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Paramount Pictures To Release Film On Bittorrent

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the bet-it-sucks dept.

TheyreNotTheir writes "In a little over two months time, the long-awaited horror movie The Tunnel will receive its world premiere. Rather than a traditional theatrical release, the movie – which is set in abandoned real-life tunnels under Sydney, Australia – will make its debut online for free with BitTorrent. Simultaneously it will be released on physical DVD, to be distributed by Hollywood giant Paramount Pictures."

126 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. MPAA will not care by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Smart money says people still end up in court being sued for distributing it anyway.

    1. Re:MPAA will not care by zethreal · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Unfortunately, I think you're right. Either that or they're planning on recording all the IP's that connect to it for "tracking" purposes.

    2. Re:MPAA will not care by Skarecrow77 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's a trap!

    3. Re:MPAA will not care by grub · · Score: 2

      That's what I was thinking. We must shop at the same hatter.

      --
      Trolling is a art,
    4. Re:MPAA will not care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'm sure they will, because despite all the asshole pirates claims of "If movie studios adapted to modern technology we wouldn't pirate", some asshole will rip the non free features off the DVD and put up a torrent.

    5. Re:MPAA will not care by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 2

      It's a trap!

      If it's not it soon will be once I start uploading Uwe Boll movies under the title "The Tunnel: Director's Cut" ;-)

    6. Re:MPAA will not care by SilentStaid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's at best being terrible at sarcasm and at worst you're being deliberately obtuse. After all, it was posted HERE before that they planned on this all along as a way to drum up interest in the under-budget film already. Source.

      That aside, I think everyone here who has ever bitched at the MPAA should at least do a little research and find out that, one of the many reasons that they're having trouble funding this film is because they're going against the grain and not opting for a huge distribution model that we so frequently claim to hate.

      All I'm saying is, pony up Slashdotters. Put your money where your mouth is and show them that you like the business model by trying it, and pay for it if it's worth it (which is a different story entirely.)

    7. Re:MPAA will not care by erroneus · · Score: 2

      I also predict that the MPAA will use "lower than average sales" to back up their claims of losses due to P2P sharing and other downloading.

      It is really hard to prove a negative or that something isn't happening because of something else. This may be an attempt to create a heavier preponderance of evidence to support their claim of losses due to downloads.

    8. Re:MPAA will not care by natehoy · · Score: 1

      How? If the copyright holder is releasing it for redistribution, then I fail to see how redistribution under their terms could be considered unauthorized, unless the DVD is higher quality and someone rips that and torrents it, in which case Paramount will have a legitimate case since they only authorized the lower-quality version for torrent distribution.

      I think their goal on this is simple. I suspect Paramount wants this movie to have absolutely abysmal DVD sales. That way, they can point at the sales figures and say "see? (very_high_percentage) of people will not buy something if it's available for free!" I also bet the DVD will be expensive to make sure this happens.

      Either that, or Paramount is truly trying to see how well .torrents do for distribution (maybe the .torrent will be a lower-resolution version with a quick splash screen saying "if you want this in higher quality, please buy the DVD!").

      One interesting business model might be to charge some very nominal fee (say $1-2) for a copy of the .torrent file. Their distribution costs are near zero, so any sales that way are pretty much pure profit. This dovetails in with the "lower the price, reduce piracy" discussion from the other day, and gives would-be pirates a way to go legit while building collections of movies.

      There will certainly be some (maybe a lot, hard to say) redistribution of the .torrent file, but it'd be interesting to see what would happen with something like this. Would you sell enough zero-overhead copies of the movie at a buck a pop to make up for your $10 per-unit profit on the DVD release? I have exactly 10 movies in my DVD collection, but if you offered me movies at $1-2 a pop I'd probably own several hundred. They'd be impulse purchases, and I wouldn't think twice about buying a movie to watch once.

      I think they'd make some good money on it. Especially with older movies that already sell for a few bucks on the bent can rack at Wally World, most of which has to be eaten up by distribution and materials costs. If you didn't care about liner art and packaging, would you pirate it or cough up 75 cents for the .torrent file and a legit license to it?

      I think there's some interesting possibilities in this business model. I don't pirate, but I also don't buy a lot of music because it's overpriced in my opinion. I might buy 30 bucks (2-3 albums) in music a year.

      When "all of mp3" came out, I bought TONS of music at about 25 cents a song. I probably dropped $150 in the first year. Many turned out to be music I didn't like, but at 25 cents a song I'll take that risk and work on building collections, because it's easier to download a bunch of stuff and spend a little money than wasting my time picking out individual songs to save money. I'd also spend 10 cents each to download a few sample songs for an artist in 128k, then turn around a day later and spend another 25 cents a song on their entire collection at a decent bitrate if I liked the samples.

      --
      "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
    9. Re:MPAA will not care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Extremely likely. These same assholes are why we have so much ad ware on Android and now these pricks are working overtime removing ad ware from *FREE* applications; thusly ensuring the developers receive no income. These pricks literally have proven piracy is doing financial harm, if its not its sole reason for doing so, to lots of small companies and individuals. To not call them criminals is to be delusional. Worse, a lot of these scum bags will then take their stolen applications and resale them via membership services or ironically, in turn generate revenue from ads.

    10. Re:MPAA will not care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      So encourage all your friends, family etc who never (as opposed to 'never') download movies to grab it, and watch it at one of their places. Go go gadget red herring :)

    11. Re:MPAA will not care by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 2

      Oh, please. The MPAA is far too evil and closed-minded to ever get any consideration for this. The MPAA would still be viewed with suspicion if they donated a dollar to a homeless person or a million dollars to an orphanage. And by 'donated' I mean 'gave without suing them afterwards for depriving the MPAA of revenue that they believe was rightfully theirs'.

    12. Re:MPAA will not care by SuperSlacker64 · · Score: 1

      Aluminum foil, right?

    13. Re:MPAA will not care by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 1

      It's a trap!

      If it's not it soon will be once I start uploading Uwe Boll movies under the title "The Tunnel: Director's Cut" ;-)

      You have a cruel, cruel soul.

    14. Re:MPAA will not care by robot_love · · Score: 1

      You're a monster!

      --
      .there is enough of everything for everyone.
    15. Re:MPAA will not care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I hate to break it to you, but the people modifying their apps or phones to remove ads are the types that never - never as in, never in their entire lifetimes - willingly click on ads. Your post has as much truth to it as saying that Chinese or Russian piraters cause massive financial loss (while ignoring that they never bought any paid apps in the first place).

      Also... I'm not going to lax my general iptables rule so I can view ads on your goddamn app. If your app uses internet connectivity only for ads then it's already broken.

    16. Re:MPAA will not care by nospam007 · · Score: 2

      He's a cross between Spielberg and Tarantino.
      You should definitely rent one of his movies.

    17. Re:MPAA will not care by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, I think you're right. Either that or they're planning on recording all the IP's that connect to it for "tracking" purposes.

      I'll wait till the put it out on USENET.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    18. Re:MPAA will not care by Jessified · · Score: 1

      Technically one could argue that the torrent is a 'sale' at price zero. You could counter that they had really high unit volume. Not to mention all the money they saved regarding DVD production and distribution.

    19. Re:MPAA will not care by AlamedaStone · · Score: 1

      If they really wanted to check their prices versus what the public is willing to pay they'd set up a "pay what you think is fair" website. They probably want to see how many people are really torrenting, and maybe get some inflated piracy numbers. Tracking IPs seems unlikely, but I suppose with the viral nature of a free movie saving on advertising and a negligible cost for distribution, they could easily invest big money in some digi-sleuth firm.

      Without knowing where the public's perception of a fair pricepoint is though, this isn't a genuine attempt at a new distribution model.

      --
      "All these years believing you're the signified monkey, only to find out you're just a big hunk of nobody cares."
    20. Re:MPAA will not care by cdrguru · · Score: 1

      How much to you think that really costs them?

      If you want to manufacture 10,000 DVDs you will find that it costs about $0.50 to make them all. Maybe a little bit more if they are dual layer... so say $0.65. This might even include the manufacturer packaging the discs up in DVD cases with slip-ins and bulk-packing them in boxes of 25. You are going to have some shipping costs from where they are made in Asia over to the US, but even that is negligible.

      Put them in a box of 25 and ship it UPS Ground for $2. You get that rate because you ship a LOT of boxes with UPS. Total cost per disc is $0.73. If the disc is sold wholesale for $8 you have better than 90% markup on per-unit cost. WalMart takes them and sells them for $10 in a discount bin only getting 20% on the deal, which for them isn't all that bad.

      If you think they will sell, you might make 100,000 discs at an even lower cost per-disc. Manufacturing discs in the Far East is really, really cheap and shipping costs are really incredibly low when you put a bunch of discs together in a box.

    21. Re:MPAA will not care by SilentStaid · · Score: 1

      Kettleblack.

      The MPAA are a cancerous organization, you'll get no argument from me there, but your comment clearly shows you didn't understand what I was saying - this studio was going to go for the torrent release long before Paramount's Australian shells got a hold of it specifically because they couldn't get the funding with a traditional distro model.

      I just want to say that I can't believe you're comment is modded up - that someone would consider your useless mini-rant against the MPAA insightful at all even though it contributes nothing to the discussion says a lot about the Slashdot crowd as a whole. I think it means that as a collective, we've finally become so anti-**AA that we'll blindly champion how terrible they are while deliberately obscuring the fact that we're just as marginalized the other way - me included.

    22. Re:MPAA will not care by next_ghost · · Score: 1

      You should definitely rent one of his movies...

      ... if you liked Star Wars Holiday Special.

    23. Re:MPAA will not care by Rasperin · · Score: 1

      Actually it's even worst then that. What they are doing is a win-win situation for them. On the one hand if few download the content, Paramount can claim that people only torrent for illegal reasons. On the otherhand if lots download the content, Paramount can claim that people only want to torrent backing it's philosophy that it's cutting into it's profits. On top of that they get to datamine IP Addresses that can be researched for other infringement. So basically what I suggest is people ignore both the torrent AND the DVD (in which Paramount still wins claiming people wont take free if given, but this is the best of all evils). Which in reality, who was really looking forward to watching this?

      --
      WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
    24. Re:MPAA will not care by kuzb · · Score: 1

      Smart money says this is an experiment to see just how prolific torrents and online use is. There is nothing here to suggest they will sue people. That's all in your head.

      If anything, this is a sign that they might be wising up.

      --
      BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
    25. Re:MPAA will not care by Jessified · · Score: 1

      And then if you argue that retail prices are too high, all of a sudden the manufacture and distribution of big content is unbelievably expensive and couldn't be accomplished without copyright monopolies. (A common arguments in book publishing.)

    26. Re:MPAA will not care by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 1

      This "legal torrent, honest!" deal is pretty much the Sheriff of Nottingham setting up the archery contest in order for Robin Hood and his men to reveal themselves.

    27. Re:MPAA will not care by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Well, as a pirate who has already purchased 5 frames of the movie, I am looking forward to its release.
          I check up on the project from time to time; they were hoping to raise $139 000.00 prior to the release, to pay for it up front, but I see they only made it to about $30k. They've said all along that the intention was to release it free on bittorrent, so I'd say there is some kind of obligation to follow through, even if they've struck a deal of some kind with Paramount.
          The deal could be as simple as covering the $100k shortfall by giving Paramount the distribution rights for physical media. Paramount probably has the marketing projections, they know that, no matter what, they'll peddle at least a quarter-million optical discs, turn a profit of say $9/disc. Sure, it's peanuts compared to the 8-digit returns that they are accustomed to, but they know a good investment when they see it.

    28. Re:MPAA will not care by neokushan · · Score: 1

      One Word: Hosts.

      Yes, even android has it.

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    29. Re:MPAA will not care by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1

      tin, guys tin...

      Tin blocks the mind control... Aluminium amplifies!

  2. Will it leak? by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Funny

    The question now is whether the film will be leaked onto Bittorrent before the official Bittorrent release.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    1. Re:Will it leak? by Seumas · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The more important question is - how will you know it's okay to download it? I mean, what differentiates one movie on bit torrent versus another? It sounds like this just muddies things. After all, if one movie is okay to download on bit torrent (and I don't know what would identify it as being authorized to download by the copyright holder when you're looking at a torrent index) and a movie that isn't?

    2. Re:Will it leak? by Vanderhoth · · Score: 1

      That's the trap. Trick people who don't currently download movies into doing it. Thus increasing the number of people you can sue to make money.

      Devious.

    3. Re:Will it leak? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That's stupid. Don't feed their fear mongering.

      Buying off Walmart - legit; off the back of some guy's truck - not.
      I go and watch TV on Hulu or USANetwork.com or Fox.com, I know it's not the same thing as watching it on some random site *cough*piratebay*cough*.
      If I go to www.paramount.com and get a torrent file from them then you know it's legit.

    4. Re:Will it leak? by Baseclass · · Score: 1

      I really don't think there's even remotely a shortage of people to sue.

      --
      ^^vv<><>BA
    5. Re:Will it leak? by Vanderhoth · · Score: 1

      It's still good business to increase your customer base give an opportunity. I image suing has become a major revenue stream for the *IAA. So why segregate the rest of the market? Give everyone a chance to be sued.

      Just make it so you can throw darts at a phone book and pick names to sue rather then having to actually do some "research" or some such thing.

    6. Re:Will it leak? by Seumas · · Score: 2

      There is a far greater difference between "Windows 7" and "Linux" on a torrent site than there is between "this is a fully produced copyrighted film distributed by a big studio that is okay to download over the internet" and "this is a fully produced copyrighted film distributed by a big studio that is not okay to download over the internet". What, you're suggesting that as long as it doesn't say "Uberl33tSCENERLS" in the filename, that makes it legit to download as it must have been placed on the torrents legitimately?

    7. Re:Will it leak? by Seumas · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's plenty of content out there all over torrent sites that the creator of that content has intentionally seeded to the public. Just because something isn't from "Corporate Conglomerate Name" doesn't mean it isn't legitimate. Is all that project gutenberg content somehow less valid if it's up on a public torrent site, just because you didn't get it straight from some publisher (who wouldn't be able to own the copyright, anyway)?

    8. Re:Will it leak? by coolmadsi · · Score: 1

      The more important question is - how will you know it's okay to download it? I mean, what differentiates one movie on bit torrent versus another? It sounds like this just muddies things. After all, if one movie is okay to download on bit torrent (and I don't know what would identify it as being authorized to download by the copyright holder when you're looking at a torrent index) and a movie that isn't?

      This isn't a particuarly new thing, its been possible to get legal movies from bittorrent for a few years; search for public domain torrents (I've not been there in a while, I think the site is publicdomaintorrents.com or org or something).

    9. Re:Will it leak? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Legitimate torrents:
      Sintel.2010.720p.Theora
      archlinux-2010.05-core-x86_64
      i686-core-2010-08-25
      The_Tunnel_2011_movie

      Illegitimate Torrents:
      SUPER_DUPER_MAX_SPEED_XXX_DA_TUNNEL_XXX_2011_FROM_D3M0N_H4>()R_ACH_DEE

    10. Re:Will it leak? by sorak · · Score: 1

      The more important question is - how will you know it's okay to download it? I mean, what differentiates one movie on bit torrent versus another? It sounds like this just muddies things. After all, if one movie is okay to download on bit torrent (and I don't know what would identify it as being authorized to download by the copyright holder when you're looking at a torrent index) and a movie that isn't?

      They could put a magnet hash on their site and have a disclaimer stating "This is the legal one. We can't vouch for what other sites host".

    11. Re:Will it leak? by Kjella · · Score: 1

      What, you're suggesting that as long as it doesn't say "Uberl33tSCENERLS" in the filename, that makes it legit to download as it must have been placed on the torrents legitimately?

      I'm saying it will almost certainly be obvious from the circumstances, this movie will almost certainly have a public website with the torrent just like Linux distros. Descriptions are likely to link back to it, that's what stuff that is legally on TPB has done. Places like ClearBits (previously LegalTorrents) have been gathering them up and so on. It's not immidiately obvious if an mp3 file is legal or not either, but I still haven't heard anyone seriously use that defense.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    12. Re:Will it leak? by arun84h · · Score: 1

      Isn't the whole intellectual property debate about whether it's right or wrong to share an idea? Wouldn't "The_Tunnel_2011" be the same IP as "SUPER_L33T_THE_TUNNEL_2011", as long as the file wasn't altered?

      I was under the impression that the file itself wasn't the underlying issue. I don't think you can call one .torrent file "legitimate" while calling another that points to the SAME file "illegitimate".

  3. Profit? by MikeDirnt69 · · Score: 1

    1 - Make movie
    2 - Put it on torrent for free
    ...
    3 - Profit?

    --
    Am I eval()? - http://www.monst3r.com.br
    1. Re:Profit? by pyalot · · Score: 1

      FTFY 1 - Make movie 2 - Put t on torrent 3 ... 4 - Make a profit suing people

      --
      Experiments and other stuff
    2. Re:Profit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A lot of people (claim?) to buy games/movies/software after "trying them out" from bit torrent downloads.

      This will be an interesting business model test.

    3. Re:Profit? by Xacid · · Score: 2

      Same thing I'm wondering. I'm immensely glad a company finally has the foresight to at least give it a try.

    4. Re:Profit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ... = When people download it from BT and realize it sucks balls and therefore don't buy the DVD, claim that it's evidence that the pirates are TEH EVIL!

      Note: I have no idea if the movie will be good or not, but it's a fair bet that the studios wouldn't do this with a movie they thought had a decent chance to make $$$ the old-fashioned way.

    5. Re:Profit? by mehrotra.akash · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Hasnt the Humble Indie Bundle already done this??

    6. Re:Profit? by lxs · · Score: 1, Informative

      It's a straight to DVD release, if I RTFA correctly, so my guess is that they expect it to aspriate orbs.

    7. Re:Profit? by leuk_he · · Score: 2

      1. Make film
      2. Put crappy divx on torrent.
      3. Put superior dvd on sales.

      Guess which version will be more popular...

      BTW.. Next blockbuster might follow old Theathe -> rental -> DVD -> cable tv -> public tv model again....

    8. Re:Profit? by SigmundFloyd · · Score: 1

      1. Make film
      2. Put crappy divx on torrent.
      3. Put superior dvd on sales.

      Guess which version will be more popular...

      The crappy divx on torrent. What do I win?

      --
      Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
    9. Re:Profit? by Stenchwarrior · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's a good idea, but if they really wanted to see if it works then they would release a film with some big-name actors. This just looks like some B-movie pseudo-thriller.

      --
      Loading...
    10. Re:Profit? by Seumas · · Score: 1

      Chances are, they're using this to screw over the director or producer or someone else who has a stake in things. Kind of like when a musician is stuck in a shitty contract for two more albums and just releases shit to undermine the label.

    11. Re:Profit? by iluvcapra · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What would be clever is releasing the Divx on a torrent, but making the torren pan-and-scan and standard def, mono audio, burned in French subtitles, and corrupt the datastream a little so that every few minutes the picture hangs. Such a torrent might be "good enough" for people that wanted to casually watch the movie, and would divert them from a better pirated copies, particularly if you made sure it was very easy to find, but would be unacceptable if you actually wanted to enjoy watching the movie, and would stimulate you to go buy the real one.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    12. Re:Profit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No. The Humble Indie Bundle on bittorrent was just regular piracy. Of course it was only pirated because of the invasiveness of its non-existant DRM and its outrageous price of a whole dollar.

    13. Re:Profit? by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Someone would just rip a good version and upload it.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    14. Re:Profit? by cobrausn · · Score: 1

      This comment made my morning.

      --
      How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
    15. Re:Profit? by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 2

      and would stimulate you to go buy the real one.

      I don't think so. Part of the reason people elect to not "go buy the real one" is because "the real one" has built up a reputation for not being as good as the pirate releases. If the torrent is pan-and-scan and has burned-in French subtitles and corruption, people seeing it will think, "Damn, the DVD must have been really bad for the cleaned up and improved version to be as bad as this."

      What they ought to be doing, is skip the bittorrent release altogether, but also skip the DVD (offer a for-pay download instead, and in a normal file format+codec and not requiring a specialized client (e.g. iTunes)). Or at least make sure the DVD release doesn't use CSS. Remove all the reasons that people pirate, and publicize like crazy that they've done this. (A lot of people are in the habit of pirating everything, because it's just assumed that all the non-pirate releases have DRM problems, so people working to fix the problem really do need to make a lot of noise, to get people to take the idea of non-piracy seriously again.) They should still go for getting money, but just make sure that a pirate release has no chance of being better than their own product.

      Any release of a "crippled" product (whether a corrupt datastream, or Bluray DRM, or whatever) is just a way of telling people to go get the movie from pirates. That gets the publisher out of the loop and pretty much eliminates and chances of collecting revenue. The publisher should try to be the best go-to guy, or at least tied for best. Never ever tell potential customers to go somewhere else.

      --
      "Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
    16. Re:Profit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Actually the Humble Bundle 2 set up an official tracker for the downloads. This was in response to people who were downloading via BitTorrent because they like that download method better. (Some of them were paying for it, and then downloading it from the torrents.)

    17. Re:Profit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think -you're- missing the point. Everything you say is correct, but what's to stop the studio from crying piracy anyway. Silly old things like facts?

    18. Re:Profit? by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      If the popularity of CAM and Telesync released on the internet have anything to say about it, you are probably right.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    19. Re:Profit? by iluvcapra · · Score: 1

      Remove all the reasons that people pirate, and publicize like crazy that they've done this.

      The studios would not be rewarded ... most people don't particularly understand what DRM is, and only rarely encounter it preventing them from watching a movie, and instead of making peace with a few torrenters it would just cause everybody to rip everything all the time. A consumer, who would otherwise be disposed to pay for a movie, would suddenly ask themselves "Why should I pay for a movie when a thousand kids on the local university campus just share it for free among themselves?" People don't respect corporations for letting information free, they just exploit them.

      and in a normal file format+codec and not requiring a specialized client (e.g. iTunes)). Or at least make sure the DVD release doesn't use CSS.

      Very few consumers download torrents to avoid iTunes, CSS or the MPEG-LA, these are just boogeymen of free speech zealots. The vast majority of torrenters just want a movie for a very low price (the cost of their internet connection and their time downloading) or to time- and place-shift their watching, to their mobile devices, to their hard drives, etc. If a media distributor, free or paying, TPB or Sony Pictures, can address these needs on the part of the consumer they'll win. Eliminating media portals and stores, CSS, or licensed codecs would be an utter waste of time, because the consumer knowledge of these things is extremely low and all of these technologies work great for a paying customer.

      Any release of a "crippled" product (whether a corrupt datastream, or Bluray DRM, or whatever) is just a way of telling people to go get the movie from pirates.

      It depends on where you're trying to hit on the price-value continuum -- some people want to own a movie but $20 seems too expensive, some people don't mind $20 for a good experience and some people are just cranks who want to steal things. The studios would do very well to release their torrents on their own sites, with branding and Web 2.0 and linking to IMDB and all that good stuff, along with the sort of library depth that pirate torrent sites simply could never meet. Eventually with appropriate marketing people would go to the studio's torrents, because they were the fastest, most convenient, offered the best selection and you didn't have to look over your shoulder for the MPAA.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    20. Re:Profit? by Mister+Whirly · · Score: 1

      The same answer as always - which ever one is cheaper. It has already been proven when software selling for $1 in a DRM-free package is being downloaded on Bittorrent, unauthorized, for free. Given the option of having something for free, or paying, I would guess the majority of folks would choose free.

      --
      "But this one goes to 11!"
    21. Re:Profit? by oldmac31310 · · Score: 1

      That would not be clever at all.

      --
      http://www.acetonestudio.com
    22. Re:Profit? by Gordonjcp · · Score: 1

      True; I downloaded a couple of tracks for free expecting that I'd probably like them and probably buy them anyway. I *did* like them, so I bought the flac versions which I can compress to Ogg (or indeed just leave alone) for playing at home, or compress to MP3 and burn onto a disc to listen to in the van.

      I tried it, I thought it was worth buying, so I bought the full package. Dead simple. I'm going to be buying some 192kHz flac albums from Linn Records in the next couple of days because I listened to the free (low bitrate) download and liked it.

    23. Re:Profit? by IICV · · Score: 1

      Like most things, it was pirated primarily because it was there, not out of some specific desire for the Humble Indie Bundle games. Statements like yours make the mistake of assuming that people pirate things like the Humble Indie Bundle because they want it; in fact, the case is exactly the opposite - they almost certainly pirated it because they saw no reason not to.

      Most people who pirate things are really nothing more than information packrats - they'll grab any interesting-looking set of files just because the opportunity cost is so low. Back in college, when I had access to the intra-campus peer-to-peer piracy network (DC++, which came with a built-in chat client!), I was like that; I still have hard drives sitting around somewhere that, unless they've decayed to the point of no recovery, are filled to the brim* with movies and games that in all honesty I'll probably never actually bother to dig up again, and nowadays even if I did want them I'd probably just buy them off of Steam or rent them from Netflix instead of fucking around with those ancient disks (they're not even SATA!).

      Basically, a pirate's goal isn't to have your game, it's to have every game. Even if they're never going to play any of them. And they're not going to pay for anything, or at least not until after they graduate from college and have money (most of the games in my Steam library have never been installed, but I got them all for so cheap that I don't really care).

      *Literally; I was so hard up for space that I actually wrote a shell script that would go through and take an MD5 hash of every file on my hard drives and compare it to the MD5 hashes of every other file on my hard drives, just to make sure I didn't have two copies of any large files. Then I realized that some Quake 3 Arena asset file randomly had the same hash as my smb.conf (or something like that), so I re-wrote the script to do both MD5 and SHA. Piracy taught me about hash collisions!

    24. Re:Profit? by twebb72 · · Score: 1

      No kidding. Download movie > delete instead of Download movie > buy dvd. They will get no meaningful numbers from a crap movie.

    25. Re:Profit? by Alarindris · · Score: 1

      Not really... as soon as the physical copies hit the stores they'll get ripped and the original torrent will die.

  4. Putyour money were your mouth is! by elsJake · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Donate and or buy it if you like it , they're testing new grounds and we need to prove we're not hypocrites.
    The slashdot crowd seems to follow the "try before you buy" mentality , so if you end up enjoying the movie , put your money were your mouth is.

    1. Re:Putyour money were your mouth is! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So, you'd advocate a battered housewife go back to the abusive husband as long as he says "I won't hurt you *this* time!" right?

      And no, that's not to extreme. If anything, it's not extreme enough. The MPAA destroys families forever through their ridiculous tactics. At least bruises heal.

    2. Re:Putyour money were your mouth is! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      BOARDROOM, INT. DAYTIME

      Henchman 1: I know! Let's release a piss poor movie on BitTorrent, asking for donations. When it fails we'll prove it's a failed model!
      MPAA Bossman: Brilliant! But... which movie shall we release?
      Henchman 1: ???
      Henchman 2: ???
      Henchman 3: ???
      MPAA Bossman: Ha ha, you should see the looks on your faces. *throws a dart at the board* They're all piss poor!
      All: Huzzah!

    3. Re:Putyour money were your mouth is! by Wiarumas · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Seems like a strawman technique to me though. "Hey everyone, the movie pirates were liars - they didn't buy this terrible movie after downloading it for free off Bittorent!" If it was a half decent movie, I would most likely download it and buy it if I liked it... but a horror movie titled Tunnel? Not interested in even the free version.

      --
      I will bend like a reed in the wind.
    4. Re:Putyour money were your mouth is! by drwhitt · · Score: 1

      ISP Executive: And, even if the movie is moderately successful, our packet-shaping algorithm will make it nearly impossible for these hax0rs to download the darn thing in under 24 hours.
      MPAA Bossman: Perfect! Yet another reason that this will be proven a failed model when I file my report for the in-the-bag-legislators, err, studio execs. All: Huzzah! Huzzah!

    5. Re:Putyour money were your mouth is! by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 1

      LOL like THAT will happen! Why should you expect this free download to be treated any differently than any other? Contrary to rationalization, movie and music downloaders aren't making a political statement. They just want shit for free.

      --
      I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
    6. Re:Putyour money were your mouth is! by dgr73 · · Score: 1

      Seems like a strawman technique to me though. "Hey everyone, the movie pirates were liars - they didn't buy this terrible movie after downloading it for free off Bittorent!" If it was a half decent movie, I would most likely download it and buy it if I liked it... but a horror movie titled Tunnel? Not interested in even the free version.

      I think you're right, with that name they should've tagged it as a porn movie.

    7. Re:Putyour money were your mouth is! by Kilrah_il · · Score: 1

      INTERNET, ANYTIME

      Submitter: Paramount Pictures to release film on Bittorrent for free.
      Slashdotter 1: Sounds cool. Let's show them this model can work.
      Slashdotter 2: No, it's part of an evil plot to somehow sue us.
      Slashdotter 3: Worse, it's part of a plot to show the free model can't work.
      Slashdotter 4: Yeah, they will trap us with a piss-poor movie to show us we are a bunch of thieves.
      .
      .
      .
      Slashdotter 1: Guess you're right. Evil bastards!

      For once the movie studios are trying to do something our way, like we wrote/talked/debated/preached in countless /. discussions. So instead of saluting them for the experiment (which is what we always told them to do, i.e. experiment with new distribution methods), we demonize them. And this time unfairly, IMHO.
      Like someone said earlier in the discussion, let's put the money where our mouth is.

      --
      Whenever in an argument, remember this.
  5. Re:Big Box Office by hhawk · · Score: 1

    Yes.. music used to pay radio shows illegal payments to promote their songs..

    BitT will let Hollywood promote for free.. and I think it will be good for freedom and good for the Net.

    --
    http://www.hawknest.com/
  6. Two tier system by vlpronj · · Score: 1

    I think a real option would be to release low-quality versions as free, or discount ($0.99 movies, $0.10 music) downloads. You could certainly get the gist of it, but leave enough distortion to make people considering buying the full version. Plus, smaller file sizes for those low-qual dl's might actually save money? Someone sharing a full quality version wouldn't be able to use the excuse, and the low-quals would be free advertising.

    1. Re:Two tier system by vlpronj · · Score: 1

      I think the poster meant "someone downloading the full quality version wouldn't be able to use the excuse they can't afford the movie". Yeah, I'm positive that's what he meant.

    2. Re:Two tier system by kubernet3s · · Score: 1

      Oh wait, wait! I have a better Idea, how about you just offer short clips, like 30-60 seconds, and then.... Oh, they already did that. How am I going to know if something is worth buying unless I actually see the full version? I might buy it and find that I don't want to pay money for it. You've just brought us back fulld circle

  7. Re:Whew! by KDEnut · · Score: 1

    Me too. I thought: Boy, this out to be even more "Fair and Balanced" than Fox!

  8. From the "last to release movies on DVD company".. by Dunega · · Score: 1

    The movie probably sucks, however this is surprising since I think it was Paramount that was the last one to start releasing movies on DVD. I don't quite remember the reason they gave, probably piracy or not wanting high quality copies of their movies floating around.

  9. I won't BT it by Gyorg_Lavode · · Score: 1

    To be completely honest, I'm too lazy to download it off bit torrent. If I want to watch it I'll either get it off netflix or buy it off something like amazon.com. This probably isn't a big enough movie to move me to hit the redbox for it.

    I suppose I'm representative of a lot of 30-something's. I've got an income. I've got more responsibilities than I care to deal with. My time is precious and I'm more than willing to trade a few bucks to plop down on the couch, pull up the app, and start the movie playing.

    --
    I do security
    1. Re:I won't BT it by slim · · Score: 1

      Hmm, I tend to bittorrent stuff because I'm too lazy to go the official route.

      Bittorrent: (assuming a BT client is installed) click link. Wait. AVI is on my disk.
      Official route: a bunch of form filling, trailer watching, requiring a viewer with DRM extensions, etc.

      I can watch non-DRM'd AVIs on my TV using my Xbox. I have to watch iPlayer on my laptop. Yes, I could plug my laptop into my TV, but there are various problems with that, which I'm too lazy to describe here, let alone resolve.

    2. Re:I won't BT it by Cajun+Hell · · Score: 2

      Yeah, using laziness or "my time is precious" as the reason to not bittorrent, is really weird. There are reasons not to bittorrent, but saving time or effort ain't among them. Nothing is as easy and point-and-click. All I can think of, is that this person's computer is hard-to-use, or he doesn't have an HTPC yet.

      --
      "Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
    3. Re:I won't BT it by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      , I tend to bittorrent stuff because I'm too lazy to go the official route... I can watch non-DRM'd AVIs on my TV using my Xbox.

      In response to someone who says they use Netflix? If only there was a way to watch Netflix on your Xbox.

      And if not streaming, it's no harder to select a DVD on Netflixs than a torrent on BT.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
  10. Rather deliberate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Last time I saw a trailer for this, it looked ridiculous. With a rather small production budget too, it's being set up to fail. "Waaah, when we do what the pirates want, they still won't make us money!"

    Of course I won't. I don't have a habit of buying inferior products over an inferior mechanism, so why do they expect visa-versa?

    1. Re:Rather deliberate by ledow · · Score: 1

      Vice versa ("with position turned", or some Latin equivalent, instead of "visa" versa, which comes via French meaning roughly "paper that has been seen" and, presumably, turned).

      And that would mean you don't buy good products over a good mechanism, because of the way you worded the sentence.

    2. Re:Rather deliberate by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 2

      Maybe that is the point. It's possibly a shitty movie and perhaps the cost of getting it to theaters, promotion, etc is not worth the estimated return of doing it. So they release it on DVD, throw it out there on BitTorrent for free and hope to get ANYTHING for this movie at this point.

      --

      "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    3. Re:Rather deliberate by elsJake · · Score: 1

      Of course it's going to be a low budget movie , no exec would ever approve busting open tens of millions of dollars on a movie so they can release it for free and "hope for some buys" without a serious dosage of crack in their coffee.

    4. Re:Rather deliberate by SockPuppetOfTheWeek · · Score: 1

      Veni, Vidi, Visa...

    5. Re:Rather deliberate by ledow · · Score: 1

      I came, I saw, I brought my flexible friend?

  11. Re:Whew! by DataDiddler · · Score: 2

    Monday... no peers, no seeds. I'm still stuck at 76.4%. The days drag on, and I can't help but wonder: where is my data and why is it taking so long to get here? Could there be some evil force keeping me from my mission? Am I in danger? I can only hope that one day, the bits will flow... like a torrent...

    *dramatic music*
    *man casually walks away from a giant explosion without looking back at it*

    BitTorrent: The Movie
    Coming Summer 2012

    --
    Working...
  12. The Movie will suck by The+Evil+Twin · · Score: 2

    Release a bad movie as an experiment.
    Watch nobody buy it because it sucks.
    Point and shout "You see? Nobody will buy this stuff without restrictive copyright law!!!!"

    --
    --- tracer.ca
    1. Re:The Movie will suck by pipedwho · · Score: 1

      And even sadder is if the torrent stays at S:1, L:0.

  13. Re:Big Box Office by thePowerOfGrayskull · · Score: 1

    I think you missed the part where its world premiere will be direct to BT/DVD... thus, no box office.

  14. Old News by Flipstylee · · Score: 2

    I bought twenty-five frames quite awhile ago now, anyone else?

  15. Beware by rayg0ld · · Score: 1

    It's a trick.

  16. Paramount HE is probably only a licensee by airfoobar · · Score: 4, Informative

    The summary is incredibly misleading, I think. It's not a trick, it's not a trap. Ackbar lied to you.

    What's happening is, the creators of the movie (who have always planned on releasing their movie on torrent) now also have a 'hard copy' DVD release planned. The DVD release is being distributed by Paramount HE, but it still seems quite clear that the rights are held by the movie creators, not the distributors as is usually the case. This is similar with what Paley did with Sita Sings the Blues, and it's a Good Thing (TM).

    If you people can now stop speculating and go support this initiative, it would be great!!

  17. Just like television by gsgriffin · · Score: 2

    Wouldn't surprise me one bit if rather than fighting this around the world that they will succumb to blatant product placement throughout the movie. Look for lots of Coke cans, iPhones, laptops of a certain variety, certain car manufacture with logo prominent, etc...

    --
    jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
  18. Fixed summary by davidwr · · Score: 1

    "In a little over two months time, the long-awaited horror movie The Tubes will receive its world premiere. Rather than a traditional theatrical release, the movie - which is set in abandoned real-life tubes under Sydney, Australia - will make its debut online for free with BitTorrent. Simultaneously it will be released on physical DVD, to be distributed by Hollywood giant Paramount Pictures."

    There, fixed that for you.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  19. Somebody please go check the temp in hell!!! by Ozlanthos · · Score: 1

    Because someone in the entertainment business finally gets it!!! I predict that if this film is worth the time wasted watching it + 5 minutes, it will become one of the most heavily viewed widely distributed films EVER!!!

    -Oz

  20. Please dupe this story in 60 days. by Reeses · · Score: 2

    This is the first time I've ever asked for Slashdot to dupe a story.

    But, post this again, in 60 days, when the movie is out so I can get it.

    --
    Reeses
  21. The same as anything else - where did you get it? by pavon · · Score: 1

    If I download software for free from the developer's website, then it is almost certainly legal. If I download software from someone's random rapidshare folder then it probably isn't.

    If I torrent a file from the official publisher's website, then I can safely assume it is legal. If I torrent something I randomly found on piratebay then it probably isn't. And if it is, it is almost assuredly available on an official site somewhere, so why bother with piratebay to begin with.

    Bittorrent isn't an amorphous cloud like freenet or even gnutella. You got the .torrent file from somewhere, and are using a someone tracker (at least in the original design), so you can judge from those whether it is legit. I have downloaded a bunch of legal files with bittorrent, and never once have I visited a public tracker or torrent search site. It was simply offered as another option on their download page to help save them bandwidth.

  22. Read that wrong by bedouin · · Score: 1

    I thought they were releasing a movie all about BitTorrent. Funny thing is I'd pay to a download of a movie about P2P if it were well made and objective. This? I won't even download it for free.

    1. Re:Read that wrong by srussia · · Score: 1

      I thought they were releasing a movie all about BitTorrent.

      Me too, I guess I was looking forward to something like "Bram Cohen's Trackula".

      --
      Set your phasers on "funky"!
    2. Re:Read that wrong by PRMan · · Score: 1

      You're on Slashdot! They're telling you now because THEY want the movie early. And they figure that now that they told all of us about it, it should be on BitTorrent in 3..2..1...

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
  23. Re:The same as anything else - where did you get i by Seumas · · Score: 2

    So when the same torrent is indexed by numerous sites out there, it suddenly becomes illegitimate, because the user clicked on it through an indexer rather than directly through the site? It's the same content from the same source, either way. You just got the index from a different location. How is it suddenly illegitimate if you ran across it on piratebay, if the tracker inside the torrent is the legitimate server in the first place? Unless they're somehow going to turn it into a private tracker that you have to have an account for before downloading the file via their own bit torrent service (which wouldn't surprise me) so they could lock it down from those who aren't connecting to the tracker with a passkey.

  24. Re:The same as anything else - where did you get i by pavon · · Score: 1

    You are being intentionally obtuse. No it doesn't become illegitimate, you just have no way of knowing whether it is legitimate. The point is that if you care about whether the files are legitimate or not you will get them from the official source, not some third party. Furthermore, if you can't find the files on any official site, then they probably aren't legitimate. It really isn't that hard to tell.

  25. Title Missleading by netdigger · · Score: 1

    The title to this article is misleading. Paramount has not been producing The Tunnel Movie and has no say in the ways that it will be distributed. The goal of this movie the entire time has been to release it on torrents. Paramount has just recently decided that it will distribute it in a dvd format after the move was previewed in a film festival.

  26. I believe by nilbog · · Score: 1

    That is called a "honeypot."

    --
    or else!
  27. These are easy questions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You seem to have a lot of questions about this. Let's start at the very beginning, and then I think you'll understand how to answer them all.

    So when the same torrent is indexed by numerous sites out there, it suddenly becomes illegitimate..?

    No. Legitimate/illegitimate starts with this: do you have permission for whatever it is, that you're considering doing? If so, how do you know? Whenever it's lawfully permitted to be sharing something, there is always some way that you know it's ok. Availability itself, though, won't help you determine that.

    When the torrent is indexed by numerous sites out there, this has no impact on whether or not it's ok to share, but does have impact on how well informed you are about whether or not you have permission. If you find the torrent on the copyright holder's site, that tells you that you very likely have permission. If you find the torrent elsewhere, then you know nothing until you google around and find authorization. If you don't find authorization but share, then you are taking a higher risk that you may be doing something prohibited.

    If it turns out that you take this risk, but sharing was not permitted, and then you get caught, the consequences of this are probably going to be related to how well your decision meshed with common sense. You have no reason to suspect that it's ok to share "Tron Legacy." You do have reason to suspect it's ok to share "The Tunnel" though, because you read a story on Slashdot about how the copyright holder was going to release it on bittorrent.

  28. Not by Paramount. by crankyspice · · Score: 1

    The film's production company, Distracted Media, is releasing it on BitTorrent, apparently with the consent of Paramount Home Entertainment Australia, who is handling the DVD distribution. Paramount themselves are not releasing the firm on BitTorrent. RTFA.
     

    --
    geek. lawyer.
  29. BT+DVD only = fail by next_ghost · · Score: 2

    If they want to make this experiment real, DVD as the only source of payments is a huge mistake. They need a theatrical release AND a simple donation system along with DVD release, all from day one. They'll learn that:

    • DVD is pretty much dead. Round pieces of shiny plastic are for collectors, not for general consumers anymore.
    • Theaters are here to stay. Free Internet release will make the movie fail in theaters only if it really sucks. If it's at least halfway decent, it's going to amplify its success in theaters instead.
    • The donation system works fine for users who'd want to buy DVD if it didn't include that round piece of plastic and a huge load of unskippable crap.
  30. Plot Description by realyendor · · Score: 1

    "The Tunnel is a horror movie about what the MPAA does to people who download movies over bittorrent."

  31. Re:But what if the movie sucks? by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 1

    Do you still expect us to pay in that case? Look, I understand that the Slashdot overlords expects us to worship all things Australian these days, but I'm not paying for a shitty movie just because it's being distributed via BT.

    Paul Hogan and Yahoo Serious set a very low standard for australian movies here in north america. We're not exactly holding our collective breath.

  32. Re:But what if the movie sucks? by SilentStaid · · Score: 1

    ...and pay for it if it's worth it (which is a different story entirely.)...

    I think I was pretty clear about that.

  33. Profit by aaandre · · Score: 1

    1. Release free movie over BT
    2. Sue everyone who downloads for $3k settlement
    3. Profit!!!!

  34. If I were Paramount... by UBfusion · · Score: 2

    I'd consider experimentally pre-releasing several, if not all, films on bittorrent for free. With a minor twist: they'd all be 80% of the screened version, that is, without the happy ending :-)

  35. Re:The same as anything else - where did you get i by turtleshadow · · Score: 1

    One of the best ways to track ants back to the nest is to lay out a cupcake.

    It would be interesting to see if the DMCA folks have deployed bots and will looking for this file in transit; leaving the courts trying to separate out leaches from newbies

    Certain parties in the name of copyright have already been cited as poisoning torrents as far back as 2005.

    Will they be tracing and then analyzing the UL/DL. If "private" torrents are encrypting having a well known file helps break or isolate the encryption in use.

    I wonder if somebody figured out how to detect the patterns of a torrent not so much in the transmission but in the reception.

    It would be awesome if some sends the file through analysis to see if it is injected and carrying any traceable meta data, spyware or unidentified cruft.

    DARPA just didn't on a whim send up a bunch of red ballons... I doubt the film industry is brainless about money when they release in this way.

    Watching the audience is something great film makers & studios have learned to do.

  36. Re:Hatter by hackwrench · · Score: 1

    I was thinking mercury treated felt.

  37. Re:Hatter by davester666 · · Score: 1

    So you were the one with a lead soother...

    --
    Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
  38. More important: by vaporland · · Score: 1

    Will It Blend?

    --
    Ask Me About... The 80's!
  39. Yeah..... by simpsop · · Score: 1

    It's a trick.... get a knife They're just looking for those who will download movies to investigate for downloading other works

    --
    Application has reported a 'Not My Fault' in module KRNL.EXE in line 0200:103F
  40. i like the idea but by AP31R0N · · Score: 1

    i'm not sure i could watch The Descent again.

    --
    Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!