GOG Introduces DRM-Free Movie Store

Via Engadget comes news that GOG, the DRM-free game store platform, has launched a DRM-free movie store. The initial set of movies are gamer oriented, and you won't find major studio releases (yet, and not for a lack of trying on the part of GOG). From GOG: Our goal is to offer you cinema classics as well as some all-time favorite TV series with no DRM whatsoever, for you to download and keep on your hard drive or stream online whenever you feel like it. We talked to most of the big players in the movie industry and we often got a similar answer: "We love your ideas, but we do not want to be the first ones. We will gladly follow, but until somebody else does it first, we do not want to take the risk". DRM-Free distribution is not a concept their lawyers would accept without hesitation.

We kind of felt that would be the case and that it's gonna take patience and time to do it, to do it, to do it right. That's quite a journey ahead of us, but every gamer knows very well that great adventures start with one small step. So why not start with something that feels very familiar? We offer you a number of gaming and Internet culture documentaries - all of them DRM-Free, very reasonably priced, and presenting some fascinating insight into topics close to a gamer's heart. Videos are mostly 1080p (~8GB for a 90 minute film) and can be acquired for about $6. They're using h.264/mp4 and not VP9/Matroska, but you can't have everything ;). If you don't want to download that much data, it looks like all of the videos are also available in 720p and 576p.

Comments

Gaming and internet culture documentaries

[serviscope_minor]

Gaming and culture documentaries. So, hackers, right?

Off to hack the gibson. BRB.

Re:Gaming and internet culture documentaries

[NotDrWho]

$6 for a 90-minute YouTube video? Going to have to pass for now.

Re:Gaming and internet culture documentaries

[Type44Q]

$6 for a 90-minute YouTube video?

Cut 'em so slack; $5 of that goes to Verizon. :p

CODEC

[Anonymous Coward]

They're using h.264/mp4

And I'm glad they do, because that's what people use in the real world.

Re:CODEC

[spire3661]

More like, it is what a few players have conspired to force the world to use, by making it a trap.

Re:CODEC

[Ksevio]

Here in the real world, when players collaborate on something for everyone to use, we call that a "Standard"

indep record store

[globaljustin]

my DRM-free movie store is my local indie record store...they have a nice DVD section...

library works too...but not technically a store

Re:indep record store

[spire3661]

The DMCA cares. it stifles massive amounts of speech on this subject.

...to do it, to do it, to do it right.

[Matheus]

"it's gonna take patience and time to do it, to do it, to do it right." That's kind of catchy... pretty sure I'll write a song with that as the chorus :-)

Re:...to do it, to do it, to do it right.

[_anomaly_]

But it's gonna take money, a whole lotta spendin' money...

Why not MP4?

[Pope]

Why wouldn't they choose h.264/mp4? It's playable just about anywhere these days.

Re: Why not MP4?

[Anonymous Coward]

Patents

Re:Why not MP4?

[mrchaotica]

Because there's a good chance that anyone who cares about it being DRM-free also cares about it being patent-free. I certainly do, although this is still "a good start."

Re:Why not MP4?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because there's a good chance that anyone who cares about it being DRM-free also cares about it being patent-free.

And such people can go fuck themselves. I prefer quality. VP9 is NOT quality, despite the claims to the contrary.

Re:Why not MP4?

[Sarten-X]

Perhaps not so good a chance as it seems.

Sure, most of us Slashdotters are in the middle of that particular Venn diagram, but my wife, for example, lies far off to the "hatred of DRM only" side. She doesn't care about patent licensing, but just wants to watch a movie easily. For us, that means no physical media occupying our limited shelving space.

It should be easy. Many movies are now offered with a digital copy, available on various services. Last time she wanted to watch a movie right now, we tried that, buying Frozen from iTunes. Unfortunately, iTunes apparently won't play such things to a VGA-connected device, because it can't verify the device supports HDCP. Naturally, there's no warning about this until you actually try to do it. I think the next thing we tried was Plex, streaming to our Roku device. That didn't work, either.

We ended up getting a refund from Apple, and bought a physical copy from Amazon. Once the physical disk arrived, it included a code to get a digital copy. We had to choose carefully how to use the code, judging by current compatibility charts what devices would be able to play the copy. Still hoping for convenience, we tried Amazon's streaming service, but that wouldn't play at all on our TV-connected laptop, and the Roku didn't feel like connecting to Amazon to even attempt playback. We finally just gave up and played the physical copy, several days after the initial attempt.

My wife is fine with respecting copyright and paying for entertainment. She just expects that entertainment should not be the reward for solving a puzzle of compatibility.

I've praised GOG before, and I'll do it again. Their primary concern seems to be that entertainment should be easy, and I'll support that, even if it means throwing a bit of support behind patents.

I read the title as...

[__aaclcg7560]

GCC Introduces DRM-Free Movie Store

Something else for Linus Torvalds to complain about after GCC 4.9.0. :/

indep record store

[jnik]

Most DVDs aren't DRM-free, either. They may well be restrictions you can live with, but they are encumbered.

Slashdotted

[CAPSLOCK2000]

It's been a while since we had a proper Slashdotting, especially of a professionally run website, but right now GOG is down, overwhelmed by the attention. They deserve the attention. Let's hope they sell a lot and get the message across to the movie industry.

Re:Size

[Shinobi]

8 gigs? Eh, it downloads while I go and make a cup of tea and a sandwich

Re:Size

[wisnoskij]

Looking on there site, they appear to have actually released a decent selection of qualities and sizes.

For Example:
TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboard (1080p) 8.2 GB
TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboard (720p) 4.1 GB
TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboard (576p) 781 MB

Re:Price point is way too high

[wisnoskij]

This. Unfortunately GOG does not have nearly enough industry sway to make them take reasonable prices for their product.

The moment of truth

[jones_supa]

Well, boys and girls, doesn't this finally solve all your complaints regarding movies being peppered with DRM by the request of MAFIAA? ;)

As GOG's collection grows, and if you find content that you actually are interested in, would you prefer this movie service over pirating?

Re:The moment of truth

[Piata]

Yes, I definitely would.

I use Steam, Humble Bundle and GOG for games.

I use http://bandcamp.com/ for music

If I can find a DRM free source for Movies and Television, I'd never need to "acquire" anything again. GOG's prices are a little high ($6 would be the most I'd pay for most movies) but provided they do sales where they slash prices 50% or more, I'd buy movies through them.

Re:The moment of truth

[q4Fry]

I was somewhat sympathetic to the "We pirate because there's no legal way to get it online" until I read an article yesterday that highlighted NetFlix piracy.

If NetFlix doesn't serve your country, fine. I am not talking to you. If, however, you're getting House of Cards on isohunt or whatever the kids do these days, you can't claim it as "no legal way" anymore. Admit that you just don't want to pay $8 a month to be entertained.

Re:The moment of truth

[Unknown Lamer]

Netflix imposes onerous DRM and just doesn't work on GNU/Linux. The way they backdoored DRM into HTML5 is pretty disguisting too.

Re:Where is ...

[jones_supa]

You can request them in GOG's wishlist for movies. :)

Watermarks?

[Somebody Is Using My]

While they have been true to their word about no DRM, I've always wondered if GOG games (and now movies) have some sort of digital watermark embedded in them so they can track any piracy of their sales back to the source. While this wouldn't be a foolproof method, it probably would catch the more common sort of file-sharing. It doesn't really seem to have any drawbacks for the customer either. If such a watermark does exist, it might make the major studios more willing to consider GOG as a distribution partner.

Re:Watermarks?

[Kardos]

I can think of a $12 experiment that would answer that question

Re:Size

[DickBreath]

You cannot wait patiently for 3 days to download 8 GB?

Then you should not be on Comcast / Time-Warner.

Re:Why not some really old movies

[Kiwikwi]

There are more recent films that also lapsed into the public domain, due to a failure to register the copyright, "Night of the Living Dead" being perhaps the most well-known example.

The real reason why GOG doesn't include these films is three-fold:

1) There are already sites doing this (for free), e.g. the Internet Archive.

2) The quality of the original prints is often poor, restoring old movies requires great skill and is very expensive, and existing restorations are not public domain.

3) Most importantly, it's besides the point. GOG is trying to get the film industry to recognize the value of selling DRM-free movies, like the music industry did before them. Selling public domain movies would be plain counter-productive.

Here's hoping they'll succeed where others have failed before them.

Re:Size

[NotDrWho]

On Comcast it takes 2 hours to download the first half, then 8 days to download the rest after they throttle you. ;-)