BitTorrent Becomes Ever More Legit 169
lily_bt writes "BitTorrent just signed a deal with 4 entertainment distributors to add more than 1,600 titles to its video library. From 'SuperSize Me' to The Three Stooges to Bollywood films, BitTorrent wants to offer the most comprehensive service when it launches its pay service. The best part is that this content will be made available by subscription." From the article: "Once distrustful of peer-to-peer technologies, Hollywood studios appear more willing to partner with companies such as BitTorrent and video-sharing site Guba.com, which last month partnered with Warner Bros. to distribute movie titles. BitTorrent, widely used to both legally and illegally swap copies of copyright movies, has been aiming to turn its technology into a tool used for legal services."
cool (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:cool (Score:2, Informative)
If you don't like this, do something about it.
Re:cool (Score:3, Funny)
If you don't complain, then it's legal.
Re:cool (Score:3, Insightful)
And the ISPs are going to cap both legal and illegal ways now. "If you want video, subscribe to our video on demand service, not BitTorrent."
Re:cool (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:cool (Score:2)
My new motto: "Big Brother, not Big Family!"
Re:Justification!! (Score:2)
OMG (Score:3, Funny)
Re:OMG (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:OMG (Score:3, Interesting)
Could be because the movie industry is in almost every respect a bit less evil and a bit less stupid than the music industry. Perhaps because they have the music industry as a bad example on how not to do it.
NAW... (Score:2)
Re:OMG (Score:2)
Great, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Every step they've made so far has been in the worst possible faith. I fully expect this to be another step in the same vein. What's their motive this time? Will the distributed content be so crippled and overpriced as to ensure failure and attempt to strong-arm yet more draconian laws?
Until the RIAA and MPAA are disbanded, I won't be trusting either industry - and I'll be doing my level best to avoid buying their products, even if that means my not having any movies or music at all.
Re:Great, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
I second you on that. I have actually and drastically reduced the number of movies seen and music heard. Nor I waste my time to download them on P2P network. Simply I prefer to spend my time and money to other activities. There are plenty of things to do in one's life to not get bored.. though there are so
De minimis is dead (Score:2, Interesting)
How can one make an independent documentary film if it costs $10,000 to license four seconds of copyrighted TV show that happened to be showing on the television set in one of the documentary subject's room? How can an independent band publish an album if it runs the risk of accidentally tripping over someone's copyrighted melody [slashdot.org]?
Prove that it is possible (Score:2)
Did you even read the link? Would you please prove that it is possible to do what you suggest, that it is possible to write a song whose melody does not coincidentally match the hook of one of the millions of musical works controlled by BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC?
It's like patent pooling (Score:2)
Yes. I haven't heard much if any independent music played on commercial FM radio stations in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
No, because the major record labels and the major music publishers likely have a licensing agreement in place. Such an agreement would lock out independent recording artists in the same way that widespread cross-licensing [wikipedia.org] and pooling [wikipedia.org] of patents among multinational corporations lock out hobbyists.
Re:Great, but... (Score:2)
Lets hope they are not. (Score:5, Insightful)
You've put yourself in the position of a haroin addict, and told the only dealer in town, just how bad your addiction is. Don't take this as an insult, because you certainly have a right to buy what products you want, but it is people like you that makes sure consumers have absolutly no leverage in negotiating a fair deal. The RIAA will take 1 of you over 5 of me, because they can charge you 6 times as much as me.
Re:Lets hope they are not. (Score:2)
No, I work in retail, programming is just a hobby I happen to thoroughly enjoy.
Come again?? How on Earth do you equate enjoying music with a drug addiction?! Mind you, having some good background music makes the time go faster for me while coding, but I certainly won't go into anything resembling a crippling withdrawel. Good God, that's worse than a failed car analogy.
Re:Lets hope they are not. (Score:2)
Fair enough.
"Come again?? How on Earth do you equate enjoying music with a drug addiction?! Mind you, having some good background music makes the time go faster for me while coding, but I certainly won't go into anything resembling a crippling withdrawel. Good God, that's worse than a failed car analogy. Try to make some sense here, will ya? "
Well, you said:
"But music? Gotta have it. No, not the redundent bubble-gum p
Re:Great, but... (Score:2)
Which is why they CARE so much about you. Now if you were a current customer....
Re:Great, but... (Score:2)
But, even though you are one of the most popular persons here on slashdot and the internet and world as a whole (Anonymous Coward), even you cannot completely avoid paying the *AA products, and most people are just too lazy and have the cash to just buy movies and music at Wal-mart or wherever.
Also, not all mo
Subscription (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me guess, it'll be in WMV format, you won't be allowed to burn it to DVD and if you terminate your subscription you'll lose access to any movies you've downloaded so far (Assuming, that is, that you're actually allowed to keep them for longer than 24 hours).
In an attempt to rent... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:In an attempt to rent... (Score:3, Funny)
So hopefully they mean what they say and they'll actually support more than just windows and die soon.
Which I feel would be the best possible outcome, incidentally.
Re:Subscription (Score:4, Insightful)
If they want to make sure that only YOU can watch the movie, or - in case you burn it on DVD and give it away - track you down if you spread copies, they would need to make sure that you get YOUR personalised copy of it (either with a fixed end-of-validity: say, you order your copy at 4:38pm, and it times out 4:37 next day -- or imprinted with some signature so that they will know YOU copied the movie), how would that still work with a distributed protocol a la bittorrent?
I don't see how it could - client caching doesn't make any sense (because of time limits in viewing), and it doesn't make a sense downloading a single block for someone else, just so THEY can download quicker.
Or - they go and encrypt all movies exactly the same and give you a temporary key for the file to allow you to decrypt it for a short while -- but is there a format that would allow for changing keys? (WITHOUT the danger of someone finding a way to crack the thing without knowing a temporary key? In that case, ANYONE could download a movie and decrypt it permanently - couldn't they?)
Don't steal cable TV (Score:2)
That's what the DMCA was originally intended for: to keep people from doing the Internet equivalent of "stealing" cable TV.
Re:Subscription (Score:5, Insightful)
This question came up the last time the idea of legitimate, DRM-ed P2P software was discussed, and I didn't see any answer.
The whole advantage of BT versus a direct transfer protocol is the client-to-client aspect, which can only work as long as each client wants the same file. This means that you can't encrypt every file with a per-user/per-file key, and have to rely on the client software to apply the DRM to the final file. (As I believe iTunes does -- or used to do, anyway; wasn't the whole point of pyMusique that it could save files without applying the DRM?)
I have no idea how the system actually works, but if I were going to design something like it, I'd say that you'd have to have files that were encrypted with a per-file global key (this theoretically limits their use to users of the service, rather than just everyone, at least until the files+key escape onto the net) and then encrypt the files as they're written to disk (including the temp files) with a per-download key which would be used to enforce the expiration and single-user nature of the files. The keys would have to be kept inside the application, or inside the Windows Media framework, and the system would depend fundamentally on the security of the client software and the its prevention of user access of the keystore.
Oh, and the peer-to-peer connections between various clients would have to be encrypted with randomly generated keys, so that a user couldn't just capture packets flowing into the machine and reconstruct the un-DRMed file that way. This handshaking could also be used to (attempt to) verify the integrity of the clients to each other, so that a user couldn't inject an untrustworthy client and get un-DRMed content -- although I think it's impossible to block this avenue completely in the long run. (This is the pyMusique approach, at least as I understand it: simulate a client and get the file as normal, but just don't apply the DRM as the 'real' client does. However a P2P based system is more vulnerable to this attack than a centralized, iTMS-like service, since you can't arbitrarily change the handshaking procedure whenever you want: older versions of the client will still be out there, talking to each other, unless you have some sort of remote killswitch or enforced auto-updates.)
That I know of, there are at least parts of the Windows Media DRM system which remain unhacked, including it's key-management functions for DRMed files; although I suspect this is not due to any fundamental features of the system but more because of its limited use right now (and easier ways to bypass it that don't involve breaking the DRM itself, i.e. Audio Hijack). In the long run, a system like this can only work with any kind of security with Treacherous Computing technology that restricts the user from ever accessing the keystore, and even then I'm not sure you can guarantee security that way.
Because what you're trying to do is give the user access to something and keep them from it at the same time, all DRM systems are a bit schizophrenic, and this is no exception.
Re:Subscription (Score:2)
If this is indeed the case, I look forward to it failing dismally.
Re:Subscription (Score:2)
paying to seed, GREAT IDEA (Score:2)
it's not like i use my computer for work or anything. i will spend all of my time downloading movies legally via legal bit torrent, then while i'm watching the video i can seed it! it is the perfect plan!
Re:Subscription (Score:2)
Gripe all you want, Slashdot hordes, about Apple's DRM, but at least Apple's is cross-platform. Microsoft hasn't even bothered to try to port theirs to OS X.
Re:Subscription (Score:2)
I believe this will not succeed.
How is bittorrent a business model? (Score:5, Insightful)
It just doesn't make sense to me why anyone would pay for this.
"Pay us a fee, you can get movies, but you have to share the bandwidth you've already paid for?"
Re:How is bittorrent a business model? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have broadband at home, but I spend most of my time working in the office. It would be nice to let bittorrent use my connection while I'm not using it and when I get home I'd be able to download, say, 3 films or something.
It reminds me of the old time mp3 FTP file sharing: if someone uploads 1MB, then this account would be able to download 10MB.
Anyway, I usually watch a movie a day. If the monthly subscription is cheaper than a cable, or DirectTV pay-per-view or even renting a movie each day, it would be fine by me to only "own" a movie for 24hs.
Re:How is bittorrent a business model? (Score:2)
But, stuff happens. Sometimes you can't finish watching the film, because something cropped up. If you own the DVD, you can go back at any time. Even if you rent from a shop, you can watch it the next night. Sure, you might incur a small fine, but at least the media doesn't magically disappear.
Re:How is bittorrent a business model? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:How is bittorrent a business model? (Score:2)
Re:How is bittorrent a business model? (Score:2)
Movie a day??? (Score:2)
I know this isn't the point of the topic, but that interests me. I watch a movie a month! Maybe 2 because of rentals. Which one of us is out from the norm? Now I'm going to have to ask my coworkers this question. Are you including TV shows as movies?
So I assume a new movie comes out every few months. Now there is a significant set of existing movies so it is possible to watch more movies per month than the number of new movies that are made per month. But one
Re:Movie a day??? (Score:2)
But that's almost all I spend with TV during weekdays. On weekends I tend to watch a bit more, but not much more.
BitTorrent, Inc. versus "bittorrent" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's kind of like what would happen if Yahoo! had named itself "HTTP" back in the early 90s.
What's basically happening here is that a company (BitTorrent) is marketing a service which (I think) uses the bittorrent protocol to share DRMed movies, as part of a subscription service.
From a technical standpoint, this has as much to do with the Pirate Bay's use of BT as Apple's iTunes does with AllOfMP3.com, since they both use HTTP. Which is to say, basically none.
However, from an economic/political standpoint, this could be a good thing depending on how you look at it. Because BitTorrent, Inc. is the 'public face' of the BT protocol, whatever it does reflects on the perception of bittorrrent generally. If it's perceived as being legitimate, then it dampens the kneejerk "bittorrent == piracy" reaction, even though the majority of the traffic using that protocol on the network at any given time may be illegitimate or pirated. This perception is important, since it may be what drives ISPs and others to filter, block, or ratelimit packets on their network. As in many aspects of life, what people perceive to be the truth is far more important than what's actually the case.
I would wager that at some point, as BitTorrent, Inc. tries to clean up its image, that it will probably try to keep other file-sharing systems from using it's name and trademark -- Azureus will have to be a "distributed peer-to-peer simultaneous transfer client" instead of a "Bittorrent client."
Re:BitTorrent, Inc. versus "bittorrent" (Score:2)
Damn! Why didn't I think of that?!?
Too late to enforce the BitTorrent trademark. (Score:2)
I'm not 100% sure of trademark law but I don't think you can take a word that is already in common usage and trademark it unless your trademark doesn't overlap with the existing usage of the word. In other words, you can't trademark the word 'Chair' if you are using it to sell chairs. If they want to trademark 'BitTorrent' it has to
Re:Too late to enforce the BitTorrent trademark. (Score:2)
AppleTalk. Ethernet. Myrinet. Those are all trademarks. BitTorrent is hardly a common word.
Re:How is bittorrent a business model? (Score:2)
Net Neutrality (Score:3, Interesting)
This method of distributing large files which require a lot of bandwidth does an end run around the telcos who are trying to charge large sites extra money, without the need for specific "Net Neutrality" legislation.
If YouTube were able to distribute their video content (at least the most popular ones) via p2p, they wouldn't need such a large pipe if they're only seeding and running a tracker-like service. The p2p user base will share amongst themselves (which is more efficient anyway for the ISPs). I
Re:How is bittorrent a business model? (Score:3, Interesting)
I tried WoW twice - once during beta and once again recently. In the beta the BT client maxed my bandwidth 100% - maximum uprate and downrate - for a 4.5GB file. The heavy load made my made my modem reset every 20 or 30 seconds and it took me days of dedicated transferring to downlo
Re:How is bittorrent a business model? (Score:2)
Re:How is bittorrent a business model? (Score:2)
Emotion. People trust businesses more than people, even though businesses are just an abstraction of people that are more likely to screw them vs doing business with just individual people.
Does that make sense?
Well, although there is little that can be done to stop a business, there are many checks and balances to make that business exist in the first place. Neither the article summary, nor the article, nor myself are clear yet, so keep reading.
In this context, Bittorent
BitTorrent Becomes Ever More Legit (Score:3, Informative)
DRM? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:DRM? (Score:2)
-Eric
"My own content"? (Score:2)
It's not "your content", as you do not own the copyright in the works. Even if it's an independent film and you're the director and/or producer, it's not "your content" because the MAFIAA reserves the right to take you to court over four seconds of someone whistling or four seconds of a TV being on in the background.
More noise to hide in? (Score:5, Insightful)
Annoying protocol (Score:2, Informative)
Coupla points (Score:3, Interesting)
2. How much is this gonna cost? Unless it's significantly cheaper than purchasing a DVD, I doubt it'll take the world by storm - there is a certain trust in the DVD format. No mention of prices in TFA - any clues?
3...
Re:Coupla points (Score:2)
>>1 Gigabit? That's a bit of an outrageous claim, isn't it? Obviously, BitTorrent speed increases with current download demand, but hang on: 1 Gigabit???. Who has that kind of connection speed, exactly?
Hell, they can claim up to 1 terabyte per nanosecond.
The key phrase here is "up to"... by definition, they could pass 1kb per hour and that claim would be v
Re:Coupla points (Score:2)
Re:Coupla points (Score:2)
Now all we need... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Now all we need... (Score:2)
I don't think we do. Net neutrality is kaput and movie companies can afford the fast lane.
BTW, use Azureus and turn on encryption support to get full speed on torrent-crippled ISPs. Encrypted packets, even those sent over the default torrent ports, can't be recognized as BT traffic so they pass through at full speed.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Now all we need... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Now all we need... (Score:2)
That will only work if your ISP is sniffing every packet and trying to decide whether or not it is a bittorrent packet. Many ISPs simply throttle any traffic on any port that is a commonly-used setting for some file-sharing program. Less effective, but cheaper.
Re:Now all we need... (Score:2)
If hollywood is making a million bucks, then your ISP wants a cut of that money to pay for the unexpected bandwidth usage because of things like this. Everyone will want a cut- new taxes, new royalties, new encoding fees-- if there is anyway to get into that million bucks, folks will find a way and raise it to two million bucks (and double your cost).
Part of the reason the internet took off so fast was that all these middlemen and overhead costs were negated for a while and you could
Compensation? (Score:5, Insightful)
I a parallel would be if the local pizza company offered to sell you a pizza for half price, but only if you delivered a pizza to another customer whilst you're at it.
Re:Compensation? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Compensation? (Score:2)
And for those of you too young to remember, yes there was a time when grocery stores did all that FOR you. I haven't seen this in the states in years (except at military commissaries, which still did this last time I went).
-Eric
Re:Compensation? (Score:2)
Re:Compensation? (Score:2)
Of course, it's the same way at gas stations too. They used to have an actual attendent (not just some guy sitting behind a counter in their "store") and would even check your oil, clean your window, and refill your wiper flu
Re:Compensation? (Score:3, Insightful)
I would bet that... (Score:2)
Re:Compensation? (Score:3, Funny)
Since when is a subscription good? (Score:4, Funny)
s/best/worst
Re:Since when is a subscription good? (Score:2)
My DVD & CD shelf is a testament against buying wihtout finding out whether something's good or not first. After the good old days of Napster when you could try out an album before buying it, I just haven't bought hardly anything because I have a 50% failure rate for finding good CDs.
As for movies, unlike music, I gene
why? (Score:5, Insightful)
all of those and more are already available on bittorrent. Hell there is already HD Rips of most content available via BT.
How do they expect to compete with the illigit stuff? I can either download and play the illigit items on anything I own or pay for the content and only play it on the windows machine with the approved player?
no thanks. Offer it without DRM so I can play it on my archos, mythbox, and other items that are not approved or I am not buying.
Re:why? (Score:2)
Does this mean that in the mean time, until DRM is dropped, that you'll just continue to steal the same content?
Re:why? (Score:2, Interesting)
AS for TV shows, yes I still get some off bittorrent, the networks can go pound sand as far as I am c
Re:why? (Score:2)
Re:why? (Score:2)
"How do they expect to compete with the illigit stuff? I can either download and play the illigit items on anything I own or pay for the content and only play it on the windows machine with the approved player?"
The iTMS seems to be doing well, despite the fact that DRM-free versions of the same content are usually available via P2P. Or via Russian sites like allofmp3, which are sorta legit, because you're paying, and the Russians assure us that the artists are being paid.
The quick answer is that ther
Re:why? (Score:2)
Truth #1 - 99% of people want to watch video content on their TV at home. Not on an iPod but at home. The quality of the content for the iPod sucks when the DRM is cracked and is scaled up for TV viewing. They need to release at LEAST 640X480 for it to be viewable at home on a TV larger than 15 inches. For people to be all over it hen it needs to be released at better than CATV/Dish quality. This is not hard, but the c
DRMed to the dirt (Score:3, Interesting)
I dont want subscription (Score:3, Interesting)
I can already get that quite nicely via NetFlix etc. I want to be able to pay 2 (maybe 5) bucks and download the movie NOW. I dont mind if I have watch it within a week or even within 24 hours before the DRM kicks in, but I dont want to have to pay when I dont use.
Movies on demand. Thats what we want.
ObPA (Score:3, Funny)
Roadblock (Score:4, Interesting)
It's almost like these companies don't do any market research at all
If someone can develop and popularize an open source standard DRM format that has REASONABLE (or at least adjustable - so that I can choose to buy things with less restrictions) restrictions call me.
Re:Roadblock (Score:2)
Re:Roadblock (Score:2)
You are not the target market for this service. This is targeted at the 99% of regular people that actually pay for stuff: they go to Blockbuster, subscribe to Netflix, and visit the multiplex theater.
I love it when geeks believe that they are so "bleeding edge" that they must be the target demographic for any technology. Here's the facts: we're geeks... other than influincing corporate IT purchases, we represent a miniscule speck of the consumer market for anything. We're not hip, and we generally don't
Re:Roadblock (Score:2)
I would assume BitTorrent's aim is to become the iTunes Music Store of movies. Which is certainly not aiming at a hard-core techie audience.
Helps Net Neutrality (Score:4, Interesting)
The more the big content providers find ways of distributing content directly to the consumer the more interested they will become in telling ISPs to stay out of the gatekeeper business.
Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Good first step, and I don't agree with the people complaining about DRM on the movies...in the world we live in, where people will take anything not nailed down, it's kind of a necessity.
The best part (Score:3, Insightful)
The best part is that this content will be made available by subscription.
Best for who, exactly? Presumably the movie companies, not the customers. This way you get to keep on giving money for the subscription, and when you finally decide to stop, you have no products to show for it.
I for one will consider downloading albums and films legally just as soon as a method of selling them second hand legitimately appears. Until then, I'll stick to tangible formats which still give me that right.
Its the right formula for Hollywood .. (Score:2, Interesting)
a)
b)
c)
Consider this. Whatever is running on your computer, is 'owning your computer
Selling out (Score:2)
just one question (Score:2)
And will it work without my having to switch platforms?
Bittorrent currently functions with linux, and that's most of the reason I use it.
I truly hope that their service will let me watch those movies LEGALLY on linux.
Nothing else besides a true lockout of given platforms would piss me off more!
Re:Misleading title (Score:2)
Writing headlines is a great job!! It must have been quite challenging! I've always admired the BBC's headlines in Firefox's "Recent Headlines" RSS - not only must the story be summarized, but the column is so narrow that there's only room for about 25 characters!
Re:Misleading title (Score:2)
I'd rather see titles about AMAZING things written by the people than things that must conform to CowboyNiel or Zonk's philosophy.
I mean, how many times do we see these AMAZING stories on
Evolution iz real, ID is teh suxor!11
isreal r terorit
openoffice.org iz way gooder than M$ 0ff1c3
guy in basement proves god isnt rel
Then when you try to submit a counter story you get this
Story REJECT
Re:Misleading title (Score:2)