Hollywood Looks to BitTorrent for Distribution

daria42 writes "Vinton Cerf, who wrote the original TCP/IP protocol and is currently chairman of ICANN, said this week he had recently discussed BitTorrent with at least two interested movie producers. 'I know personally for a fact that various members of the movie industry are really getting interested in how to use the Internet--even BitTorrent--as a distributed method for distributing content,' Cerf said. 'I've spoken with several movie producers in the last month.'"

Comments

Music video legitimately released via bittorrent

[garagekubrick]

We released a video we made for Portland band The Decemberists to bittorrent on purpose. We've had much greater impact from that than the few times MTV2 aired it.

Wired article details how and why.

For everyone concerned some four weeks later it's been an enormous success.

Does not mean anything

[randomwalker]

I hate to be critical, but movie producers are not movie distributors. In fact a movie producer can be anything from agent, script right holder, banker, to part of a star's entourage. Cerf talking to movie producers is like me talking to cows to judge what Mcdonalds is doing

The movie studios (the distributors) are well aware of bittorrent and the myriad of other distribution technologies that are available. The distributors do not generally distribute directly to consumers, but use middlemen (which include hotel VOD systems, cable, TV broadcasters, airlines, retail stores, rental services, etc). If someone implements a system using bittorrent which meets the security requirements they have, they would license content to it. Bittorrent would just be a component of the system.

Re:It will happen, but not for a long time.....

[FreeUser]

There is a big difference between closing bittorrent sites that act as trackers for pirated materials and using the bittorrent protocol for distributing MPAA's approved legal content.

Sure there is, and that isn't lost on anybody.

The point is that the recording and movie industries have attempted to buy legislation banning the technology itself. This would have made using bittorrent (or any other peer-to-peer technology) illegal even for legitimate means, such as distributing Linux iso images. Now these same industries, who tried their damndest to ban the technology completely, are embracing it. That is news, and as you say, protects the technology, not those using the technology to violate copyright.