Warner Bros. to Try File Sharing in Germany

Carl Bialik writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that Warner Bros. plans to sell TV shows and movies online in Germany via P2P. In2Movies, to launch in March, 'will feature movies dubbed into German, including "Batman Begins" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," for a fee that Warner says will be similar to the cost of a DVD. It will also offer television shows like "The O.C." and locally made programs and movies. Users, who will have to register for the service, will be able to keep the movie indefinitely. But instead of getting a movie from a central server, pieces of it could come from other people on the network who also bought that movie.' The president of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group says, 'Studios can't just turn their backs and hope "P2P" is going to go away tomorrow.'"

Comments

Incentive for the user?

[Fusen]

So why would someone use this service against say The Google Video Store, or iTunes. TFA doesn't mention if the files would be cheaper, but they will still be DRM'ed so by using this service you get the movie like you normally would be you also have to sacrifice your upload.
I don't understand why anyone would want to sue this over the services that are already out.

Re:Incentive for the user?

[ehrichweiss]

That was the question I asked myself actually. Why would I want to help WB in the distribution if I'm PAYING them for the movie too? Now if they gave me a free gigabyte of download for every 2 I upload, then I'd consider their service. I guess they think that we like the P2P idea enough that we'll pay regular prices just to use it!?!? Their reasoning here is beyond me.

Re:Incentive for the user?

[drgreg911]

I, as a member of the people, take offense at that. You'll be hearing from my lawyer.

Re:Incentive for the user?

[AKAImBatman]

Why would I want to help WB in the distribution if I'm PAYING them for the movie too?

Presumably for lower prices. Bandwidth is cheaper than ever, but is still expensive. Especially when you figure in the number of machines necessary to power a large multimedia network. By marginalizing the cost of the download across many machines, WB is (theoretically) obtaining savings that they can pass on to you, the consumer.

Whether consumers see it that way (or WB passes on the savings!) remains to be seen.

Re:Incentive for the user?

[ehrichweiss]

From TFA: "for a fee that Warner says will be similar to the cost of a DVD"

It doesn't look like they're planning on passing any of the savings on to the real distributors/consumers, that was my point. And as has been stated repeatedly, if the prices are not going to be reduced I'd rather just buy the DVD and save my bandwidth(upload and download) for things that profit me as an individual. They need to pass on some form of secondary gain here and SIGNIFICANLTY cheaper pricing or free movies in exchange for sharing your bandwidth are the first two that come to mind.

Re:Incentive for the user?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Speed of download. Especially if they had a few distributed servers in the mix run by WB, your download would be significantly faster than say, buying Quicktime copies of BattleStar Galactica through iTunes.

Re:Incentive for the user?

[neoform]

And what makes them think this will even work?
If I was to pay for a download, I'd cap my upload at 1k/sec (on my router even, if i had to) and I'd also kill the sharing as soon as it's done downloading.. why waste my upload speeds if it's going to be costing me something?

The only reason Torrents work right now is because people upload as much as they download, if everyone were to do like me in this case (which i think they would), this wont work at all.

Re:Incentive for the user?

[plover]

I'd do it. As long as the movie isn't DRM crippled, I'd pay to P2P it for several reasons.

First, I don't want the DRM. I'm willing to give up "something" of mine in exchange for a freely usable movie. For example, I'd pay a premium for unprotected DVDs. Ripping is a total hassle, and a big waste of my time. If the extra cost to me is a blank DVD (or a bit of hard drive space) fine.

Second, I don't care about my outgoing bandwidth all the time, just when I'm trying to use it. I'll typically leave Azureus up after downloading something if I'm not interested in using the web once I've gotten the content. But if I want to get back to surfing, well, then it's going to get paused for a while.

Finally, I'd do it to encourage this type of behavior from the studios. Yes, I'll be responsible with your movie. No, I'm not going to share it without your permission. Yes, I'm willing to pay you for it.

Re:Incentive for the user?

[Lumpy]

did you even read the summary? they will be charging "similar to DVD prices" for something that is of lower quality, lacking the DVD extras and you pay for the bandwidth.

Yeah, people will jump all over that.

it simply reinforces the fact that the movie industry is ran by a large number of retarted people that have zero clue about business let alone how to sell a product.

Re:Incentive for the user?

[yabos]

Instead of the distributed Akamai servers that Apple uses?

Re:Incentive for the user?

[mordors9]

and yet since the grandparent of this post gets a 5 for insightful for obviously not reading the summary and you are still at a 1, it appears the lesson is to just say something and pretend to know what you are talking about.

Re:Incentive for the user?

[Rendus]

500 real servers with real bandwith, versus Timmy and Jane and 50000 others in Mom's basement on their async DSL and cable..

I'll take the 500 real servers.

Re:Incentive for the user?

[RyatNrrd]

I don't think they're retards; they're merely evil.

Here's what I predict: consumers will say, "No hard copy, no extras, and I pay for distribution? No thanks" - and quite rightly so.

Then Ebineezer RIAA Exec says: "Aha! Aha! Look! We offered our content via P2P like everyone said we should and nobody paid for it! P2P networks are therefore only for people who want something for free, the dirty pirates, so now nobody can fault us for going after them with our lawyers out!"

And the great circle of life will continue to spin around and around.

Re:Incentive for the user?

[tambo]

t doesn't look like they're planning on passing any of the savings on to the real distributors/consumers, that was my point.

Exactly.

I presume that Warner believes they've conditioned consumers into believing that $15-$20 is a fair price for a movie; that would be a good reason to charge the same for an electronic version. However, they're dead wrong in this presumption. Rather, they have conditioned consumers into paying that price for a DVD that contains the movie.

The physicality of the DVD is important to the consumer: the disc has nice silkscreen imaging; the packaging looks good and protects the disc; it looks great on a shelf; etc. There are practical implications, too: except for a few specific illegalities (bootleg copying, exctracting the content without the copy protection, etc.), the consumer can do what he wants with the disc - view it at a friend's house, sell it, etc.

In other words, the physicality is a very serious "value-add" for the DVD consumer. Warner can't strip all of that away, sell just the contents of the disc, and expect the same profit. A file on a hard drive is not as appealing as a DVD slipcover in a media stack. And consumers are savvy enough to fear the restrictions that will inevitably accompany this file: it will be locked to a specific computer, no resale value, etc.

In short: Warner is crazy if it believes that consumers equate a DVD with the bare file contained on the DVD. It's fundamentally mistaking the elements of a DVD that represent worth to the consumer.

- David Stein

Re:Incentive for the user?

[whois_drek]

On the contrary, look at their target audience: you. As a slashdotter, presumably you don't leave your basement more than once or twice a month, so this way, you don't have to go to the store to buy the DVD.

Re:Incentive for the user?

[syousef]

You're completely missing the point entirely.

The movie industry doesn't want this sort of venture to succeed. They're not all stupid and retarded as one poster said. They want this to fail so that they can point and say "see there's no legitimate use for P2P. When we offered a legitimate P2P service people didn't use it. So your honour we should just shut down all the P2P since it's only used by theives!". Of course they won't mention the fact that they'd kept prices high, while forcing the customer to pay twice (once for the movie, once for the bandwidth).

I mean for pity sake if they wanted to distribute the content to the users in a better way, they could just drop the price on the DVDs and make it possible to back them up instead of wasting money on this little venture. Success is not their goal here!

Trial balloon?

[Noryungi]

Finally, some sense in the P2P/RIAA/MPAA wars!

If this works well for Warner, I am willing to bet they will extend this program to the rest of the world, pronto. At least, I hope so.

Re:Trial balloon?

[eta526]

Don't forget the whole not having media thing. If I'm paying as much as for a DVD, why would I not want to have the actual disc that I could carry to a friend's house, or wherever?

Re:Trial balloon?

[CastrTroy]

The problem is, is that they are very afraid to undercut their own retailers. If they significantly undercut the DVDs, and people actually start buying a significant amount of stuff online, many retailers won't see it as worth their time to continue to even stock the DVDs. They have to keep the retailers happy. If you don't then they will revolt. It's the same reason why buying a computer direct from HP costs the same amount as buying it from the retailer, even though there should be no distribution markup.

They're still not quite getting it

[Anonymous Coward]

So, for about the same price as a DVD, you get a DRM locked copy of the file and you get to pay a good chunk of their distribution costs. What a great deal!

Re:They're still not quite getting it

[a_karbon_devel_005]

Correct.

The execs think "peer to peer" is a buzzword they need on their products but people, NORMAL people, aren't interested in the "peer to peer" part of P2P they're interested in the "free stuff I don't have to pay for" part of P2P.

I applaud efforts to make media online easily for all who want it, that's how people want to get content. But P2P in this case isn't doing anything but showing up in headlines and making executives think they're creating "hip" products.

Re:They're still not quite getting it

[AKAImBatman]

NORMAL people, aren't interested in the "peer to peer" part of P2P they're interested in the "free stuff I don't have to pay for" part of P2P.

I don't necessarily agree. I think iTunes shows that people are willing to pay (for a reasonable price), but that they want the convenience of electronic distribution. The producers sort of get this, but they don't modify their business model to match. It just doesn't seem to occur to them that an electronic copy doesn't have as much intrinsic value as a physical reproduction that you can hold in your hand. Thus these online distribution methods often fail as consumers scream, "But I can get the same thing at Wal-mart and own something!"

Re:They're still not quite getting it

[Deliveranc3]

Interestingly for some of us P2P nutters we find this method of getting movies easier and less painful.

I don't have to get up go out and buy the movie, I just read a review and click a link.

If they allow users to burn a copy to DVD this will improve the lives of the majority of their clients...

Sounds like a good idea

[TheRappingShoe]

It will be interesting to see what kind of formats will be used, exactly how much they charge, and how much DRM they cram into the thing. If they do charge the same cost for downloading a film as the DVD version then where is the incentive to download? Surely the price should be lower to reflect the savings in materials and distribution costs.

More DRM... great

[chris098]

Although it's good that the movie industry isn't completely blind, I think they're going about this the wrong way. It's definitely a good thing that customers will be able to keep their purchases forever (instead of some 'limited time' offer), but I still have trouble seeing the value for customers in a P2P environment where they have to pay the same price as a DVD.

The article mentions the videos will have security features added to them so they can't be copied. Without more details, it's impossible to say how much of a hassle this will be. What if I have two computers and want to watch the video on the other one? The article is a bit weak on the details...

At last

[danidude]

...big corps start to realize that the old bussiness model is dead, and begin to use the new model at their advantage, instead of fighting the tide.

Re:At last

[AeroIllini]

...big corps start to realize that the old bussiness model is dead, and begin to use the new model at their advantage, instead of fighting the tide.

Nope. They're not beginning to use a new model at all. At most, they are trying to apply their current (old) business model to a new medium. At the very least, they are going to try this "intarweb distribution" thingie and do it so poorly that they can then say, "but we TRIED selling this stuff online, and no one bought it! They're all filthy pirates!"

The old business model is: "We create content. You pay for this content, but you only get to watch it when, where, and how we say so, because of our precious IP. Oh, and we're greedy bastards and have no concept of supply and demand, so our prices are unfairly high and we blame the internet on low sales, not taking the quality of our product into account."

Their new model is: "We create content. You pay for this content online at the same inflated prices as physical media, except that we don't have to pay for printing any physical media, and this is a peer-to-peer system which means the customers are paying for bandwidth costs as well! We don't allow them to alter or burn this content in any way because of the restrictive DRM we place on it. Basically, you only get to watch it when, where, and how we say so, because of our precious IP. Oh, and we're greedy bastards and will blame the failure of this system on the filthy pirates and not on the inherent flaws."

How is this new or innovative, again?

Wow, same price as a DVD?

[GrumblyStuff]

...but you get nothing? If there's any sort of limit on how many copies you can make, you'd best hope your computer never dies.

So let's see.... None of the usual DVD extras? One language? No hard copy? SAME PRICE?

Wow that's a bunch of ass.

Re:Wow, same price as a DVD?

[Dr. GeneMachine]

Exactly, except i can go without the subtitles. You know why I do not go to the cinema anymore? I can't stand the german dubbed crap. Horrible, just horrible, in most cases. Since the availability of multi-language DVDs and undubbed versions from... well, you know from where, I can't be arsed to put up with crappy dubs any more. They can take their german dubbed, crippled, overprized crap and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. I do not care.

What?!

[lbmouse]

No Bay Watch or Hasselhoff music videos??

Country dependent

[Tethys_was_taken]

This may work in EU countries where most broadband users have uncapped links, but in countries like Australia (or India, but there are bigger problems in that case), where most connections have usage caps, this is not going to work. People are going to refuse to pay for the content and then pay for the data transfer.

That said, it's a nice change to see some positive developments as far as the ??AA and the internet go, and a very welcome change from banning all innovation, as they tried recently...

This makes no sense

[Saint37]

If you're going to charge me the same price for a download as you are for a DVD and you're gonna strap DRM on it to boot, I might as well buy the DVD and rip it. I now have a hard and DRM freee soft copy all for the same price.

http://www.commodore69.com/

Re:This makes no sense

[atezun]

If you hadn't noticed, most DVDs these days have DRM on them too. So Eeither way you're going to have to break DRM.

Flashback

[SetupWeasel]

This reminds me of grade school, where an adult against tooth decay or something would try to "speak our language."

Flossing is stupid ill! 23 Skidoo!

Pay as much as a DVD! ugh? no thanks.

[xirtam_work]

Are these companies stupid? Do they think we're stupid? Why ask us to pay the same price, or similar to a store purchased DVD when there's no manufacturing, packaging or physical distribution to pay for? If anything an electronic copy of a movie or song should cost less to the consumer - much less.

I can understand people paying a similar amount for a 'premium item' like a just aired TV show or something that is similar to pay-per-view like a sports game. But, expecting people to pay full price for something that comes without the same quality of packaging as a movie that can be bought in a store is rediculous.

And to top it off they're using a Bittorrent style system where their customers are the ones paying for the bandwidth! If I upload your show to another customer for you it comes out of my quota of data from my ISP for the month and costs you nothing! What's in it for me huh?

These outfits really need to figure out that an electronic product should be *LESS* not that same price or more!

Don't forget these movies are likely to be compressed to a lower quality than a regular DVD as well.

Good idea

[Tim C]

Shame about the price?

For the cost of a DVD, I'm going to want a DVD. For a file that I could lose in a hard drive crash or through an accidental erasure etc, and that's potentially going to take me a couple of days to download (even if it maxes out my 2Mbps connection) and tie up my connection (if it maxes it out), I'm going to want to spend quite a bit less. That's ignoring the fact that my house can (currently) comfortably store many more DVDs than my hard drive, and somehow I don't see it being quite as simple as just burning it to disc.

Still, that said, this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Maybe common sense...

[TCQuad]

Finally, some sense in the P2P/RIAA/MPAA wars!

They get your money to buy the content and then they don't have to pay for the bandwidth to get it to you? How could they not try it?

Learning from the RIAA's mistakes...

[PFI_Optix]

It seems the television networks and movie studios are learning from the record labels what not to do. A lot of networks are jumping on board with Google and iTunes, and now Warner is looking at embracing digital distribution before movie sharing becomes as commonplace as music sharing has been for the past seven years.

What I'm most excited about is Firefly Season 2. From the buzz I've been hearing, they intend on doing something really revolutionary with it: it's going to be a subscription-based show not available on any networks. If the Browncoats can fully support a show the caliber of FireFly, that's going to force the network execs to sit up and take notice.

Especially considering the slow uploads...

[Lonewolf666]

In Germany, most people have a highly asymmetric connection. DSL (which is by far the most popular version of broadband) usually comes with bandwiths like
-1000kBit/s down and 128 kBit/s up
-2000kBit/s down and 192 kBit/s up
[...]
-6000kBit/s down and 576 kBit/s up
There are offers with higher upstream bandwidth, but those tend to be more expensive.

So distribution per P2P will usually be hampered by the lack of upstream bandwith. Why should a paying customer accept that (and have his own upstream blocked for hours), unless he gets the content cheaper as compensation for his cooperation?

Re:Especially considering the slow uploads...

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Any reasonable P2P protocol splits the file up into packets and sends out requests for packet numbers- you aren't going to be pulling from just one source, so upload bandwidth really doesn't matter as much.

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck

[sane?]

Same price as a DVD, using somebody else's bandwidth. Unless these are released before the DVD is then there is no reason to choose this option. Maybe that's the point.

Since I can rent a DVD by mail for 1 unit of currency it difficult to see anything else other than an attempt to say "see tried it, didn't work". The price needs to be around half that of a retail DVD, at most.

Oh, and no intrusive DRM either.

On a related point, has anyone noticed how movie and TV are coming together into a true competitive marketplace? The gap is much smaller than it used to be.

The more you give the same you get

[spyrochaete]

This sucks. I read about something like this on /. previously. People fork over their bandwidth, yet they pay fall fare for content. A movie costs the same for a guy with OC12 as it does for a guy on a 9600 baud courier modem. A pricing scheme that rewards fast uploads would be a fantastic way to improve the strength of the internet - everyone would pay more for fast uprate to save money!

Malicious note - here's a chance for movie pirates to use the same guerilla tactics as the industry - poisoning commercial P2P seeds! Inject that 1 frame of shlong and make Tyler Durden proud!

Peer Impact to Offer NBC \Universal Movies

[microbrewer]

Press Release:11-17-2005

NBC UNIVERSAL AND WURLD MEDIA ANNOUNCE ON DEMAND DEAL FOR MOVIE AND TV EVENT CONTENT ON PEER IMPACT SERVICE

Peer Impact becomes the first legitimate Peer to Peer to offer Video On Demand

Englewood Cliffs, NJ and Saratoga Springs, NY -November 17, 2005 - NBC Universal and Wurld Media, the creator of the legitimate Peer to Peer (P2P) service Peer Impact, today announced an agreement that will make Universal movies and NBC Universal TV events content available to Peer Impact customers on demand. This agreement marks the first ever license of major studio content to a legitimate P2P service. Titles will be available for rental for a 24-hour viewing period after purchase.

"NBC Universal has a long history of embracing technology to better serve our viewers," said Bob Wright, vice chairman of GE and chairman and CEO of NBC Universal. "This agreement is a significant step forward in our goal to capitalize on the myriad possibilities of new digital-media services, in a way that allows us to safeguard our content from illegal distribution."

"NBC Universal is committed to providing our content to consumers in a way that meets their needs," said David Zaslav, president, NBC Universal Cable. "This agreement with Wurld Media furthers that commitment by allowing consumers to view the highest-quality movies securely on their computers."

"It has been a great honor to work with the executives at NBC Universal with whom we share a common vision for the future of this consumer marketplace," said Gregory Kerber, Chairman and CEO of Wurld Media. "This monumental convergence of technology and entertainment will bring digital media into the living room of the consumer, placing on-demand entertainment at their fingertips."

Peer Impact offers its users a secure, high quality environment for rental and purchase of digital content, including music, video games, and with this announcement, for the first time, major film and television event titles. For the benefit of its users, all content is placed on the P2P network by Wurld Media - no unauthorized content can be introduced on to the network.

As with all digital content that is traded over Peer Impact, users will earn Peer Cash for their participation in distributing videos on the network and for recommending video purchases to others. Peer Impact's unique technology allows members to earn cash back for acting as "paid redistributors" of content purchased over the network. Users simply leave their computers on, and if they are selected as a source of fulfillment for purchases on the network, they receive Peer Cash that may be used toward future purchases.

On demand movies from the Universal film library include Academy-Award winning films "Ray" and "The Motorcycle Diaries; " recent titles such as "Meet the Fockers" and "The Bourne Supremacy" as well as upcoming premieres of "The Skeleton Key", "Cinderella Man" and "The Forty Year Old Virgin." Specials and stunts include "Jerry Springer: Uncensored," "5th Wheel" and "Blind Date" franchises; family-friendly programming like "Kicking & Screaming," the "Balto" series and "The Land Before Time." In addition, "Laura Sin Censura," one of the most successful Hispanic VOD offerings to date, will also be available to Peer Impact customers.

This announcement is the latest in Peer Impact's licensing and distribution arrangements. Peer Impact recently launched the first multimedia version of their service, which introduced over 1000 video games to the service and has bolstered its music catalog to include not only all major music labels but the largest independent labels as well.

# # #

About NBC Universal

NBC Universal is one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. Formed in May 2004 through the combining of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment, NBC Universal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entert

Zero Common Sense

[Tweekster]

So basically I have to pay the same price as a DVD for less features AND I have to do the work...
interesting...

now will it be true P2P (ie will I be helping to spread the file, which probably wouldnt work because of DRM)

basically, they are going to overcharge people for a DRM packed file that isnt as useful as a standard DVD then be shocked when it doesnt work...
thats my prediction.

Good idea, bad implimentation

[Gyorg_Lavode]

This is a good idea. Certainly one I would be interested in. But come on. The cost of a DVD for something I download? Also I didn't see anything in the article about burning which would be very important to me. Similarly are they making the video playable in any way other than their software? Everything stored on my computer but played through my TV is done using xbox media center for me. And I don't mine sharing some. Maybe 2x or 3x my download. But I certainly am not going to leave it on indefinately and let them suck up my bandwidth. I have a 90k uplink. I become everyone's best friend when I turn on bittorrent.

But over all I am happy to see them stepping forward. Most of the above problems, (pricing, amount to upload, burning), would take a little redirection at the corporate level and could be implimented quickly.

We really need a universal streaming format acceptable by DRM standards but open to client implimentations. Something like NTSC over IP. The server can be closed but the client should be universal so that I can get it built into my xbox media center or my windows media extender, etc. I would think that recording this would be no more of a threat than recording to a vhs tape or rca in connection.

Two steps forward, one step back

[16K Ram Pack]

Digital distribution - well done.

Same price as a DVD? Wake up. Why should I pay the same for something more restricted?

Do content producers think they can do the same thing they did with CD and DVD, and just keep/raise prices with formats? You've got to add something to earn a premium.

I'll just buy the DVD

[brain1]

Somehow what seems missed here is the cost of keeping my PC alive 24/7 just to give free bandwidth with no payback. If I have to buy the movie, put up with it's DRM, and give the person who charged me (at no discount) free server space, no deal! If I buy the DVD, I have the physical copy, can play it on anything I own, thanks to many who are equally sick of the abuse of the fair use act. I dont wear out harddrives, cook the CPU, and run up my electric bill with the 600W power supply. Plus the only way I would run a P2P server is if I can run it under Linux where I have *real* control of what is exposed to the wire.

Besides, unless you have a OC-3 fiber cabinet installed in your hall closet, it will take an eternity to download top-quality video via typical ADSL. Forget it if you only have a modem.

Oops, I forgot. We, in the US, have an inferior system of obsolete TELCO's who grudgingly gave us DSL just to protect their obsolete switches from meltdown due to all the modems.

-dh

what if...

[MooseTick]

Everyone is complaining about the fact that it will be "similar to the cost of a DVD." What if it will be 1/2 the cost of a DVD. Would you want to use it then. Would that make it worth the hassle of downloaded, potentially using up dl quotas, DRM, etc?

When you can illegally download nearly anything for free or goto Blockbusters and rent whatever for $5, what would you pay to be able to legally download content using P2P that will be DRMed?

Re:what if...

[RingDev]

Matters on half of what. Getting a $22 movie for $11, that's not half bad, but worth leaving your PC on all month? Nah. I can goto a local Block Buster and rent new releases for $1.50. I can open Video On Demand (Charter) and get videos instantly for $4-6. Sure VoD costs more, but I don't have to dirve anywheres, return anything, and it's instant.

The BEST way to get this to work would be to replace NetFlix. $15 a month to have access to their private P2P network. As long as you pay your monthly fee your P2P account and DRM key remain valid. Now that I might be interested in.

-Rick

Re:Having fun with your Jumping to Conclusions boa

[iamhassi]

" There is no pricing given anywhere in the article, you have no basis to make these assumptions."

did u even read the article??
"for a fee that Warner says will be similar to the cost of a DVD"

that sure sounds like pricing to me...

They still don't get it, do they?

[Spy der Mann]

The reason people prefer P2P than buying DVD's (or CD's for music) is the friggin' overinflated prices imposed on them!

The **AA isn't willing to let go of their precious dollars. And so, they pretend to modernize themselves by offering downloads, but they don't modernize what REALLY keeps them in the jurassic age. The prices.

Dubbed movies

[3.14159265]

Well, at least the movies are dubbed. This is a good thing.
Why doesn't music get dubbed as well??
(yes, being ironic...)

Re:Dubbed movies

[maxwell demon]

Why doesn't music get dubbed as well??

It does get dubbed, but usually in the same language. The result is called cover version.

Why "P2P"???

[Nicolas MONNET]

Can't they afford to pay for the fucking bandwidth? A few gigs of data download should'nt cost more than a cent or two. Compared to what they plan to charge for the movie, it's nothing.

they miss the point

[Yonder Way]

It's nice to see them trying to meet their customers halfway but really I think a few things have to happen:

1) Eliminate DRM.
2) Price the movies so cheaply that there isn't much point in stealing it. If a song is worth $1, and a TV show is worth $2, a movie shouldn't be worth more than $4 or $5 (US dollars). Make the "special features" a free optional download for people who have purchased the movie (a lot of people, myself included, will usually opt to just download the movie). Note that this could almost completely assume all of the $$$ that rental outfits are making from movies, allowing the studios to pocket profits from the vast majority of people who will just view the movie once and then discard it.
3) Work with the major PVR platforms to make it easier to buy an unencumbered $4 or $5 movie right from the menu than it is to download a pirate torrent and import it into the PVR. Don't just partner with one major commercial interest, get in bed with the OSS platforms also. Billions of dollars are at stake so spending a couple of million to have your product supported on the majority of popular PVR platforms is buying free money.

So can I burn it?

[Kjella]

...like you can burn CDs with iTMS.

Pros:
Available online, no need to get to a store. But if getting to a store is that hard, do they have proper broadband out there in the wilds?
Possibility for instant start (downloading as you go). Much more difficult with torrent-like systems because you need them in order. Can they provide that kind of sustained speeds to most consumers anyway?

Cons:
For a DVD, you can often get it as quickly by retail stores, online sites if you don't have good broadband
You know where you can get it cheaper...
You don't get any of the packaging. Do we even get the DVD extras?
Can you take a back-up?
Can you play it on a regular DVD player?
Can you move it to other machines like you can with a DVD disc?
They want to use your upload bandwidth

Basicly, no burning is a total and complete dealbreaker for me. And I know we can't burn CSS DVDs (consumer burners can't), and we won't be allowed to burn non-CSS DVDs. And if your HDD dies? Either you must a) download countless gigabytes AGAIN, or you must burn back-ups (maybe with some activation scheme). But then there's really no advantage over regular DVDs anyway, except now you need to make your own hardcopy. There's a big difference between having a HTPC and being forced to absolutely, for all future have to use one. Bought a DVD player to have in your cabin/car (great way to make kids STFU)/son's/daughter's room? Sorry.

It's a good start

[roman_mir]

It is a good start but it won't really take off until they revise their idea of how it is supposed to work and how much it should cost to the end user. Downloading a DVD for a price of a real DVD doesn't make sense, because if you want to play it in a DVD player now you have to buy an expensive blank and spend time burning the thing.

It would make some sense if they at least mailed you the real DVD after you buy the right to download a copy. But that is what I would do and I think I can come up with some innovative ideas time to time.

Missing an obvious problem here.

[db32]

If these aren't drastically compressed in some fashion you are looking at a couple gigs of data per movie. Downloading a file that is 5+ gigs over a P2P application... If you are really hell bent on staying home you could probably order the actual DVD from a website and it show up before your download finished AND still be able to surf the web while you wait instead of having your link crushed under all the other people trying to download 5G worth of data from your computer.

On Pricing

[ratboy666]

I am a Rogers Broadband customer. Rogers has, in the last year, set a data cap for my digital data service. Specifically, Rogers gives me 60GB per month, upload and download combined. I pay $40CDN per month for the service.

Now I finally have a way to compute the value of such things as this Warner P2P offering.

We need a little bit more data, though. Specifically, how big is a DVD quality movie? Between 600MB and 1.4GB for an MPEG encoded video of sufficient quality to (subjectively) look good on my big TV. 600MB for an animation, 1.4GB for a feature movie. Lets "split the difference" and call it 1GB.

Which means I can download 60 movies per month for $40. Each movie will cost me 67 cents to download.

But the P2P (Peer to Peer) model only works if I upload the material as well. To one (or more) clients. Note that my cap applies to uploads as well. I am going to assume a 1:1 ratio for down to uploads - which means my data pipe price is doubled. Specifically, to $1.33 per movie.

There is also a cost associated with having material on the hard disk for servicing uploads. I know the cost of on-line storage. My average price is now $2 per gigabyte (for my drives in service), and I replace drives every 2 years. Which means $1 per movie per year. If I assume data retension for a year (got to fill this in with something. and there has to be client retension to make P2P work!), this adds a buck, bringing my cost to $2.33.

Would I spend $2.33 to download a movie? Rental at BlockBuster average $3.50 (ish) per movie. One buck more. Which is then what the content is worth to me. Without DRM, unlimited personal use: the price of the DVD minus the above costs, minus a factor related to the time it takes to actually download/upload (because my Internet connection is tied up... and its a nuisance). I figure a MINIMUM of 5 bucks.

So, "Unencumbered DVD quality downloads using our P2P, at 30% under store DVD price" is the beginning of the play for me.

Ratboy

Idea

[Renraku]

Here's an idea. You pay a few bucks to watch the locked copy. You know..$1-5. Then if you want to buy it, you can have them send you the DVD just like you'd buy in the store, less the price of the download. Like if you paid $4 and the DVD is $20, you pay $16 and the DVD gets sent to you.

With discounts for those that are 'seeders' like free downloads and 25% off DVDs or something.

Out with the Old?

[ClamIAm]

All "media" is inherently prone to unauthorized copying. Part of this is human nature. We learn how to walk, talk, and act by repeating everything we hear and see. We remember quotes and songs and want to share them with friends. We also like to gain things for less work or resources whenever possible. Such is the case with copied media that's mass distributed. As soon as machines or techniques the average person can use become available, the genie's out of the bottle. And you can't stuff him back in there, no matter what tactics you use. I believe that the people running the media cartels really do understand this at some level.

The goal of gambling is generally to maximize your positive expectation (this means positive outcome. Cf. writers like David Sklansky). While I encountered this statement in a book about poker, I believe it applies pretty well to business and other aspects of life. And the cartels probably understand this more than the genie metaphor.

So if they understand their precipice of a business model, and they are trying to maximize profits (positive outcome), then why are they not trying to really "embrace" alternate distribution? My take on this is that they've done the research and concluded that they can make more money through DRM, scare tactics (lawsuits), and FUD.

DRM is really a temporary solution. It makes copying harder, so it works on the non-technical. Coupled with the DMCA, it creates an end-run around fair use rights as they can sue anyone who releases information about how to bypass the restrictions. It can't last forever, as there are those who want to copy media, and stopping human communication is not possible.

The scare tactics (lawsuits) and FUD could be considered a temporary solution, or you could compare it to any authority asserting power over the peasants. These work (at least in the US, I don't know about other places) because the average person here doesn't research or apply any logic to the corporate nightly news they watch, often owned or affiliated with the same corporations who hold massive copyright interests (ABC, NBC, CBS, WB, FOX, etc). When the lawsuits started, the average person had probably seen or read two things about file-sharing: "peer-to-peer makes copying easy" and then, a bit later "file-sharers go to court". The FUD works in basically the same way.

I believe that public opinion is really key here. Sure, there are those who buy the FUD and learn a distorted view of copyright. And there are those who favor abolishing copyright altogether. But I think that the majority of people are somewhere in the middle. These are the techies who see the ridiculousness of the propositions made by the cartels (in terms of technology), or the soccer moms who want to copy that DVD so Timmy doesn't ruin the original.

This is where we have to step in. The great thing about this point in time is that most people don't understand much about the situation. I found this out when I was home during Christmas/New Years. I consider my dad to be smarter than average, yet he thought DVD burners might be illegal (he has one in his 2-year-old iMac), and I don't think he really understood me when I didn't want to go to the movies unless there was something I really wanted to see (he asked why, I said "unethical business practices").

So what should we do? Well, we have a situation where public opinion is important and the same public does not understand the issues very well. This means those who want to tame the feudal-style trade groups (cf. Guilds) should find some way to raise awareness about these issues.

There are organizations like Free Culture and Downhill Battle who are trying to do this. They are a great resource for the many slashdot (and similar) types who complain about the copyright situation, yet maybe don't