Slashdot Mirror
Rent A Downloadable Movie
Syn Ack writes: "The New York Times is reporting (free account, blah blah blah) that five (5) major Hollywood studios (MGM, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers and Universal Pictures) are going to begin offering downloadable time restricted movies. The video will remain watchable for 30 days but will become unplayable 24 hours after it has been viewed at all. Sounds like if you start the movie at all, the clock starts ticking so no peaking until you're ready to watch it ALL. Downloads are expected to be in the 500MB range. However downloads will only be available well after the DVD release of the same movie so as to not cut into DVD sales. Expect to see something late this year or early next. Perhaps the Music People can get some tips from the movie people?" What a bargain.
Please don't forget to put your name on top of the sheet.
Next week, we'll discuss the ROT-13 encryption used in some EBooks. Class dismissed.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
It seems like there's something very wrong with that idea of movies that "erase themselves off your hard drive" after 24 hours...Why does this sort of thing just give me the creeps? Is that just me?
It seems to be part of a bigger picture: The industies in control are literally trying to change the entire way of the Internet right now, to make it fit a more "profitable" model without them trying to change their existing business models.It seems a strange idea to me that anything or anyone but me should control what happens on my hard drive, but that's exactly what we are seeing...software that takes control of your personal computer and works it into a business model contrary to natural structure of the decentralized Internet we use today.
This little thing is not that scary...But behind the guise of lots of these little things lurks the ominous monster of a global information infrastructure controlled by corporations, not by individuals. We need to take this seriously...
-The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
DeCSS was created, and quickly became widespread, because it was the only way to play DVDs under Linux. If the studios have learned their lesson (and I bet they have), they'll release players for as many operating systems as they can think of. This might not slow down the development of a crack, but the crack would not become as widespread, and the media would be less favorable toward it than it was toward DeCSS.
The shareholder is always right.
If they would allow me to view movies in the timeframe that they are in the theater, or just before DVD rentals, this would provide value to me. Charge me as much as a seat in a movie theater, but keep the revenue all to yourself.
But delaying until after DVD rentals are available? Forget it. The service isn't bound to go anywhere.
The movie industry is stuck in the same paradigm. They want to figure out where internet technology can be used to ADD to their current offerings. (Purely chasing up the revenue tree.) What they should be doing is asking, "What do our customers want?" But, there is that paradigm again. We're not customers anymore. We're faceless consumers who will take what they are given.
See how the whole mindset feeds on itself?
OK, for now there's not going to be a huge amount of people who want this, but as it becomes more popular I can see that the mainstream will pick it up much more willingly. There'll always be people with cracked movies just like there's still people who sell pirate videos, but if this service is simple enough then people will use it. People use Pay-Per-View when they could go and buy a priate copy of a movie for less money, so why shouldn't this work.
Additionally, they could eventually extend this to their whole movie library. Want to see some obscure flick from the 50's that never made it onto VHS? Well all you'll need to do is swing by IMDB, click on a link, and you'll be able to download it. This is a good idea (definitely better than just ignoring the problem and letting other people distribute your movies for free), and once they work out this niggles and broadband becomes more widespread I can see the service becoming incredibly popular.
"Didn't you say the neighbors had a copy of this on DVD?"
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.