Peerflix Launches P2P DVD Sharing Service

Dotnaught writes "Peerflix has offically launched, ending a 12 month beta test. The company manages the peer-to-peer trading of physical DVDs (with CDs and videogames coming soon) by mail. As the article in InformationWeek suggests, while such trades may be legal under the first-sale doctrine of U.S. Copyright Act, content owners won't be pleased -- discs are easy to copy and there's ample precedent to suggest users will dupe discs before trading them."

Comments

as opposed to the NetFlix project?

[way2trivial]

rent it all, copy and send back? is this less/more offensive than netflix= just because there is no monthly fee?

Re:as opposed to the NetFlix project?

[PunkOfLinux]

Indeed it is! Why? because free = 'bad for the artists' (actors, musicians, etc)

Re:as opposed to the NetFlix project?

[ghstomahawks]

exactly ... but it happens anyway. The real genius is a company finding a way to make money off of illegal scheming of peoples. Rock on!

Re:as opposed to the NetFlix project?

[radicalskeptic]

Speaking of "no monthly fee", does anybody know how much this costs? I noticed it is not free, but I couldn't find how much it costs to be a member, and when/why they take the fees.

Re:as opposed to the NetFlix project?

[dasunt]

This is more offensive because it encourages you to use your rights under the first-sale doctrine.

It also pisses them off because no money flows to them. Netflix and every video store also annoys them, but its (mostly) too late to stop that, at least in the short term.

They won't be happy until they get a fee everytime a person views their movie.

Greedy bastards, aren't they?

Re:as opposed to the NetFlix project?

[Anonymous Coward]

most video stores use something called PPT, or "pay per transaction". rental versions of movies are typically more expensive than the later consumer dvd's (though that is changing). usually, rental stores use a broker company to rent the movies, without having to figure out inventory management.

in this scenario, the studios get money from every rental. the only exceptions that i know of are blockbuster and hollywood video, and hollywood video was rather recent (last 5 years or so) that they went in-house.

Re:as opposed to the NetFlix project?

[incabulos]

Libraries do a similar thing, and no one is stupid or greedy enough to call for the destruction of said libraries.

Remember that whole 'To promote the progress of science and useful arts' justification of the existance of copyright? I would argue that as soon as this justification is not being met for any particular copyrighted work, then copyright for that work should be nullified such that it is then part of the Public Domain in perpetuity.

How does burning down a library _promote_ science and the arts? How does a copyright owner demanding the destruction of copyrighted works fulfil this criteria?

There exists now DRM that can destroy music/video and other IP remotely if the copyright holder chooses to use this ability, like how TIVO is now being told to destroy free-to-air recorded TV shows after a few days, or like how iTunes or WMA will destroy your music should you not placate the record companies with sufficient monetary tribute.

Its all a scam, all of it - the entire industry are criminals in cahoots with corrupt government.

Re:as opposed to the NetFlix project?

[Cryptnotic]

And hence, legalize ca**abis!!!!!

No need. Companies already make tons of money on pipes, bongs, those vaporizer things, rolling papers, et cetera. They just say it's for tobacco use only.

Re:as opposed to the NetFlix project?

[jseale]

They won't be happy until they get a fee everytime a person views their movie.

And of course this will never happen unless the cable movie channels go completely VOD which would in some cases be unfeasable, and leave us not forget the ungodly long lag time in between theater release and the time that most premium cable movie channels run these movies.

Asks about piracy

[sdaug]

I've been using Peerflix through the beta test. Every time I receive a disc, it asks me if it appears to be pirated. I assume they would then take action against the sender if this is the case, but I don't know for sure.

Re:Asks about piracy

[modemboy]

How would you tell if someone pirated it?
I believe the submitter is suggesting that the end user would make a copy, keep the copy, then send on the original, not the copy...

Re:Asks about piracy

[Pichu0102]

Hmm, so if it appears to be pirated, people can report it themselves. Sounds a bit like distributed anti-piracy, except done manually by people using a service.

Re:Asks about piracy

[aussie_a]

The problem isn't sending pirated discs, but pirating the disc for personal use and then sending the original back.

Me, I've attempted to use way too many pirated discs (it wasn't mine, it was given to me by friend(s) and I didn't realise until I started watching it). The quality has been so shit that I've given up. Sure there's ways to pirate stuff while keeping the quality, but I've been burned so many times (friend rents a DVD and burns it) that I've given up with all of it and now refuse to watch any pirated movies. If it's good enough to watch, it's good enough for me to spend some money on it.

Re:Asks about piracy

[sdaug]

Yes, that's possible. And kind of encouraged in the fact that the DVDs are shipped without any case or cover art or inserts. I'd expect people would be more likely to copy and pass it on if they don't have the artwork and such. You also don't even get the bonus discs, just the disc with the movie itself.

Re:Asks about piracy

[Neil Blender]

How would you tell if someone pirated it?

I usually see a little box drawn on the disc with a sharpie. Next to the box, the word "copied" is written. If there is a check in the little box, well, you know it's been pirated.

Re:Asks about piracy

[xenocide2]

Actually, you're forgetting pirated in Hong Kong / China pirated. The far more popular kind of pirated. I've seen plenty of pirated hardware for consoles, and the same holds true for DVDs. The worksmanship is far superiour to your average burnt in a DVD-r quality, but still not a decent release. Pirated carts are typically much easier to spot, since they usually don't work right and the labels look like trash. This is the sort of piracy that netflix can prevent by purchasing in bulk from reputable distributers, that peerflix can't quite filter for.

But the submitter probably was suggesting the usual rent-burn-return piracy. It's just not the only form out there is all.

Re:Asks about piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder if that new anti-piracy lab ( http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/05/09/20/1716226.shtml ?tid=97&tid=126&tid=155 ) could have been motivated by this. Good timing either way.

Re:Asks about piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

You should get some more competent friends.

Re:Asks about piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Pirated hardware? WTF?

Re:Asks about piracy

[flyingsquid]

How would you tell if someone pirated it?

Scratch marks. The pirate will leave scratch marks when they put the disk in its packaging 'cos they have a hook hand.

Plus, the notes on the back of the box differ in telltale ways from the usual fare, for example they might say stuff like "Ahar me mateys, this be a fine film, 'two hooks up' raves the critics! The whole crew will rejoice at this swashbuckler of a picture, plus an extra DVD with a treasure chest of bonus scenes! Rated ARRRRRR!"

Re:Asks about piracy

[xenocide2]

Never seen a SNES cartridge with a label done in sharpie? Or one of those 60-in-one games? Here's a page with a ton of pictures of pirated megaman games!

Re:Asks about piracy

[deathy_epl ccs]

The real problem is going to be when the Ninja come out on the side of the MPAA on this issue...

Re:Asks about piracy

[DDLKermit007]

Your friend is a moron. Backup just the movie and not the mass of extras crap NO ONE CARES ABOUT but an impotent monkie. DVD Shrink makes life way better too =)

Re:Asks about piracy

[Xarius]

If it's good enough to watch, it's good enough for me to spend some money on it.

How do you know it's good enough to watch before you've watched it?

Fighting The Waves

[JordanL]

How would any media corporation of any kind fight something like this on any principal but that they think all their users are lying, cheating bastards?

And even then... would companied like Paramount have to sue themselves for owning something like Blockbuster?

Re:Fighting The Waves

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple, let the service create a market if it can and eventually go after it's customers in a one stop tiered based service offered by the MPAA.

You can't beat the convience of *real* home theater and there's a truly massive void begging to be filled.

Before this all happens, computers need to be prevented from infringing on copyright law. In a perfect world, it'll happen with vista and next gen hardware.

Validating newer content ought not be a problem.

Conversion Rate?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, like what is the conversion rate? 1 Gattaca = 10 Star Wars Episode I = 4294967295 Gigli?

Re:Conversion Rate?

[RandomPrecision]

Don't more Gigli's make it worse?

Re:Conversion Rate?

[Philip K Dickhead]

Like they already do with NetFlix?

I seen a lot of copies of "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Fight Club" with Sharpie labels on people's shelves at home...

Re:Conversion Rate?

[KillShill]

but not many copies of "Hackers"...

irony? i know at least one person who doesn't think so.

RTFA

[magicchex]

"A 99-cent transaction fee is charged for each DVD acquired, and there's a $4.95 signup fee that includes five free trades. To each trade, add the cost of 37 cents for postage; there's also the cost of ink and a piece of paper that will become the self-printed disc mailer."

Re:RTFA

[radicalskeptic]

Thanks.

Re:RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

99-cents a DVD + expenses? I can rent a DVD for that much, this whole idea seems kind of silly.

Re:RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

You're comparing apples to oranges, this is BUYING a DVD for a dollar and change. pretty good deal, if you ask me.

Lying, cheating bastards

[Barbarian]

They already think everyone who uses their product is a lying cheating bastard who deserves their scorn.

Reference:
- the "do not pirate" commericals in a theatre, after you've paid to see the movie
- The FBI warning at the beginning of every DVD that you can't fast-forward through
- Unskippable advertisements on DVDs, especially rentals

Re:Lying, cheating bastards

[JordanL]

This may be true, but that isn't a court case. Proving what they need to with this system would be nearly impossible without the MPAA storming people's houses...

Re:Lying, cheating bastards

[B3ryllium]

Have you tried chapter-skipping? It usually works for me, generally skips to the next bit until you get to the menu.

Re:Lying, cheating bastards

[E8086]

Can't forget the FBI anti-piracy warning now being printed ON the disks, yes they ruin the woderful disk art are by printing the anti-piracy seal on the disk itself. "FBI Anti-Piracy Warning: Unauthorized copying is punishable under federal law" yes, I know that and since I paid for it and own it I'm only going to make the authorized copy for my iPod. When are they going to realize that when someone buys something they're not going to turn around and give it away? The "pirates" who distribute it are the ones who got it from industry insiders before the please don't copy parts were added.

Re:Lying, cheating bastards

[Eq 7-2521]

In my experience this does usually work, but it does depend on both the player and how stringently the DVD was authored. I have had some DVDs that are extremely locked down where I cannot skip past certain things no matter what buttons I push (on my Panasonic DVD-R30). Even when one of the buttons does work (menu, next chapter, FF (4 times to get it to 16x and then still some waiting), title), it's still irritating to have to have tried all those combinations just to skip some stupid screen or advertisement. Thankfully, many cheap DVD players (like the jWin something or other I have upstairs) generally ignore the Prohibited User Options on the disc.

Re:Lying, cheating bastards

[B3ryllium]

Yeah, I concur with how annoying it gets. Shaun of the Dead was nicely done ... and, in fact, I actually watched one of the previews (Blade Trinity, which was a good movie IMO. Compared to the 2nd one, at least.)

Re:Lying, cheating bastards

[pete-classic]

Try "mplayer dvd://1" or "xine dvd:/1" from the console. Works every time.

Every time I find myself using a "real" DVD player I'm appalled at the amount of fucking around that is required to actually play the movie.

-Peter

Re:Lying, cheating bastards

[cpt kangarooski]

What's sad is that the seal is untrue. Unauthorized copying _may_ be punishable under federal law, but there's no guarantee that it is. Depends on the circumstances.

Re:Lying, cheating bastards

[KillShill]

have you tried not giving those bastards your hard earned money?

they're not far off from the computer/video game industry.

and the reason being, is we have, no offense, people like you who don't even take a stand intellectually, let alone actually. you just find new ways to bypass the little problems but you feed them money to keep them afloat to ensure you new problems down the road.

can you at least think they're not the good guys while you're watching their dvds, enjoying their music and playing their games?

Re:Lying, cheating bastards

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you can do like me. Just quit consuming the crap. I don't even want to see it. Much less waste my time and plastic on burning a copy.

I've got better things to do, like work to jobs two be able to afford the gas in my car to get me to my too jobs*.

* Yes I'm exaggerating. But for how long? I've got food, shelter, clothes, internet access, and functional PC. Not much to complain about. I guess if you want to pay for the propaganda that infects your mind, that's your business.

Re:Lying, cheating bastards

[internewt]

My Wharfedale DVD player does respect the non-skipable notices, but I found (very quickly) that if I put a disk in, hit stop several times so it stays displaying the DVD logo and then press the menu button it will jump straight to the root menu.

Re:Lying, cheating bastards

[rev0102]

Ironically, I've found the best way to deal with this kind of thing is ripping the DVD to my computer and removing all "prohibitied user operations", warnings, and/or advertisements, and then burning to DVD-R.

Why use this instead of Netflix?

[NineNine]

And why would I even consider using this instead of Netflix? With Netflix, I have every DVD I could imagine one day away, and if there's something wrong with it, they'll send me a replacement. With this setup, I'm getting DVD's in who-knows-what condition, in who-knows-how-much time from who-knows-who. Oh yeah, and I'm still paying, possibly more than Netflix. Where do I sign up?

Re:Why use this instead of Netflix?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda what the P2P networks are to the uninformed.
 
With Netfilx you pass money onto The Corporations That Be. With Peerflix, you trade your rights and a product guarantee.
 
This might work out... Then again, The Corporations That Be might start to be friendly, and play nicely with the rest of the world rendering business like this obsolete.

Re:Why use this instead of Netflix?

[dasunt]

Different strokes for different folks.

Assume that you get 3 movies out each week from Netflix for $17.99. That's $215.88/year, and with 52.18 weeks in the year, that's 156.54 movies a year, for the cost of $1.38/movie.

Peerflix costs about the same ($.99 + $.37 = $1.36/movie).

So what is better? If I wanted to rent movies, I'd use Netflix. If I wanted to own movies by trading out movies I don't like in my collection, I'd use Peerflix.

Disclaimer: Happy Netflix customer. ;) I prefer to rent, not own.

Re:Why use this instead of Netflix?

[overpayd]

With Netflix, you're also essentially "getting DVD's in who-knows-what condition, in who-knows-how-much time from who-knows-who" when you consider the fact that after who-knows-how-many people have already had the dvd, you aren't guaranteed that it will be playable, and if you return it as unplayable, you will likely be throttled.

And even after throttling, you won't know which DC (distribution center) is sending your next flix, so it will arrive in who-knows-how-much time after the fact. Of course some of them arrive next day or 2 days, but it's not guaranteed. Plus, you don't own the movie (unless, of course, you burn copies... which is illegal and immmoral and hurts the artist and their families and who-knows-who else) ^_^

Re:Why use this instead of Netflix?

[(trb001)]

In addition to what dasunt said, when I signed up last week, they had an offer going where you get 100 trades for free. Since they're free, you're only paying shipping, which for a single disc is $.37 for the stamp.

--trb

Re:Why use this instead of Netflix?

[size1one]

It depends on your proximity to the distribution center and post office. The closest distributor is about 1 hour driving time and the closest post box isn't picked up till 4:30pm.

If all I do is copy them (takes just over an hour for 3 movies with an 8x burner + dvd shrink) and send them back the following day I can get 6 movies per week, delivered on wed and sat. (1 day to deliver, 1 day in postbox, 1 day return trip).

However, if i were to take the movies to the post office in the morning (an extra 10 mins on the way to work) i would shave a whole day off each delivery because the movie isnt sitting in the postbox all day. This increases the total to 9 movies a week.

now by your math that makes my current scheme: $0.69 per movie

but possible to get it down to $0.46 not considering extra gas costs.

Yeah, right

[JoeCommodore]

Like I'm really want to keep a copy of the new Planet of the Apes movie or the new Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy... Studios only wish I wanted those so badly.

Maybe thet's it, people will realize what turkys they are when Peerflix gets flooded with those loosers.

Re:Yeah, right

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where to begin with your grammatical and spelling errors.

I know what you're saying, but it's like receiving an epiphany from an idiot savant...or regular 6-year old.

Re:Yeah, right

[Anonymous Coward]

well i don't understand his drible, someone please explain both his post and how it got modded up

"content owners won't be pleased....

[AdmiralMustapha]

- discs are easy to copy".

Well, content owners will NEVER be pleased, what they'd like you to do is pay $$$$$ and keep the stuff.

There will always be people that copy (be it legal or not). But this creates an opportunity for those people who don't want to spend lots of money on new films but want to stay legitimate as well.

This is GREAT!

[GecKo213]

I like the whole idea. In fact, my friends and I have been doing this for years now. We never buy the same game (unless it's needed to play networked games) and just pass it around between each other when we're finished. Always have new games to play and typically at about 1/4 the cost.

Now it has happened and will continue to happen that we all like the game so much that we end up buying our individual copies of the game anyway. I really like this idea though!

Re:This is GREAT!

[YrWrstNtmr]

Among your friends is one thing. That has always happened, since music (and then movies) was first recorded.

This is an intermediary between that, and regular P2P. You're still (supposedly) swapping the physical medium, but amongst a far wider group of pseudofriends.

There have been similar deals with books for ages.

Re:This is GREAT!

[KillShill]

thanks to future advancements in DRM, Insidious Computing and online "distribution" you won't be able to do that for much longer.

try asking people you know that own err i mean paid for a "license" for half life 2. ask them to let you borrow it...

it's going to get A LOT worse before we see any relief.

they just now have gotten a whiff of Insidious Computing and the enormous power it brings them to implement Digital Handcuffs (DRM). did you think they would spend billions of dollars and then back down? there is only one logical outcome: an escalation of an "arms race" in which content producers try to illegally restrict access to purchased products while hackers try to retain some shred of freedom in property rights.

do not give these people any money. that's how you bludgeon them and bring em down. starve them of the money they so richly scheme to take from you and give you a revokable "license" in return.

online "distribution"... i spit on thee and hack in your general direction.

Re:This is GREAT!

[Anonymous Coward]

typically at about 1/4 the cost.
You have 3 friends?

Re:This is GREAT!

[GecKo213]

Yup. Well, four of us decided to trade games/books/movies etc...

RIAA files suit against Peerflix

[defro]

Being a service that aids in piracy, Peerflix has been served by the RIAA lawyers....can't wait to hear this one.

Re:RIAA files suit against Peerflix

[AstroDrabb]

It would be the MPAA and not the RIAA. However, I don't see how the MPAA could win. PeerFlix is the same exact thing as EBay. Peerflix is just the middle-man handling the LEGAL transaction between two citizens exercising their right of First-sale.

The only option the MPAA would have would seem to be to bribe the corrupted politicians to pass a new law banning First-sale doctrine.

I just signed up for the service to give it a try. I have some DVD's that I just don't watch anymore. There is no legal reason why I should not be able to sell/trade them for different movies that were also legally purchased.

The Peerflix system makes you put in the UPC code on the back of the DVD box to be able to list it for potential trade. You can't just type in a name of a DVD and say "hey, lets trade". I think the system is actually pretty cool. You cannot trade copied movies. If you do, you get banned. So all of the DVD's were legally purchased and the MPAA made their money off of them.

I personally think it is pretty sad that the reaction to this type of service would be that "people are bad and will just copy and send". I am tired of the MPAA/RIAA assuming that I am a criminal. I will be happy to never give them another penny of my money again.

Re:RIAA files suit against Peerflix

[Anonymous Coward]

when are they going to sue WALMART or DELL for "aiding" pirates by selling blank media, burners, computers, etc. that could *potentially* be used to infringe on a copyright?

why not go after ICANN itself for being the foundation of this evil called the internet? or the US DoD (or Al Gore?) for inventing it in the first place.

Re:RIAA files suit against Peerflix

[defro]

My bad - MPAA. I totally agree though. I've used a similar DVD trading service - Netflix - and it was a great system.

Why'd this take so long?

[Asprin]

I used to do this with my friends in college - I bought Eye of the Beholder, he bought Ultima Underworld. When we finished them, we'd trade boxes.

"Users will dupe discs before trading them"

[verbatim_verbose]

Yet, they aren't worried about this happening with Blockbuster rentals or Netflix? Give me a break.

Seems to me that labelling anything as a cooperative act between peers leads to mad content owners.

I don't see the advantage

[Matt2k]

If you're just going to trade casually, this service might work okay. Hopefully your sender will mail the disc on time and isn't away on vacation. Does anyone know how long it usually takes to get a request?

On the other hand, if you're someone who really wants to watch a lot of movies, wants to count on being able to get new releases relatively soon, I don't know if this would work out so hot. With Netflix for $18/mo if you really push it, you can get maybe 9-12 DVDs a month. Of course if you sit on your discs, you might only get five or six a month. But they at least ship stuff on a schedule, not whenever they feel like hunting down a DVD and walking it out to the mailbox. I guess I'm just pretty cynical, and relying upon other Joes to send me their movies in a reasonalble timeframe with reasonable quality.

Do I get this right.. You print out the mailer from your printer?

And movies are assigned "peerbux" ratings, so you can't offer up a bunch of Clint Eastwood movies from the 70s and expect to get the complete Sopranos in return? How does that work? You need to build up a library of good movies so you can give them away? I'm not understanding.

*shrug*

I just don't see it as being worth the hassle, but good for you if you like it.

Re:I don't see the advantage

[Red Flayer]

"I guess I'm just pretty cynical, and relying upon other Joes to send me their movies in a reasonalble timeframe with reasonable quality."

I'm pretty certain that there will be a peer review system, if not a penalty system.

(1) Don't send the movie on time? You won't get full credit.
(2) Peer ratings, a la Ebay
(3) Don't ship a DVD, or habitually late? Bannination.

The thing is, you can't get a DVD until you've shipped one or more out.

I'm sure the initiation fee will cover cost of replacement for "lost in the mail" discs.

"And movies are assigned "peerbux" ratings, so you can't offer up a bunch of Clint Eastwood movies from the 70s and expect to get the complete Sopranos in return? How does that work? You need to build up a library of good movies so you can give them away? I'm not understanding."

I've got a shelf of DVDs that I have no desire to watch again, but others might value highly. They just collect dust, and you don't see many stores that have used DVD trade-in policies... and even if they do, they don't give anything close to one-to-one value.

The value of this service over Netflix is that you get to get good value for DVDs you don't care about anymore.

Re:I don't see the advantage

[chris_mahan]

same here. I have about 30 near-new dvds in a cabinet somewhere. I have no desire to see any of them again. I'll only keep my boxed sets.

Re:I don't see the advantage

[E8086]

Yes, I wonder how the rating system works, and it better not be by age. Before the special effects revolution of the late 90s movies relied on something called 'good acting' and 'plot' and 'story line' I'd take "a bunch of Clint Eastwood movies from the 70s" over something new like the Dukes of Hazzard and any of the soon to be new releases from this summer's crash and burn titles. They should scrap the "peerbux rating" and give everyone the matching offers and let them decide. If I was offering Stealth, that is after the DVD release, and got a return offer of Dirty Harry I'd take it.

"But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?" -Dirty Harry

Re:I don't see the advantage

[ciroknight]

Personally I think a centralized version of this idea would work better. Being decentralized, people can really easily abuse the system to steal dvds.

1) Register account.
2) Start a bunch of trades with people all at once.
3) Send out a bunch of empty boxes.
4) Take DVDs and run for the hills.

A centralized system would allow the company to authenticate users and build a trust system. They could keep a bunch of extra DVDs around to replace damaged/misplaced disks (at a service charge, of course). They could use cheaper postage through shipping companies which means the user gets more bang for his buck. Just request a box, the next day fill it with DVDs, on the computer invoice tell which DVD goes where and what you are getting from who in trade, and ship. Wait a day or two and for your traded DVDs to come in the mail.

A system like this could also prevent pirated DVDs from being shipped around, and would probably have a better profit model. Hell, I wouldn't mind running a company like this myself! Pair it with an Ebay store and/or an internet cafe here in town and I might be in the money (allowing for local pickup of DVDs, like a movie store!). Seems like a good idea to me.

Re:I don't see the advantage

[AstroDrabb]

I guess I'm just pretty cynical, and relying upon other Joes to send me their movies in a reasonalble timeframe with reasonable quality.

There is a review system. Send out a bad disk, you get a bad mark and can be banned. You have to give your mailing address to Peerflix so it would be easy to ban that mailing address from the system and not allow you to re-register with it.

When a DVD you have listed is requested, you click a button to "mail this disk". The next screen asks you to promise to mail it within 24 hours. They know when you agreed to send it out. If you take too long, you can get banned.

There will always be people who try to abuse any system. However, the peer review will weed out the baddies.

For me this seems better than renting or paying $18/mo for Netflix. I am married with a 4 year-old and a 16 month old. I only have time to maybe watch 1-2 movies a month. Netflix wouldn't be worth it for me. The traditional movie rental store is also getting old. I don't want to worry about late-fees, etc. I have also been using the video-on-demand service of my cable provider. It is better than going out and renting, though it has drawbacks of only being able to watch the movie for a few hours. There has been a few times my wife and I have been worn out from the day and rent a VOD movie and have fallen asleep, that is a waste of $4.

I personally would rather have the DVD and be able to watch it on my schedule. I don't like to buy too many DVD's because if I don't like it, I just wasted $10-$20 on it. With Peerflix, it looks like I can trade in movies I no longer watch and try something new. If I like it, I can keep it, if not, I trade it back for something else. Though the success of Peerflix will obviously depend on how many users they can get on their service.

Re:I don't see the advantage

[AstroDrabb]

What you are suggesting won't work. You don't get CREDIT for your trade-ins until they are received by the person(s) you sent them to and they rate if the DVD(s) were working. Once you have CREDIT or peerbux you can then request a DVD be sent to you.

99 cents per envelope?

[Locarius]

So, does this 99 cents cover the cost of your disc in case it is never returned? Basicly their service is a 'loaner's insurance' not a distribution cost.

Re:99 cents per envelope?

[Red Flayer]

"So, does this 99 cents cover the cost of your disc in case it is never returned? Basicly their service is a 'loaner's insurance' not a distribution cost."

You're not lending out the disc; you are trading it for peerbux, which you can use to purchase movies on your want list -- provided you pay the admin fee.

The $0.99 is to cover administrative costs for the transaction (and to pay the owners of the company and their lawyers).

This, other than the fact that it
(1) is trading physical products; and
(2) costs a nominal fee
is exactly how upload/download used to work on tons of BBSs in a bygone era.

Upload a new file? Get credit to download file(s).
Ship out a DVD? Get credit to be shipped a DVD.

Sigh...

[Tracer_Bullet82]

Why does every other article seems hellbent on rehashing this 'copyright crap' issue?

Yeah its important, but again and again and again?

Now, before I'm modded flamebait or troll, as I'm sure people would already state, who cares if there's precedents of duping?

The industry didn't die, hell its not even barely sick.

Re:Sigh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Repetition increases both awareness and irritation with the subject. When enough people are both aware of and irritated with all of 'this copyright crap', then perhaps some action will actually be taken.

Without repetition, the topic fades into the distance and the corporations will win through simple consumer apathy.

In short, if you're tired of hearing about 'this copyright crap', do something to fix the problem (write to senators, boycott the industry, whatever..) so that the PROBLEM goes away - then the COVERAGE about the problem will also go away all by itself.

Ripping traded discs

[dtfinch]

People already rip rental DVD's. I can't imagine the problem getting much worse with traded DVD's.

What is this easy DVD copying method that they

[multiplexo]

refer to in the article. It sounds like FUD to me, DVDs are nowhere near as easy to copy as CDs, especially if it's a dual layer DVD.

It would be nice if these media retards understood that the reasons why MP3s took off in the late 1990s was that hard drive capacities increased dramatically in a short period of time relative to the capacity of CD-ROMs, because CD-RW drives became real cheap all of a sudden and because the people who liked making mix tapes really liked a format that was a lot easier to deal with that allowed you to make mix CDs with hundreds of songs just by pointing and clicking. None of these things apply with DVDs, the biggest hard drive you can get today will only hold 100 uncompressed DVD images (I'm assuming that we don't want further compression because it degrades the image which looks like shit on a big screen TV), people don't make video mix tapes (although it would be kind of interesting) and also because it's still a pain in the ass to strip CSS off of DVDs. Jesus Christ, could these lazy media bastards just put down the grape-flavored MPAA piracy Kool-Aid for once?

Re:What is this easy DVD copying method that they

[spencerogden]

If I remember right, when I first tried Napster I had a 4 or 5 gig hard drive. At 40-60 Mb for an album compressed down to 96 or 128 kbps, gee that's only like 100 albums, and compressed to crappy quality. This music sharing thing will never take off.

OK, now movies don't usually get split up into song sized chunks, but still, I think your view is a little short sighted. Where will hard drives be in 5 years? Even now on a 400 Gb drive if your movies are 2Gb (which I think looks fantastic on a big screen, at least I can't tell the difference) You can store 200 movies. I would say that is much larger than most peoples physical DVD collection.

Yes DVD are still harder to rip than CDs, but I think the Movie industry has a lot to be worried about. Lucky for them the Music industry has led the way and they'll have about 15 years of experience to look back on before technology makes video trading as ubiquitous as music trading.

Re:What is this easy DVD copying method that they

[GigsVT]

MP3s took off because it was truely innovative to have near CD-quality sound in 1/10th of the space the equivalent WAV file took up.

That, combined with colleges wiring ethernet to dorm rooms, is what got MP3 going strong.

Regarding your disk space argument:

In 1996-1997 the biggest consumer hard disks were about 6GB. That would have set you back a pretty penny in early 1997 ($400 or so). They didn't jump all that fast (20,40,60,80,100) until after 2000. MP3 was already well established by then.

So lets say you had in 1997 about 1GB of disk you could devote to MP3s, I'd say that's about par. That's about 333 songs.

So anyway my point is, hard disk sizes today in relation to DVD is not much different from MP3 size vs hard disks in the late 90s. They are within the same ballpark.

Re:What is this easy DVD copying method that they

[Deagol]

Let's see...

1. Walk to post office and pick up batch of NetFlix movies. 10:00am
2. Pop into Linux media PC.
3. "mount /dvd ; vobcopy -m ; eject"
4. while (( i++ -lt $NUM_MOVIES )) goto #2
5. Walk to post office to return batch of movies, well before the day's last pickup.
6. Watch movies at leisure, delete/keep what you see fit.

Keeping the rental pipeline full at all times allows for more bang for your rental buck. Err... theoretically.

With the current best GB per dollar ratio being a 320GB drive (being about $100), that's 320/9=35 full DVD rips. Worst case scenario, a full get/return netflix cycle is 7 days, so at the $50/month plan for 8-DVDs-at-once, that's 32 DVDs for $150, or $4.68/dvd. Smaller than theoretical maximum DVDs and faster Netflix turnaround times can lower this even more.

Aside from the $1 DVDs of Alfred Hitchcock movies and Dragnet episodes I see at the local dollar store, that's not a bad price, delivered to your door.

Strategic use of Redbox DVD machines can yeild even better price, if you disregard cost of gas to the nearest McD's and the lack of selection.

DVD copying is pitifully easy. Mostly. If only vobcopy could handle those new intentionally-corrupted DVDs...

Re:What is this easy DVD copying method that they

[quenda]

pardon? MP3 took off because it could be downloaded easily over a dial-up modem. It was communications bandwidth, not storage. They still burned then in CD format.

> still a pain in the ass to strip CSS off of DVDs.

You must be kidding. In Linux, its transparent. Under windoze? Surely there are some point-and-drool spyware-laden disc copiers to download free?

Are you baiting for instructions? Use google.
With a computer, anything is only hard the first time, then its a one-liner.

Re:What is this easy DVD copying method that they

[evilviper]

(I'm assuming that we don't want further compression because it degrades the image which looks like shit on a big screen TV)

Don't blame the problems you've had with some particular crappy codec on "compression" as a whole.

Using libavcodec, I can re-encode a DVD to MPEG-2 at 1/2 the size or sometimes less. With MPEG-4, halve that again (1/4 the size) but won't play on most DVD players. And that's all without artifacts, without quality degredation of any kind (even on a "big screen"). In fact, the copies usually look better than the original, thanks to very good noise reduction.

I must admit I find it both funny and sad that Hollywood will spend hundreds of millions of dollars making a movie, then use cheap-crap encoders to churn out a DVD that looks like badly scratched-up film with compression artifacts. Everything from "Gettysburg" to Terminator 2: Ultra Super Duper Mega Edition (For Real This Time)".

Re:What is this easy DVD copying method that they

[BigAssRat]

Yeah, I know what you mean. I just filled up my 900gb hard drive the other day.

Re:What is this easy DVD copying method that they

[multiplexo]

Wow! This is so awesome! I know of two new ways to copy DVDs, one in Linux and the other in Windows. Goddamn I love /.!

Oh, and one thing I forgot about with MP3s which someone pointed out was bandwidth. Yeah, I completely spaced on how major that is. I can remember in early 2000 have a non-techie friend call me at 11:30 at night on my cell phone. I was concerned because I thought it must be some serious emergency involving one of our friends, turned out he had just found about Napster and spent the evening downloading music.

Someone also noted that the situation vis a vis hard drive space will change within 5 years, we might have HD-DVD by then which will keep the ratio of hard drive space to DVD content roughly the same as it is today, but that will totally change the way DVDs are stored.

Am I on crack or does the push towards HD-DVD seem as if it's going to go about as well as the push towards SACD and DVD-A has? SACD and DVD-A were touted as the next great thing in music, multi-channel sound sampled at high resolutions with the added benefit of multimedia content. But despite the fact that pretty much every DVD player Sony sells these days also plays SACDs and there are a ton of DVD/SACD combo players out there there isn't that much media content for them and the big buzz these days is all about online music services which sell music that is not only two channel, but is even lower resolution than CDs. People just haven't really gone for DVD-A or SACD, despite the the fact that they are pretty cool and can produce some pretty awesome sound (The DVD-A release of Hotel California by the Eagles is pretty good as is DVD-A release of Fleetwood Macs Rumours.). Is everyone really going to rush out and get HD-DVD players when the jump from DVD to HD-DVD is going to be of the same magnitude as the jump from CD to SACD/DVD-A. Both of these were significant, but they aren't as significant by at least an order of magnitude than the jump from VHS to DVD or LP/Cassette to CD.

Re:What is this easy DVD copying method that they

[jensen404]

At 40-60 Mb for an album compressed down to 96 or 128 kbps, gee that's only like 100 albums, and compressed to crappy quality.

DVD is already more heavily compressed than MP3. Just the video in a 2 hour movie would take up 167 GB.

Re:What is this easy DVD copying method that they

[Cylix]

I don't have time to watch 32 dvd's....

With an average time of 1 hour 20 minutes... thats roughly 42 hours of entertaining. A full work week needs to be dedicated to viewing pleasure!

However, on a smaller less profitable scale I could see this working out on a smaller scale.

Re:What is this easy DVD copying method that they

[Dare nMc]

your post is valid, I am not debating that for the average person you are 100% correct.

However, I have a 42" plasma HDTV connected to the buffalo linktheater. I have been ripping all my DVD's to divx format and placing them on my hard disk (which is streamed to the linktheater, when it requests.)
when I rip to divx format, I do 2 pass encoding, to a VBR of 2kbps, this makes a 2 hour DVD about 2 Gig. for everything, put blue sky shots, it is impossible to tell on this TV the difference from the 2 gig divx file, and the original DVD (you can see a few artifects in the blending of almost solid colors like the sky when it covers the entire screen, I am told their is a mencoder option to fix this also.) My comparison is a upsambling DVD to 1080i vs the Divx rip upsampled the same, both through this same player.

exactly the same as mp3's this is so much more convient, than the DVD's. I have a 300 Gig USB hard disk ($120), so it easily holds about 150hours of DVD quality Videos. At home, I don't have to look through drawers of DVD's for something I feal like watching, and carefully handle them... I simply sit on the couch with a menu of all my movies, click and go (and no more waiting to see the FBI warning for the 150th time.) Also the Civial war movie I just watched was 2 sided dvd, no fliping, the linktheater with play all, just jumped to the second disk. Also I killed the DVD player on my work laptop, so when I went to Chile for work for a week, I just grabbed that USB hard disk, with all my movies, dropped a movie on my laptop for the flight down, different one for the flight back, have my entire collection to choose from while their, and the battery lasts longer loading from Hard drive than DVD, and my DVD's are safe at home.

Blockbuster can check

[grahamsz]

A friend worked at blockbuster for a year or two (in the UK) and she was adamant that they could know if a disc they rented out had been copied by the renter.

When they'd find someone with suspicious renting patterns, they'd collect all the discs he returned and send them off for "analysis"

It's an interesting idea to convince your employees and even store managers that you are capable of doing something technically impossible, presumably with the hope that it'll trick your customers too.

Re:Blockbuster can check

[cloak42]

That is complete and utter bullshit. There is no possible way that they could tell that the disc was copied from. How, exactly, would they be able to do that? To copy a disc, all you'd have to do is, um, read it. You know, with a laser. Just like when you play it.

So they'd be able to tell if somebody scanned it with a laser one time as opposed to others? I don't think so.

Re:Blockbuster can check

[Mortlath]

You and the grandparent post are in agreement.

It's an interesting idea to convince your employees and even store managers that you are capable of doing something technically impossible, presumably with the hope that it'll trick your customers too.

The point is that some (or most?) people will believe those stories, and be deterred from copying.

Re:Blockbuster can check

[eosp]

Works on the airlines, I'm sure we all remember that stuff about "If you use a cell phone, you'll make the plane crash" and "If you use anything electronic during takeoff, the nav stuff won't work and we'll end up flying to Finland, not China."

Re:Blockbuster can check

[cloak42]

You know, somehow I completely glazed right over that last paragraph. I gotta stop skimming when I don't mean to.

So yes, the parent was absolutely right that it's a scam; there's just no way it's possible, but I guess the general public is stupid enough to fall for it completely. :)

Re:Blockbuster can check

[crucini]

It probably is bullshit, but you are awfully cocksure in your assumptions. The history of adversarial technologies frequently contains one adversary doing the "impossible". Once you learn how the trick is done, you realize that your initial idealized description of the problem was too simple.

Great example: terrestrial microwave links were thought to be interception-proof in the '70s. How could any outsider intercept this incredibly narrow beam of RF energy?

Well, now we know that the NSA was intercepting Russia's terrestrial microwave links by positioning a boxcar-sized satellite in geosynchronous orbit colinear with the beam. Energy from the beam continues to travel past the receiving antenna into space.

I would never glibly assume that a collection of atoms carries no traces at all of the experiences it's been through.

Re:Blockbuster can check

[grahamsz]

Weird, I've never really thought about it but i never imagined microwave links would be secure. I figured you'd do it with a higher tower further away, or perhaps a baloon... but i guess that's just one example.

However, i'm certain there's no difference to the disk whether i read it in my laptop or kept the vob files to watch later. Of course time-shifting is probably permissable so they'd have to prove that i didn't delete the vobs in a reasonable time period or that i burned another copy.

Also, i fear that blockbuster are not on the cutting edge of forensic analysis.

Just thought it was an interesting mindgame to start by convincing the staff, without informing the customers of anything.

Re:Blockbuster can check

[RichardX]

No way dude! it's totally true!
My uncle's brother's friend's cousin's auntie's dog's hairdresser's sister got busted by the FBI for returning DVDs she copied! They totally flipped out and busted down her door and everything!

And she's not even American - she lives in Wales

Free DVD Gwendolyn!

Re:Blockbuster can check

[HTH NE1]

There is no possible way that they could tell that the disc was copied from. How, exactly, would they be able to do that?

How fast does your DVD player read a DVD when playing it to screen?

How fast does your DVD-ROM drive read a DVD when making a copy?

The disks could be impregnated with something that retains a signature of how fast it was made to spin and for how long. Maybe tiny switches embedded in the hub that close at certain angular velocities causing data to be recorded in a small, practically invisible chip that can be read back using an RFID reader storing the playback history of the disk across several customers with timestamps. The power for the circuit could also be acquired from the motion.

Other physical effects of rate of DVD spin could also be detected to create a sufficient suspicion of guilt. Expect to submit your DVD player for forensic discovery in an attempt to disprove their evidence.

Now I'm not saying that the technology exists now or when the GP worked at Blockbuster. I'm just saying that the possibility exists. And to say FIRST ART to anyone looking to patent it (and a DVD reader that spins the head instead of the disk) and COPYRIGHT 2005 to any forensic drama writers looking to use it in their plotlines ("Comments are owned by the Poster").

Any different?

[querk44]

As far as content owners are concerned, I'm not sure how this would harm them anymore than something like Netflix. The same making a copy and sending it back is just as easy if not easier with their service.

Amazing, Isn't It?

[Master of Transhuman]

The "average user" can't (according to the Windows shills) figure out how to run Linux - but they can figure out how to duplicate a DVD and then share it over a P2P network (according to said "average users" writing for the RIAA and MPAA).

What's wrong with this picture?

Re:Amazing, Isn't It?

[XAJIM]

This is because the "average user" doesn't want to use Linux, pure and simple. They do, however want to copy DVDs and share them with their friends. Thus they'll find the means to do so.

Re:Amazing, Isn't It?

[Le_Papet]

People like that exist. I'm one of them =P

I've been trying to install Linux on this computer for a few weeks now and I've tried 2 or 3 distros now. I can't get a single one of them to boot, something always goes wrong :(

You're right though, it's unlikely that the 'average user' has the proper software to rip DVD movies and knows how to use it. MP3s though, definately.

Re:Amazing, Isn't It?

[Anonymous Coward]

One doesn't involve formatting or repartitioning your hard drive?

Re:Amazing, Isn't It?

[antic]

A few issues:

One is motivation -- the average users aren't that unhappy with Windows that they want to try something like Linux. They do, however, want to source music and videos and they look for the quickest and cheapest way to do it.

Another is awareness -- no one in my brother's circle of friends (pro athletes) talks about installing Linux. They talk about which apps are best to copy DVDs or download music. You could tell them about Linux but they wouldn't bother remembering the details because they don't have a need for it.

Re:Amazing, Isn't It?

[Master of Transhuman]

Bovine excrement. The "average user" has never heard of Linux - therefore they can't refuse to use it.

Pure and simple.

Re:Amazing, Isn't It?

[Master of Transhuman]

Motivation and awareness are on point.

You gotta wonder, though, when people are tossing their PCs due to spyware, if the issue isn't either one of those, but simple knowledge of WHY they NEED it.

Which reduces to ignorance, basically.

I think that might change if the geeks writing Linux software would learn to leapfrog Windows in usability - which wouldn't be that hard. The problem is, even though Linux isn't harder to use than Windows, it isn't vastly EASIER to use than Windows, either. And geeks by definition have no clue about making anything easy to use.

Re:Amazing, Isn't It?

[Anonymous Coward]

heh. the "average" windows user i know can barely turn their computer, forget about even copying a works word processing document or sending an email attachment. they haven't got a clue how to copy dvd's or cd's, and most don't even know it's possible to begin with or what they'd ever need to do that for.

if the riaa and mpaa were smart, they'd release their own spyware-infested music and movie trading software and let people be.

Re:Amazing, Isn't It?

[samael]

1) Put DVD in drive
2) Click on "Clone DVD"
3) Wait for popup message to say "Change disks"
4) Change disks
5) Write name of DVD on disk.

Gosh. That's _much_ harder than learning Linux.

Re:Amazing, Isn't It?

[Master of Transhuman]

Hah! Not nearly that easy...even with the right software - which most users probably wouldn't know the name of, how to find it, how to install it, etc.

The same complaints people have about Linux, in fact.

If it's true in one, it's true in the other - or not.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

bah... we already have a trading medium

[voisine]

why not sell your stuff for cash. http://replaylink.com/ you get the full purchase price minus a $1 service fee and the Amazon seller fee, and it's as easy as returning a netflix rental. They send you an addressed postage paid media mailer.

Re:bah... we already have a trading medium

[great throwdini]

you get the full purchase price minus a $1 service fee and the Amazon seller fee.

Uh, you get the sale price less the Amazon seller fee and a $1 service charge. It's not based off the original purchase price, as resold DVDs typically don't sell for anywhere near original cost to you. And who gets the extra amount Amazon reimburses for shipping (which is treated separately from its fees)?

Whomever is behind replaylink.com is basically printing out the mailer and charging you for that nicety. Why not sell it yourself and not pay the fee? It's pretty easy to list items for sale on Amazon, with no need to share information with another third-party.

It also seems a bit shady vis-a-vis Amazon's resale policy, what with a seller listing items for trade that aren't in its direct possession ... neat idea, but it basically introduces a second middle-man (in addition to Amazon) to the transaction between true buyer and true seller.

Re:bah... we already have a trading medium

[voisine]

By purchase price I was refering to the price the buyer purchased it for. Amazon charges you 15% plus $0.99 unless you have a $40/mo seller account, in which case the $0.99 is waived. With this service you pay basicaly the same amount you would without a seller account and get the added convenience. I imagine the shipping credit covers the cost of the postage and mailer.

they already have this service for free

[geekoid]

they are called 'Libraries'

check one out some time.

Re:they already have this service for free

[Anonymous Coward]

Depending on where you live, of course.

Here, for instance, I can get books. Stacks and stacks of books. That's no problem. CDs, even, are fairly plentiful. My CD wallet was stolen awhile back, but the library had a number of the albums I was missing. I checked them out and made copies. Did the same thing with a few I already owned on cassette, too.

But DVDs? Nah. I can go there and check out independent stuff, PBS specials, and a few local-interest discs. But major movies? Not a chance. I've searched their catalog many times. In the rare instance they had something I was looking for, it was always on VHS. The only exception is the Indiana Jones boxed set -- and discs 2 and 3 are missing, leaving "Raiders" and the bonus material.

So no, in many cases, this service is not already available for free in a form called "libraries."

Re:they already have this service for free

[procat]

Seattle's Library System is GREAT! Lots of CD's & DVD's. Sometimes have to wait a little bit for them, but they seem to be ordering more. You can donate your DVD's you don't want any more also!

Re:they already have this service for free

[Dachannien]

Libraries aren't peer-to-peer. They use the server-client model.

Re:they already have this service for free

[angaram]

Technically not free; your taxes fund them. Yet this only adds weight to your point: you've already paid for this service!

Re:they already have this service for free

[stinerman]

To an extent they are. In Ohio, all the libraries are loosely connected and will request any item on your behalf from another library, provided you wait a week or two for delivery. This certainly isn't P2P, but its not server-client ... more like a proxy method of sorts.

Re:they already have this service for free

[Dachannien]

I agree, proxy is probably a more appropriate analogy, because once you're done with a book you check out through OhioLink, it goes back to the originating library.

Re:they already have this service for free

[Charlie Hodge]

...and also free is Stuffopolis which lets you tag your stuff, too.

I rip all my DVDs

[Korbeau]

though I must agree the industry is making the shrink wrap harder and harder to tear appart every year

Compared to cams?

[tepples]

DVDs are nowhere near as easy to copy as CDs, especially if it's a dual layer DVD.

Even without a dual-layer burner, ripping a dual-layer DVD needs only about 10 GiB of temp space: 8 GiB for the DeCSS'd VIDEO_TS folder and 700 MB for a DivX .avi file of each act of the film.

I'm assuming that we don't want further compression because it degrades the image which looks like shit on a big screen TV

Given what's traded on P2P, many pirates don't care how good a movie looks on a big screen TV because they watch stuff on a cheap computer monitor. They watch cam releases for cricket's sake. Besides, with recent DivX, compression from 8 GB MPEG-2 to 2 GB MPEG-4 isn't as degrading as it used to be.

Re:Compared to cams?

[Anonymous Coward]

what are you talking about, even cheap monitors are better resolution/sharper image than any tv. they care what it looks like on a computer monitor, and know it will look fine on a tv.

The Situation in a Nutshell

[grumpygrodyguy]

The only right movie producers have is to exclusively show first viewings in movie theaters. That's the only right they've ever had for the last 100 years since films were first made.

The fact that digitization is making it easier and easier to distribute this media after the showing in theatres is completely beyond the moral scope of these companies.

They quite simply found a lot of free cash in the 80s with cable TV distribution and VHS rentals. That free cash was never theirs by right in the first place, and they offered a viable distribution service back then...those times are over, and the right to reap all those free profits is being taken back by the real bosses in a free market, the customer.

Eat shit and die MPAA/RIAA

Re:The Situation in a Nutshell

[cranos]

Umm no, sorry thanks for playing.

Film and Music producers have the same rights under copyright law as do authors, software developers and anyone else who produces art. This means that they retain control over their product/art for a set period of time (yes the set period is insane). It is this same law that allows the GPL and BSD licenses to operate.

The consumer has certain rights as well - Fair Use, First sale doctrines etc, etc. However the consumer also must abide by certain rules, including not distributing the art without permission from the copyright owner.

Re:The Situation in a Nutshell

[grumpygrodyguy]

This means that they retain control over their product/art for a set period of time (yes the set period is insane).

I like your description. The part about the set period being insane is where we're in complete agreement. Until that part is addressed, there's no reason anyone should honor the other points you mentioned.

Re:The Situation in a Nutshell

[GhaleonStrife]

And with how things are going, we'll see those rights slowly disappear. All courtesy of the people that like buying music at pretty much the same price as the CD (iTunes music store) without these other rights.

Re:The Situation in a Nutshell

[cranos]

From my point of view, the set period really is the least of our worries. It's the moves to try and take away rights such as first sale and fair use that are more dangerous. Here in australia we do not have any fair use clause in our copyright laws, hence even making a copy of a CD we own for backup is a breach and thus makes us liable for full prosecution.

Re:The Situation in a Nutshell

[mrgreen4242]

How exactly is iTunes the same price a the CD again? It's not like I can go into a record shop and ask for the part of the CD with just tracks 2 and 5 on them can I? No I have to buy a bunch of other crap to get what I want. So, you tell me where I can pay $1.98 for the tracks I want and I will agree that iTunes costs the same as the CD.

My own Peerflix experience...

[Rageon]

I've been using Peerflix for a couple months and have been relatively satisfied with it. It's proven to be a good way to get rid of all those old DVDs that would have either gathered dust for years or fetched me 3 bucks at a pawn shop. I've gotten plenty of movies as gifts or free throw-ins with things that I never wanted in the first place, or others that I bought but later realized I never watched. Frankly, the $1 it costs to upgrade a crappy movie to something else is well worth it.

I've only had 1 problem so far. I got a copy of Night of the Living Dead that was scrathed to hell. When it arrived, it played, so I confirmed it. Of course, when I played it, I found that a couple minutes would not play. But because I had let a week or so pass between receipt and claim, I was out of luck. I wrote about 5 emails to their CS about this, and got 1 response, which really had nothing to do with my complaint. But otherwise nearly all the movies I've gotten are in very good condition.

The bad part is that a lot of movies are technically "available", but might only be in the hands of 1 or 2 other users, neither of which actually intends to share their copy, but has it listed for one reason or another. So it sometimes takes a few weeks (or more) to get some movies. Also, maybe half the movies I listed have been requested by others. But then again, I didn't expect the demand to be extremely high for that copy of The Mask someone gave me. Generally, good movies get requested fairly quickly.

If you have a specific movie in mind that you want right away, Peerflix isn't the best solution. But if you have a list of 20 or so movies you would like to get eventually, it's a nice service.

My only other complaint would be that when your "Peerbux" goes to zero, it automatically charges another $5 worth to you, rather than waiting until you actually want to buy something. This is obviously a nice way for the company to get a few bucks extra from everyone in the end, but it strikes me as shadey.

As far a Piracy goes, well, it's really no different than renting movies or using Netflix, so I think it's a non-issue as it pertains to Peerflix specifically.

Re:My own Peerflix experience...

[JumperCable]

The $5 peerbux charge sounds crappy. It increases the ability (demand) of people to obtain movies but does not increase the pool of available/wanted movies.

Re:My own Peerflix experience...

[chris_mahan]

it says at the top of the page that they would use thatmoney to buy the movies in high demand, thus to satisfy the users. This can only be good.

Re:My own Peerflix experience...

[Wanker]

I've only had 1 problem so far. I got a copy of Night of the Living Dead that was scrathed to hell.

You're in luck! This movie is in the Public Domain due to a forgotten copyright renewal back in The Good Old Days when they were still required.

Download and burn a copy. It's legal. Check around.

http://www.archive.org/details/night_of_the_living _dead

Re:My own Peerflix experience...

[Rageon]

I actually realized this about 2 days after the DVD showed up. So in that sense, I'm really not out the movie. The part that got me a little upset was that I probably won't be able to trade the movie to someone else, as I'd get blamed for sharing an unplayable disc.

I was just looking at this yesterday...

[squatex]

I found it during some googling and thought it looked interesting. I just had a couple concerns.
Has anyone here actually used it? Is there any kind of quality control standards handed down and enforced on its users? How can I be sure I will get the disc I expect in good condition?

Re:I was just looking at this yesterday...

[kkek]

Is there any kind of quality control standards handed down and enforced on its users?

The article made it look like if you get a damaged product, you can notify peerFlix (and probably send in the disk) for a full refund.

Ebay = piracy?

[Sathias]

I wonder how long it will be till the MPAA and co go after people selling second-hand CDs and DVDs on Ebay. After all, the main argument against piracy is that it robs artists of their rightfully earned royalty dollars. You could actually argue that a bought second-hand DVD on Ebay is actually more likely to be a lost sale than someone who downloads it for free.

Re:Ebay = piracy?

[Anonymous Coward]

eBay is already owned by the music and software conglomerates.. they have a list of "do's and don'ts" of what you are not allowed to sell. I dont know the exact details, but I know they're pretty rediculous.

Re:Ebay = piracy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not as ridiculous as your spelling

Common Carrier?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok ... so who's to blame when some jerkoff mails an unsuspecting fellow a DVD marked "home videos" by mistake?

Yikes, talk about a mailbomb ... video of the goatse dude and anything related you can imagine ;)

Has any company tried mailing audio-cds before?

[tommers]

Is this the reasonably well known site to offer (or promise to offer) mailed audio-cds? While I can definitely see why the RIAA would be a lot more pissed off about audio-cds since they are much easier to copy and are listened to much less often than DVDs are viewed, I don't see what has stopped someone from doing it (besides the local libraries)? Is it currently illegal to rent out a physical product without getting a license to rent it? It seems if the local library can rent out audio-CDs it got donated, I don't see why some ballsy company wasn't loaning out audio-cds years ago?

Re:Has any company tried mailing audio-cds before?

[cpt kangarooski]

There would be greater difficulty in doing so. There is an exception in the statutory first sale doctrine, which prohibits renting sound recordings and computer software (other than console games).

While you can just go out and rent DVDs as you like, you'd have to argue that you were actually selling the CDs and that it wasn't a convoluted rental scheme.

Libraries have an exception, but not just anyone is a library.

first sale

[E8086]

It's covered by first sale, nothing more to see here. All it is is someone saying "I'll sell you my used DVD for the price of your used DVD" and Perflix gets a comossion for their posting and communication services much like ebay and paypal get a percentage of a sale. Of course the MPAA isn't going to like it because they don't get a cut of the sale, they already got the profit from the original sale and with this they're getting NOTHING!
As for copying before sending, there's always the chance the previous owner copied the CD or DVD before reselling it. The same is true with rented DVDs, there's no way of knowing if someone copied the disk before returning it to the store, unless they rent it again.

Re:first sale

[KillShill]

that's only if you believe you have "bought" anything in the first place.

the software/copyright/movie/music cartels are trying as hard as they can to convince even intelligent geeks that what they really get for their hard earned money is a LICENSE.

and they are succeeding quite well if you listen to the umpteen slashdot users spout off how you "only bought a license" garbage.

it's sad but it can be countered through education.

Re:first sale

[Joe U]

what they really get for their hard earned money is a LICENSE.

Does this mean I can download any music I already own?

Since I have a "license" to that music, the answer should be yes. Of course mp3.com learned the hard way that the record industry doesn't belive that.

Simply put, what they want is the ability to license/sell you a disc that you can't resell or loan, on one specific medium that you will need to re-purchase every few years.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Re:First Sale

[Mr2001]

They argue that the First Sale Doctrine does not apply to them because the software was never sold, only licensed.

District courts in California and Texas have disagreed

Specifically, the ruling decreed that software purchases be treated as sales transactions, rather than explicit license agreements. In other words, the court ruling argued that Californian consumers should have the same rights they would enjoy under existing copyright legislation when buying a CD or a book.

If you're in Missouri, though.. watch out.

Re:first sale

[E8086]

"it's sad but it can be countered through education."

Unless they were forced to take the RIAA respect copyright classes. I don't remember if they were only a proposed classes as condition or receiving a "generous" donation or it may have been for British students or maybe even Florida.

Hows this different from places that rent movies?

[kkek]

I dont see what the big deal with this is. I mean, I'm sure the MPAA is going to throw a fit, and if they ever do move to CDs as the article suggests, the RIAA wont be too happy either, but they're not doing anything wrong. There's no more risk of people making 'illegal copies' of the movies/songs than there is from renting them from blockbuster/hollywood videos/netflix. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes before the MPAA tries to make up some legal BS about why this service is breaking copyright laws.

as Bender would say to the media companies

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought it, I can trade or resell it, so "bite my shiny metal ass!"

Re: too much coffee or something?

[adtifyj]

Well, content owners will NEVER be pleased, what they'd like you to do is pay $$$$$ and keep the stuff.

The content owners have no use for keeping the stuff. Their objectives are to ensure they have plenty of gravy, and sufficient funds to keeping the entertainment creation industry prosperous.

If you dont think what the entertainment industry is turning out works that are worth purchasing, entertain yourself in other ways. The best way to do this is to create your own works, and let others enjoy it freely.

What some people seem to forget, is that the projected sales figures come from how well a movie/whathaveyou is received, and what mindshare it occupies for how long. Then, when the sales dont match, they blame p2p.

Re:DVDShrink

[E8086]

Most of the DL disks I've seen have two copies of the movie, maybe different angles for improved 3D view or something. The reauthoring option is nice, pick only the main movie and remove all the unneeded audio tracks, why have 5.1 surround and 4 languages with subtitles if your tv is only 2.0 surround, that will remove several hundered MB. If you want 90%+ of the original you can set the start and end frames, remove begining and ending credits, those few minutes of end credits will get you another 5-7% for the movie.

disclaimer: only use that for movies you own, or people you know who you're charging to make the backup of their disk for them.

Been there, done that...

[NetDanzr]

Back in the days, I used to swap computer games on UGTZ.com. Later they added books and movies swaps, and I participated in both. By the time I completed my collection and left the site, I haven't heard of anybody suing them for anything.

So..

[McNally]

So.. Their business model is predicated upon my willingness to send my original DVD off to be handled by total strangers? Lotsa luck, guys!

Have they ever looked at the bottom of a Blockbuster rental DVD? Sure, most of us on Slashdot rent movies so we can watch them on our television or computer monitors but I can tell you there's apparently a surprisingly large portion of the population that choose instead to, well, I don't know -- use them in their rotary sander or play shuffleboard with them in gravel parking lots or something..

So I might (big if, actually) choose to share some of the crappiest don't-care-if-I-ever-see-them-again, bottom-of-the-barrel, why-on-earth-did-I-buy-that DVDs through a scheme like this but anything that's an enjoyable movie that I can't replace for less than ten bucks? No way! And if that's the only sort of movie many people are going to be likely to share, well how good is this service likely to be?

Easy? Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dang. I got dvd playback running on my deb sarge box, but for the life of me can't figure an easy solution for duping anything. I should note that while I don't much care for the command line, I did run Gentoo exclusively for a couple of years, you'd think ...

Dang. Did you log my IP addy? Forget it! I'm ditching py DVD burner as you read..!

RTFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Here ya go. Have fun!

First Sale

[Arandir]

...while such trades may be legal under the first-sale doctrine of U.S. Copyright Act...

That's just because it isn't software. On more than one occasion I have been told by software companies that selling your used copy was illegal, even if the sale included all packing material and an affidavit that you wiped your harddrive of the product. They argue that the First Sale Doctrine does not apply to them because the software was never sold, only licensed. They have shut down eBay sales of software and sent cease and desist notices to yard sales.

All the DVD manufacturers need to do to stop Peerflix, is to slap a license on every DVD. It won't be legal, but that hasn't stopped the software industry or its lapdogs in the judiciary.

Re:DVDShrink

[Anonymous Coward]

Couple that with DVD43 and you may even be able to rip faster than the firmware in your drive is supposed to allow. I originally installed it to get past region reset limits in my burner without having to apply unofficial firmware patches, but found that it allows 80+ minutes of content to be ripped in around 10 minutes instead of much, much longer with DVDShrink alone.

My own ripping is to get rid of menus, warnings and enforced commercials (Shrek 2... anyone from DreamWorks reading? The Harry Potter and Shark Tale ads shit my kids no end) and not to deprive anyone of income. If I want something enough, I'll buy it. If I really want it, I'll buy it when it's released before the discounting kicks in. To me, ripping and burning is a means of taking back functionality we used to have with tape - the ability to skip material that's not of interest to us.

(Posting AC because I don't want my ID linked to an admission of illegal activity. Paranoid? Me? Remember, shiny side out.)

As opposed to...

[Robotech_Master]

...renting via Netflix or Greencine (or your local Blockbuster) and duping the rentals before sending them back? Can't see that this is really a new danger, it's just the opposite order from the usual sort.

What if it works on my player but not on yours?

[LoverOfJoy]

My brothers DVD player doesn't work as well as mine does and there are a few DVDs that have worked fine on my player but will freeze up on his. So if I trade in a dvd that, as far as I know, works great but it turns out someone else's crappy player won't take it, does that mean I get "modded down" and get no credit for it?

On the flip side...if you have a testy player it's probably best to avoid this service altogether. Of course, this is also true of purchasing ANY previously viewed DVD.

What phrasing! Who is this guy?

[QuietRiot]

 

"content owners"

And it is completely legal to do so

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't imagine "the problem" getting worse? What problem?

Slashdotters need to educate themselves past the RIAA/MPAA propaganda that they have been spoon fed and so many of them believe. In the US, for your own use, it has always been, and continues to be, fully and completely legal to make a copy of content which you lawfully possess.

I can't stand when I read comments here about how some poster is holier than thou, because he stays within what he thinks are the limits of the law by only making backup copies of what he already owns.

That's all fine and good, but there is equally nothing wrong with making a copy of a disk you have rented, or one you borrowed from a friend. If you took lawful possession of it, you can copy it for yourself.

If someone is going to post that they disagree, please cite the legal citation. (You can't - there isn't any. The best you can do is to pull some brief out-of-context snippet from statute and pretend it definitively answers the question, but it doesn't. The law doesn't work that way - it is instead an amalgam of statute, other statutes, regulations, case law etc).

So yes, as the parent poster said, "people already rip rental DVDs." Good for them - nothing wrong with that, morally or legally. It's no different than borrowing a book from the library and, for your own use, making yourself a copy of it (i.e. by photocopying it, copying it over by hand, or even photographing it, if that suits your pleasure).

Ask me...

[ImaLamer]

The archive bits are all set!

Lying, cheating bastards?

[cgenman]

Talking about lying, cheating bastards with a sig like that?

Probably worked for vhs

[grahamsz]

I suspect most vhs pirates probably made a lot of copies in the few days that they had the rental, which would show up as extensive wear on the tape.

If they did a before and after analysis then they could probably infer that the video was read hundreds of times.

Of course that doesn't work for dvd - but still :)

Re:Probably worked for vhs

[91degrees]

But even then you can only play through every 2 hours or so. Renting for long enough to cause detectable wear and tear surely wouldn't be worth it.

Re:Probably worked for vhs

[nuser]

Actually what a lot of them did was to copy the tape, and then open up both the cassettes and swap the spools of tape over, returning the original shell and the copied tape. This you can tell, using an ordinary VCR, TV and the naked eye, if you what to look for. In time we added holographic stickers on the shell where the two parts met, and sometime later the screws were changed for the kind you need a special tool to undo - can't remember what they're called but I think Compaq used them on their PCs for a while.

does no one get it?

[Anonymous Coward]

this isn't a rental service.....you do not get your dvds back. these are permanent trades here!

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

I just find it hard to be sympathetic to rich companies. Copy on brothers!

Mod Parent Up !

[flyingace]

This is interesting.

garage sale

[Robocoastie]

next RIAA will have their MIB's raiding garage sales.

Doesn't anyone understand it's the Distribution???

[Anonymous Coward]

All the *&AA's are trying to control the distribution! Go through their channels or get sued! What the #$AA's don't realize is that we, as consumers, think their distribution channels suck ass and have devised (and will continue to devise) ways to get what we want, when we want it and in the way that pleases us, the consumer. Kiss my ass #$AA's!! Viva la Revolucion!!! Via con los Diablos!

Netflix

[Anonymous Coward]

content owners won't be pleased -- discs are easy to copy and there's ample precedent to suggest users will dupe discs before trading them.

Well what the hell do you think I have Netflix for?

my mencoder script

[Dare nMc]

mencoder dvd://1 -ffourcc xvid -ni -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vbitrate=2000:vqmin=2:vqmax=31:vp ass=1:turbo -oac copy -o My_dvd.avi

>battery lasts longer loading from Hard drive than DVD, and my DVD's are safe at home.

I forgot the main reason for this may be that I now put a 2nd battery in the DVD slot, so maybe it isn't spinning the DVD killing the battery...

Re:my mencoder script

[Anonymous Coward]

for pass 2, remove the :turbo, and change vpass=2 not 1

the difference with NETFLIX!

[Anonymous Coward]

the difference with NETFLIX is that when you get it from netflix and copy the dvd, you still paid something to netflix who pays the movie industry.
while, when you use the peerflix, you do get a dvd and still pay similar fee, but that fee goes to peerflix and not to the movie industry.

DRM the US Postal Service

[ChaosDiscord]

When you mail someone a DVD you don't want any more, it's like walking into Best Buy, shoplifting a DVD, and shooting the cashier on the way out.

It's unfortunate, but pirates are using this "postal system" to destroy the value created by hard working movie creators. If the postal system is allowed to go on unchecked it will destroy the movie industry. No movies will ever be made again.

We question the use of this so called postal "service". The creators should have known that it would be abused this way. However, some people claim that there are legal and valid uses for the postal system. Fortunately there is a very reasonable compromise, Digital Rights Management in the postal system. This will close the analog hole. When you mail something, a postal employee will open up your mail and carefully examine what is inside. If it's a copyright protected movie on DVD, or copyright protected music on CD, or a copyright protected page torn out of a magazine, the employee will refuse to deliver the message. Your average US Postal Service customer won't notice any change. Only pirates will be inconvienced.

We here at the MPAA trust that all law abiding, moral citizens will support this perfect plan. We also look forward to your support for our future plan to monitor all physical human contact to eliminate the "handing a DVD to your friend" loophole.

Sincerely, the perfectly reasonable MPAA who is doing this for your own good.

Never mind Netflix...

[discHead]

...I want to know what makes Peerflix better than MediaChest.

just make it illegal

[ahowl]

Let's just do the usual...make it illegal without thinking of the ramifications down the road...and if you think that "it" is a little too ambiguous, you're not thinking like a lawmaker.

Re:DVDShrink

[Warpedcow]

Better still, go to doom9.org and read their DVD ripping/copying guides. Even the high quality DVD copy guide using DVDDecrypter, DVDRebuilder, and CCE only takes 20-30mins setup, and once that's done, it's a two-click operation to copy/rebuild/encode any DVD9 to a DVD5.