The Other Side of BitTorrent

ByteWoopy wrote to mention a Wired article giving more coverage to the upside of BitTorrent. From the article: "Film and television executives no doubt wish the increasingly popular BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing system never saw the light of day. Thousands of consumers are using the software to download hundreds of movies and hours upon hours of television programming. But one industry's threat is another's opportunity. There's an upside to allowing viewers to transfer copyright material content over BitTorrent. As noted by Japanese entrepreneur Joi Ito, fans of the Japanese anime series Naruto regularly post translated episodes of the show to BitTorrent, which attracts more fans to the series. The relatively obscure program has spawned a global following in online forums, internet relay chat channels and fan sites."

Comments

No kidding about Naruto

[Paradox]

Typically, anime is only distributed via torrent when there is no american company planning to sell it. This policy is meant to help smooth frictions between american publishers and file sharers. It's hard to argue that money is lost when americans download episodes of an anime that may never even be shown anywhere but Japan, and if no money is lost then a lawsuit is rather pointless.

The day that Naruto got licensed for US distribution, the fanbase seemed to go completely crazy. No one wanted to stop watching. Several groups decided to take their effort "underground" (by which I mean not listed on popular anime tracker sites, only from IRC and obscure group webpages).

If anything, bittorrent is good for series like Naruto. Distribution companies get a free, zero-effort focus group for nearly every anime that comes out. By watching anime tracker stats, it's easy to see which series are a crazy success and which are bombs. This is also much more reliable than watching screening attendance at conventions (which tend to vary wildly by time and location).

It just goes to show that just because you can excercise your copyrights, it doesn't always mean you should. I seriously doubt an anime like Gantz (or even Midori No Hibi, although I think people would argue with me about that) would have ever seen american distribution without a lot of fan support from subbers and the thousands of people who download unreleased anime.

Now, take that further...

[DrEldarion]

You need to take the logic one step further.

1) Series is not available outside of Japan.
2) Internet and fansubbing make series available outside of Japan.
3) Fansubs build series' popularity.
4) Publishers see demand and release series worldwide, seeing huge amounts of sale from fans they never would have had before.
5) Profit.

This works out extremely well for the developer, who doesn't need to spend money advertising, and gets a large amount of revenue they wouldn't have seen before.

On the flipside, maybe this is another reason the RIAA/MPAA are afraid of P2P and the internet in general - it allows content from other parts of the world (that they do not necessarily control) to come over here and become popular.

It's all about control of distribution channels...

[RenegadeTempest]

What people sometimes fail to grasp is that the entertainment industry (RIAA & MPAA) aren't really concerned about piracy. They will bitch and moan about decreasing revenue but those are a drop in the bucket. Most revenue lost due to piracy wasn't real revenue anyways. The people infringing on the copyright would have never bought the product in the first place.

What the RIAA and MPAA are most afraid of is that there is now a free distribution mechanism for artists. they don't need someone to label and distribute their art, they can just push up on a bit torrent. They can by-pass the leeches that only exist to take more from the talented people producing great work. They also can't control what we listen to and what we watch. they make their money by pumping out the same crap month after month and taking a small percentage from the artists.

If they lose control of the mechanism for distributing art, then they can kiss their racket goodbye.

Yeah Right

[Vandil X]

I'm not sure what universe you live in, but the vast majority of those pirating materials on the Internet aren't doing so because of the lack of a well-thought-out legal distribution model.

The reason is that these people believe/expect that everything on the Internet is free.

These are many of the same people that believe people are born with the right to pirate their copy of Windows because Microsoft has tons of money.

Re:Yeah Right

[GMFTatsujin]

I'd back you up here, but I don't subscribe to Slashdot, I adblock all the flash on the page, and don't allow popups.

Funny thing: once upon a time, everything on the Internet WAS free. Pay for access, sure, but once the pipe was open there was a whole world of academics, collaborators, hobbyists, and so on whose whole reason for being on the Internet was to share. Share! Amazing!

Commerical interests have no "this isn't how it should be" claim to stake. They're the Jonnys-come-lately online, and they *still* have to learn how to adjust.

Re:Yeah Right

[AKAImBatman]

I'm not sure what universe you live in, but the vast majority of those pirating materials on the Internet aren't doing so because of the lack of a well-thought-out legal distribution model.

Try again. The lack of a well-thought-out legal distribution model is EXACTLY the reason for rampant piracy. What we have here is the same sort of loophole that brought Napster into existence. The public wants their entertainment media combined with the convenience of the Internet. In the case of Napster, the RIAA tried to ignore the market pressures and stiffle the distribution of MP3s. Yet without realizing it, they only managed to add to an economic vacuum. As you probably know, nature abhors a vacuum.

As a result, every attempt by the RIAA to crush the MP3 craze only served to increase it. Before they knew it, MP3 players started popping up and an entire market grew around something was supposed to be illegal. This prompted Steve Jobs to call the music executives a bunch of idiots, and then go on to figure out a music distribution model for them. Today, iTunes is a highly successful product that has spawned a large number of competitors. Between them, they have caused people to pay for music that they would have otherwise pirated.

The same thing is now happening to the Television industry. Between TIVOs and BitTorrent, the world is demanding digital, on-demand television. The TV industry has been somewhat supportive with things like TV on DVD releases and Cable on-demand(which has probably helped a lot), but can't seem to let go of its traditional content delivery models. This is slowly causing a vacuum which BitTorrent is quickly filling.

Which is really too bad. An Internet distribution model could allow TV producers to completely break free of the rigors of program scheuduling, annual show seasons, required program order sizes, and primetime competition. Instead, shows would compete directly on how attractive they are to the market.

As for movies, I think a vacuum is developing, but it's not a real problem yet. People want Internet content delivery, but are still happy with it being exclusively released to the Theater first. Most of what's going on right now is true piracy that the industry has always had to deal with. As a result, it doesn't currently impact their numbers by much as long as they keep it in check. But in the near future, I predict that people are going to feel much more strongly about having on-demand access to old movie libraries (where old is any movie that has been out for more than a year to a year and a half).