Warner Bros. to Sell Movies Over BitTorrent 319
martinmarv writes "The BBC is reporting that Warner Bros. is to sell movies over BitTorrent. Disappointingly, the pricing is set to be about the same as the DVD, even though the download will only become available at the same time as the DVD release, and can only play on one machine. In distributing films via download, Warner will join the ranks of MovieLink and CinemaNow. Perhaps they should wait to see how their $1.50 experiment works out first?." From the article: "Other Hollywood studios are now likely to launch similar services. They believe movie fans will prefer to pay a reasonable price for a legal downloaded movie rather than risk illegally swapping a computer file that could contain viruses or be a poor quality copy of a film. "
But! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait, sell. Nevermind.
Re:But! (Score:3, Insightful)
The first torrent was bad/poor? Download a different one.
I only say this because their product has the same release date as the DVD, which means that a DVD Rip/Screener is already going to be out.
Maybe the user base just needs to be 'educated' about nomenclature [vcdquality.com] & downloading the sample first.
Re:But! (Score:2)
Now off we go to illegally swapping a computer file that could contain viruses.
Re:But! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a token gesture which offers nothing of value and is designed to fail. Hollywood just wants to crow about being able to offer legal alternatives, their not at all interested in giving the consumer what they really want.
Re:But! (Score:5, Insightful)
How do they expect a DRM encumbered download which costs as much as the DVD to succeed
I don't think they do expect it to succeed. When their half-assed attempt at legal downloads fails they'll have more FUD to spread to lawmakers about evil downloading hurting their bottom line.
At least their accountants will work out a way to write off the losses for the hardware, networking and other things required for this.
Re:But! (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't understand what is so special about movies and music. They are just data/software.
People have been downloading and _paying_ for data/software for well over 10 years now, but the movie and music people can't seem to be able to do it.
Trends I have noticed that apparently the people that are in the business have not.
1) People tend to have more variety and quantity of media today than 10-20 years ago. Its normal for people to have 100-200 CDs worth of audio content today and to have between 20-50 DVDs. 20 years ago, 100-200 LPs were only for music freaks/diehards, and video was pretty much not collected before DVDs. I'm basing this on my experience and observations, I have no hard data behind this, but it seems to be accurate in my observations.
2) Despite the increase in demand and basically an infinite supply, prices have not dropped. In my eye, if DVDs were shipped at $5/movie they would not be able to keep them on the shelves. However, movies are slightly different because their old primary cash cow was the big screen/box office takes. Its a little tough for me to speculate here about how to balance those markets because I really don't participate in the big screen version, nor was I ever much of a box office guy, so I don't know that market. However, music in my opinion and all of the people I have met online and in person is too expensive for what it is. I mean, even downloads of live concerts are about 1/2 or 1/3 of the cost to see the real thing.
3) Quality is dropping, yet for some reason demand is still high. I don't know if this is just a normal perception as one gets in his mid 30s or if this is a real trend or not, but it seems to be a common consensus that quality is not there as it once was. To me, rock music peaked in the 70s and the 60s-70s era bands were still strong in the 80s with a more polished and professional approach. There was a slight resurgence in the early 90s, but things are tapering off from there. Personally, I've been disappointed in most movies all of my life. There are anomalies, but for 1.5 to 3 hours of one piece of material, you have to keep people interested with solid character development and character constancy and, duh, the thing needs a plot too.
I simply do not understand why these markets have such a reluctance to give people what they want and stick with the times. Audio formats used to change fairly frequently, but that has stopped. 78s, LPs, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs -- MP3s are still almost a black market item even though people want them. Movies were pretty much inaccessible in people's homes (and cars I guess now) before the 70s and 80s with the video tapes. Then DVDs came out, and people really liked the form factor, pause and skipping abilities, no rewinding, better quality, extra features, etc. But it looks like the movie studio's media diversity has stopped in favor of media that is unwatchable because of DRM or whatever restrictions for making the media play.
What I see happening, are lower production quality, more grass roots music and video that is shared over the internet, and the big movie/music studios are sitting on the sidelines with their dicks in their hands.
Re:But! (Score:4, Informative)
Its normal for people to have 100-200 CDs worth of audio content today and to have between 20-50 DVDs. 20 years ago, 100-200 LPs were only for music freaks/diehards, and video was pretty much not collected before DVDs. I'm basing this on my experience and observations, I have no hard data behind this, but it seems to be accurate in my observations.
Not disagreeing with the rest of your post, but I don't think this part is accurate. Lots of people had large VHS video collections after the videos became reasonably priced (for a few years they were $80+ per tape, so mostly it was only rental stores that bought them). I still have a few hundred VHS tapes that I haven't gotten around to chucking yet.
And looking at the LP collections of my parents, my wife's parents and their friends, I think it was also quite common to have large LP collections. I know plenty of people who still have boxes of LPs around who were never really heavily involved in music. If you buy a record once a month or so, it doesn't take that many years to amass a large collection.
Re:But! (Score:3, Insightful)
If selling music and movies over the internet becomes standard practise, then nobody needs them anymore. Why would I sign some ridiculous recording co
Re:But! (Score:3, Informative)
What are you talking about? Google for "CD replication service" and you'll find lots of places that will do professional glass masters for you for dirt-cheap prices (assuming you buy CDs in lots of 1000 or more).
If you want to sell your own music, it's easy these days. Find a small recording studio and record your album, burn it onto CD-R, send this to one of these replication services along with your artw
Not sure thats its token (Score:2, Insightful)
If the studios offerred the movies at $1.50 and it only played on WMP, I'm sure 80-90% of computer users would be satisfied with the deal. People get their cheap entertainment without spending hours online trying to find a good/downloadable version.
Cheers,
Ben
PS. Hell, I'd go for it if it played on linux. Finding downloadable stuff on bittorrent is a real pain in the ass nowadays.
Re:Not sure thats its token (Score:2)
Quality of service: it's not iTunes (Score:2)
Re:But! (Score:3, Funny)
one machine (Score:2, Funny)
Re:one machine (Score:3, Funny)
Insights into how? Was "one machine" (Score:2, Insightful)
It would really bite if I lost the ability to play content I'd actually purchased over BT just because I upgraded to a newer box.
The article is deathly light on any sort of details on how the technical aspects of that kind of content protection might be done.
And yes, before everyone chimes in, I KNOW that they'd like me to buy it every time I upgraded my PC
Re:one machine (Score:3, Informative)
Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA: So let me get this straight...I can download a feature film, but can only play it on the system I downloaded it to, while for the same price I could have a DVD that I can play anywhere I wish. Hmm.
Also the issue of extra content (out-takes, deleted scenes, yadda yadda yadda) is not addressed. The article says I can download a 'feature film', but it mentions nothing regarding the bonus features (personally, I despise the bonus features, but I know many people who purchase DVDs with the bonus features specifically in mind). Even if the extra content is included (making for a hefty download), that still doesn't justify the price tag, seeing how the download is locked to one machine.
This doesn't really sound like Warner Bros. "believe movie fans will prefer to pay a reasonable price for a legal downloaded movie rather than risk illegally swapping a computer file that could contain viruses or be a poor quality copy of a film"...it sounds more like:
while,
Thanks for nothing, Warner Bros..
Why aren't they trying the $1.50 experiment [msn.com] here in the U.S.? Apparently, we're not pirating enough.
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:5, Insightful)
Encapsulating the movie in an encrypted executable that phones home for authorization? Ugh.
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:2)
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:2)
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:2)
It does asssume that the key to unlocking the movie isn't found.
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:2)
I assume that Warner Bros' scheme will just distributed the master-key-encrypted video streams with Bittorrent and either offload the encrypted master keys to some kind of insideous local D
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:2)
It'a easy. The market they're trying to appeal to with this is the same market that is already downloading movies. It's the same reason they started selling movies on VHS. People were recording movies off TV onto VHS. That's your market, and they've already invested in your distribution technology. So they have zero cost to begin using your product. Or, with BT, you don't have to develop a new P2P protocol and then con
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:5, Informative)
What the GP was referring to is that Bittorrent relies on the files being the same (or at least having a lot of identical chunks) -- and if the files are the same, then they aren't being encrypted/DRMed in transit, like iTunes' are. Thus, it ought to be fairly trivial to intercept the data before it gets DRMed all to hell on your computer and locked down. At least theoretically
The other option is to send an encrypted file, for which there is only one key, but then once one person recovers the key, they can share it with everyone else who's downloaded the file and you lose a lot of security.
Basically it just doesn't seem like Bittorrent in general is really conducive to transmitting DRMed content, at least in the way that most companies are implementing DRM right now.
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:2)
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:2)
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:2)
Wrong. The iTunes client applies DRM once the song is downloaded. [slashdot.org]
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:3, Informative)
See what DVD Jon says [nanocrew.net] about the situation.
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:2)
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:5, Insightful)
This brings up an even more interesting point. So let me get this straight - WB will charge DVD prices for a less-than-DVD quality download crippled with DRM - and will use other people's computers to serve the bits.
Wow - lower quality, same price point, crippled DRM, and they don't even pick up the cost of hosting.
I'm sold - how do I get my computer to act as a server for them? Because I've always wanted my $45/m for internet to be used at the will of media companies to avoid the hosting fees associated with "allowing" users to download DRM crippled overly-expensive movie releases. Huzzah!
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:2)
Re:Thanks, Warner Bros....I *guess*... (Score:2)
There are a few who actually are useable; Canadian label Nettwerk for example sells real un-DRM'ed mp3's. Painless, fast, works like a charm under Linux, no hoops to jump through.
Wish there were more like them.
No. (Score:5, Informative)
I'll stick with The Pirate Bay for my cross-platform movie needs. Warner Bros. should set up a PayPal tip jar so that I can send them a few bucks if I think their movie was good.
Good idea in Theory (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Good idea in Theory (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Good idea in Theory (Score:3, Insightful)
You and mostly anybody else, but tell that to the Holywood execs. It's a simple problem, except they don't want to see it as such: they're competing with movies in 2 CD format, distributed for almost free, which only cost the downloader the Internet bandwidth and can be used however they please. How do you beat that? Hint: NOT with a 4+ GB download that plays on only one
Designed to fail, with a darker purpose. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's because they want this initiative to fail. It is explicitly designed to fail, miserably.
Distribution of digital files over the Internet is enemy of the content industry. Their entire business model is built upon keeping the supply of their product scarce. The Internet is frightening to them (and always will be) because scarcity of easily-reproducable data is impossible to maintain on a free Internet. The business model that works for the industry is physical media, purchased one at a time. This way control is maintained. The media industry will never stop trying to prevent the free movement of all data on the Internet, because any data could be their data!
This is a smokescreen, nothing more. The movie studios want to be able to go before congress during the future hearings for ever-more restrictive copyright initiatives, saying "We tried to offer legal online distribution: no one would pay for it! Piracy continues unabated! We need to regulate the Internet! NOW!"
Then they will be able to go back to printing physical copies and stomping on the occasional soul who tries to share a file. In the process, they would like to see ISPs be forbidden to provide customers with actual Internet connections: they would like them to be crippled to prevent anyone from providing any content at all. We should good little consumers and buy what they provide: how dare we be allowed to actually contribute anything! Why, that might make the content industry irrelevant. Horrors!
You're Competing with Piracy! (Score:5, Insightful)
If they price them as much as the hardcopies, who's going to buy them? Nobody. Your pirates are trying to escape high prices & your regular DVD buyers are going to balk at the offer for the fact that they could order a nice shiny cased DVD off amazon for the same price.
I highly doubt anyone will use this service if they keep the prices on par with the DVDs. If they offer them at even half price, then you might see some movement from both sides (pirates and DVD buyers) to that middle ground and hopefully recoup some of your losses from the pirates.
Offer downloads so cheap that you run the pirates out of business but leave quality lacking so true fans will always buy the DVDs.
Re:You're Competing with Piracy! (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't imagine that people who pirate movie represent a large portion of the buying public. They don't like paying and they know they don't have to. I don't think you will see a ton of pirates stopping that and purchasing downloads.
Instead, I think you would see people who already buy DVD's buying these downloads. So, to cut the cost of the product would only take people who are already paying a high price for the product, and giving them a lower cost alternative.
Studios make most of their money from DVD sales. It is in their interest to keep the price high. The cost of media and packaging isn't really that high. At least not high enough to justify a significant price break.
Re:You're Competing with Piracy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You're Competing with Piracy! (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids, unemployed people maybe. Adults much less so. At some point you realize: "Hmm, I can either pay for this with 15 minutes of work, or spend 2 hours looking for a crack that might be loaded with spyware. Then I'll probably have to spend a day to reinstall Windows."
If you don't have money, you just "pay" with your time instead. Give me MP3 at $0.1 per song and pirating will be completely pointless. Movies I'd be willing to buy at about $5, with no DRM, as a DVD image.
Personally, I don't buy DVDs. Why? Expensive, insane industry, forced ads in content I'm paying for, DRM interfaces... like hell I will pay for that. Remove all that insanity, offer it with an easy to access system that works from Linux, and I'll happily start buying.
Re:You're Competing with Piracy! (Score:2)
Are these the same people? (Score:2)
Re:Are these the same people? (Score:2)
Some bandits wear eyepatches...
viruses and quality (Score:4, Interesting)
Cost of bandwidth (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks WB. Wonderful business plan you got there.
Re:Cost of bandwidth (Score:3, Insightful)
personally, i have received a number of free rentals through movielink. i will never pay for the service because the cost of a rental from them is the s
Poor quality, or... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Poor quality, or... (Score:2, Funny)
New Computers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Count me out. I'll just stick with DVDs: the price is the same, without the gimping of the product (region codes aside).
Do they know (Score:5, Informative)
They believe movie fans will prefer to pay a reasonable price for a legal downloaded movie rather than risk illegally swapping a computer file that could contain viruses or be a poor quality copy of a film.
No we won't. Not all of us. People who already download movies illegaly now have access to forums where quality copies are available, feedbacks and comments let people judge if the movie is worth the download, some titles are posted before they're released on DVD, many languages, subs and regions can be found rather easily -- FOR FREE. Of course, there's always the crappy cam or the bad compression here and there. But it's not like you pay much for them either...
I think the industry just missed the boat. If they want "pirates" to use their service instead, they'll need to provide some insentive, which same-as-DVD release date and prices are not.
They are right of course (Score:2)
But since Warner's opinion about what "reasonable" means may or may not match the market's opinion, the statement is pointless. But correct.
Bad advertising. (Score:2, Interesting)
Er, I don't know which world divorced from reality the people who came up with this statement live in, but I've (or rather, a friend has) always found that movies downloaded from p2p tend never to contain viruses and are skillfully compressed to preserve good quality.
Why do the content distributors always conflate their offerings? I am sure this pisses a lot of their potential customers of
Worth it for pirates? (Score:2)
It's all their fault! (Score:2, Funny)
Destined for Failure (Score:5, Insightful)
Xesdeeni
Wonder if the consumers will see through it? (Score:2)
I think it's fairly clear who they are aiming for with this: They are not trying to compete with piracy - no matter wh
ISPs (Score:2)
Uh, no thanks. (Score:5, Insightful)
A small step in the right direction, but no thanks. I'd gladly buy an un-DRM'd file that I can burn to DVD and shrink to put on my ipod.
I require AMP (that's Absolute Media Portability). Can I play it on my non-network connected TV in the bedroom? Can my kids watch it in the car? Can I loan it to my friend? If the answer to any of those is "No", then I'm really not interested. If "Yes", then I'll be VERY interested.
It seems incredibly stupid to me for media companies to waste money on physical distribution when they could be distributing bits. But I requite that I can do the same thing with those bits that I can do with physical media.
-S
...and they would be right. (Score:2)
And they would be right. However, regarding "reasonable": I do not think it means what they think it means.
This makes no sense (Score:2)
Re:This makes no sense (Score:2)
1) The file will be transferred unencrypted, and then locked-down on the receiving end by WB's software using a user-specific key. This is stupid, since it's pretty trivial to capture the file in transmission and then you'd have a totally unencrypted copy. Or create a BT client that pretends to be WB's DRM-adding client, but really just writes the file to disk instead. Or, run WB'
maybe it would be like mobile phone DRM (Score:2)
So it could work like that - but I always thought that the only way that was in any way secure was that phones are fairly locked down compared to a PC.
Details of mobile phone drm can be found here [openmobilealliance.org]
Tell me why I should buy it (Score:5, Interesting)
Getting a DVD requires:
1. Going to the DVD store (10-20 minutes and about a buck for gas)
2. Looking for the DVD I want (5 minutes or 50, depends on whether you enjoy browsing)
3. Grabbing the DVD and paying for it (5 minutes and whatever the thing costs).
Getting the torrent:
1. Going on their webpage, looking for the movie, going through the payment routine etc (15 minutes, a credit card and the amount of dough they want for it)
2. Waiting for 10 hours to DL the thing (plus cost for bandwidth if you're not on a flat, which is quite rare here).
So it takes longer, costs the same (with the difference that I'll need some kind of CC) to get something that I can ONLY play on the machine I DLed on, and if I should decide to kill said machine it's gone, and I can't watch it on the DVD player hooked to the large screen, no, I gotta watch it on the smaller PC screen without good sound and other gizmos...
Again, WB, why should I buy it that way?
Or is it just another attempt to "prove" that nobody would "buy stuff" over torrent and that torrent should be shut down 'cause it's only a pirate tool?
Re:Tell me why I should buy it (Score:2)
Depends on what your and their bandwidth supports. My FiOS connection could download a 4.9GB DVD in under an hour. Presuming that all the bells and whistles didn't come with it and you just got the video and AC3 audio stream, download times are even less.
Most of my movies that I've ripped from my DVDs are in the 1-1.5GB range with AC3 audio. A 3mbit connection is fast enough to download a
Re:Tell me why I should buy it (Score:2)
It might work in some areas of the world, but most will just laugh at this offer.
Re:Tell me why I should buy it (Score:2)
Just as an aside, I downloaded the Fedora Core 5 DVD ISO, 4.4GB, in 41 minutes, over my cable modem (connected to a wireless router, and over 802.11g. Wee.
You forgot (Score:2)
Seriously, it is easy to see the convenience in not having to go to the DVD store and still have a copy of the movie in a fairly short time. You can actually carry on with your regular life while the movie is downloading, while going to the store practially wastes an hour of your time.
I say it's a terrific idea, even at the price. Illegal downloaders would probably not pay for legal downloads even if prices were 1/2 of DVDs. Lower than that, the studios don't make much money plus they set
No use to me. (Score:4, Insightful)
My preferred movie characterastics (in order of priority)
1) No (or easily circumventable) DRM.
2) Legal.
3) High quality.
4) Cheap.
This matches 2 and 3, but misses my number 1 priority.
The best match so far is a DVD, since its easy to bypass the DRM in order to copy the movies onto my home built media devices. Other times I end up downloading the odd movie which fulfils 1, 4, and often 3 as well.
Currently for many downloading is the best option by far, which is unfortunate because of its questionable legality. If only the industry would lower the price and remove the DRM it would match all four for me and I would be jumping at it. I think they are just too scared and/or greedy to do that though.
Re:No use to me. (Score:2)
What you want is already within your grasp. Why don't you just make a movie that millions of people want to see and then release it in the model that you just laid out? In that world, everyone is making voluntary choices. You released your film your way and Warner Bros releases their film their way. The consumers are free to weigh all of these factors when making their choice.
Go for it. What's stopping you?
Re:No use to me. (Score:2)
Besides, everyone is already making voluntary choices and I'm already weighing all of the factors (as outlined in my OP)
I was just laying out how those choices could be mutually beneficial, that's all. I won't buy movies with DRM (that actually works) in the same way I won't buy CDs with DRM. Most CDs don't have DRM and they sell just fine. If it's one of those crippled CDs with DRM on that I can't use
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Wonder if this is part of a legal strategy? (Score:5, Interesting)
What they should do (Score:2)
who will seed? (Score:2)
Wow. The clue meter is reading zero. (Score:2)
Geez, why even bother.... (Score:2)
They need to remember they're competing with FREE. If the downloads were $5 max, or if you were able to bur
No (Score:2)
Let's see... (Score:2)
You cannot sell it after you have seen it - unlike the DVD which can, or give away as a gift, etc.
You have to "share" you bandwith, so with a slow upload it can take hours or days to finish - instead of a quick drive to the next shop
You have to pay the same amount of money - for less product (see above)
WHY would I buy it then? If I want to be honest, I get more if I just skip all the hassle and buy the DVD, if I don't
looks like a classic example... (Score:2, Insightful)
Too little too late. (Score:2)
If the studios want my
Peer Impact (Score:2)
If you re-distribute content on the Peer impact network you recive a system credit for your contributed upload bandwidth
http://www.peerimpact.com/ [peerimpact.com]
crap junk trash get lost (Score:2)
Now come on... I always knew some really short minded people have to drive MPAA and the like, but now I have to change my opinion since these guys seem to be even more behind.
At the same time as DVD ? At the same price ?
Why the hell would I buy a digital resctiction managed copy when I can buy the real disk at the same price ? No way, sir, no way.
Such download-selling s
Let the people who like to buy buy DVDS (Score:2)
People are going to pirate, no point in trying to stop it. But most of us want the to buy, for many reasons. We also want to be treated fairly. This is when the masses start to pirate. Why should I
I won't pay the same price for an inferior product (Score:2)
Steve
How It Works (Score:3, Insightful)
The file is DRMed before being distributed
User downloads DRMed file from BitTorrent, using a modified client. This is the clever bit; it will use a distribution network of dedicated caches created and run by CacheLogic [cachelogic.com] - see a press-release on a trial of this technology [cachelogic.com], which act as 'super-peers', greatly increasing download speeds and reliability. This also cuts the amount of upload bandwidth for users.
When the user plays the file, WMP reads the DRM header, which has a URL to get a licence
WMP goes to the URL, which contains a username/password form; user logs in, and receives a licence, for that computer. This also allows the distributer to manage/bill users.
Video Quality (Score:3, Insightful)
A 45 min episode of LOST in 720p Xvid Hi-Def looks GREAT. H.264 would be nice but most computers just can't hack it yet.
Re:Am I an idiot??? (Score:2)
Re:Am I an idiot??? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Am I an idiot??? (Score:2)
what's even more tempting, if you manage to hack the original file distributed by WB, you'll get virus out to the users at a blasting speed and since nobody encodes it over again as it's done in the illegal movies world, there's no chance to not to be infected. and since they are forced to use the same buggy player
Re:Am I an idiot??? (Score:2)
WB are blatantly lying in order to con non-techie types into using their service.
Re:Am I an idiot??? (Score:2)
Making one that exploits a hole in a common video player would be no more difficult.
No, just uneducated. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No, just uneducated. (Score:2)
Re:Am I an idiot??? (Score:5, Informative)
You're not thinking like a Windows user are you? This is the platform that brought us e-mail viruses. E-MAIL VIRUSES for Christ's sake! Who would have thought 10 years ago as we were all laughing at the newbies passing around the Good Times virus hoax chain letter that Microsoft's "innovative" e-mail client Outbreak and Outbreak Express would make it entirely possible to spread very virulent e-mail viruses within a few years? You could get infected without even opening the e-mail message! Ugh. So, do you really trust your Windows PC to not be susceptible to viruses embedded in video streams? I sure don't.
Oh, and as for other platforms, I'd bet you 100 DVD-RWs that the only platform this service will support is Windows.
Re:Am I an idiot??? (Score:2)
But I.. um.. 'know someone'.. who'se been downloading films for years and I have^H^H^H^H^H^H he has -never- seen either a virus or malicious code in an avi file. This sounds like FUD-mongering on WB's part.
Yes, yes you are ... (Score:2)
Re:Am I an idiot??? (Score:2)
So no, there isn't a virus in the movie itself, but the runme.exe that comes with it can install lots of crap malware onto your machine.
I can think of a few reasons (Score:4, Interesting)
I can think of a few reasons (unfortunately Warner Bros does not appear to be implementing any of them):
There's lots of things they could do to add value to the downloaded file (even with DRM) but the whole scheme seems to be set up with the intention to fail so they can say "we tried, but people just want to steal from us".