re: (Score:2)
-dave
Hard (engineering) problem. (Score:3, Interesting)
To simulate a paper book you'd need something that had a contrast ratio of about 80:1, an ISO brightness (reflectivity at 457nm held at 45deg incident) of 80-90, and a resolution of somewhere around 300 dpi, which means a 2400x3000 pixel display for 8"x10".
I think it might just be that making an eboo
Re: (Score:1)
A copy of my previous post:
When I think of an eBook reader being perfected, this is what I envision.
Something the size of those old apple PDA's...roughly about the size of a small paperback. 512mb of internal flash memory with a CF card port. Adjustable brightness and contrast on the screen, adjustable font size, standard times new roman font, the abili
The problem has nothing to do with engineering (Score:2)
The level of technology needed for a useful ebook reader is quite available.
The reason why we don't have ebooks is very simple: DRM.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
That's why it's not just a matter of putting a 486 with 4MiB RAM (Would need some permanent storage in there as well) into a box with a screen. A
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh wait, that's not it. Turns out tons of people want them. What nobody wants is to pay $350 for the reader, $30 for a book (a higher cost than the dead tree version), and then get told when, where, and how many times they can and can't read the book they would own if they bought the dead tree version, but only have a very limited license to with the ebook version.
Bittorrent isn't a network. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You just described Peer Impact
http://www.peerimpact.com/ [peerimpact.com]