NBC To Offer On-Demand Movies Via P2P 173
RX8 writes "NBC Universal has signed a deal with Wurld Media to make some of their movies available for download via a secure P2P network in 2006. There hasn't been a price released yet, but the movies include what you would get on their existing video-on-demand and pay services plus around 100 older movie titles. Once the material is downloaded, users can only view it for up to 24 hours before it expires."
DRM (Score:-1, Interesting)
Surprise - Too Little, Too Late (Score:3, Interesting)
Until these companies actually meet the demands of the people who are looking to download TV/Movies, unauthorized p2p networks will continue to own the market.
fair is fair (Score:5, Interesting)
And they can only spend my money for 24h before the payment expires, ok?
Re:Note to MPAA and RIAA (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree with your point, though... having downloadable content expire is quite lame.
I can go to McDonalds and rent a new DVD for $1 for a 24-hour time period. Why would I want to download a movie (which would undoubtedly be lower quality than a DVD) for more than $1 (which is what I assume they'd charge) ? I mean, what is the advantage here? Are they new movies that are out in theaters? Because if you can just get them on DVD, where is the value?
Re:Surprise - Too Little, Too Late (Score:5, Interesting)
True P2P networks offer tremendous bandwidth efficiency for the distributors of content, which is especially important when you're delivering large content (like, say movies and other media). Think of how quickly Bittorrent downloads of Linux distros took off--it made it so much easier for gazillions of people to get a brand-new release at the same time. No more waiting a week for the Debian FTP servers to be pingable again.
Plus, the distributor saves money on bandwidth charges, since many of the users will get the content from each other instead of the central servers. Whether this in turn increases the costs of the users remains to be seen, but it probably won't affect their connectivity bills much more than using open P2P networks to get stuff on their own.
Re:To all the naysayers: (Score:4, Interesting)
One would think with the amount of TV shows being sold on DVD that they'd think there would be a happy digital medium to this. It's OK to sell DVDs, but if it plays on a computer it must explode and go away. I don't get it, the content on my computer isn't going to be as good as a DVD unless I want to download 10GB of stuff, which I don't.
Are you serious? (Score:1, Interesting)
Don't think of this as buying a movie, thing of it as renting. Don't rent if you don't plan on watching it within the day. Price to high? Rent somewhere else. Simple.
Dear NBC, (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, if you are willing to offer movies and programs in an unencumbered format (DiVX, MPEG, QuickTime, Ogg Theora, whatever) with no usage restrictions, and no special download clients required, then I'd be very willing to consider as much as $3.00 per show/program downloaded. I'd especially be interested in the old NBC Mystery Movies from the 1970's, including McCloud [imdb.com], Columbo [imdb.com], and McMillan and Wife [imdb.com].
Please correct your offerings accordingly.
Schwab
So I pay AND provide their distribution network? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Note to MPAA and RIAA (Score:3, Interesting)
I wish they'd just cram a few commercials into movies and release them out in the wild. There are some movies out there that I just won't spend the $4 to rent them, but I'd tolerate the commercials.
Paying for P2P Content? (Score:2, Interesting)
With free material everyone understands that by contributing disk space, bandwidth, and electrical power (to run their computer when they're not using it) they are helping share the burden of distributing the material. Why would I want to do this if I have to pay for the material anyway? Some might argue that I'm helping to keep the price down, but in reality I'd just be padding NBC's profit margin.
Additionally, I normally turn my computer off when I'm not using it (save's power, less vulnerable etc). Now if I was participating in a free P2P community I might leave it on as my contribution to the community but I'm not going to burn extra power to support someone else's paid download. I'm sure others would act in a similar fashion, so the number of available nodes to help with your download are likely to be very limited. Seems like this would result in very slow downloads.
Also, I can only watch the movie for 24 hours, but will it stay on my harddrive taking up disk space? Seems like it has to in order for this to be a P2P service. If everyone just deletes their expired movies, than anyone purchasing the movie would have to download it from central NBC servers. It doesn't sound like a very workable P2P setup.
Finally there's the issue of the 24 viewing window. As others have stated, that's just not enough. I don't want to own the movie forever, but I'm not going to spend hours downloading a movie I paid for and then feel pressured to watch it before it expires. With current on demand services I get the movie immeadiately so it's easier to plan for my time. If I download a movie tonight to watch tomorrow, who knows what might come up. I'd be pretty pissed if I paid for and spent hours downloading a movie and then couldn't watch because it expired. They would need to make the limit at least a couple days, if not a week.
Re:Note to MPAA and RIAA (Score:2, Interesting)
Wrong. The MPAA/RIAA bribed congress to impose terms.
The stupid stupid STUPID STUPID idea that people would somehow be criminals subject to FIVE FREAKING YEARS in prison if there were to actually PAY for the movie and then proceed to program (or download from some programmer) their own viewer software, or to program a patch (or download a patch from some programmer) to FIX the disfunctional supplied viewer software.
My VCR will not erase a show unless I tell it to do so. Pretty obvious. My VCR is my property and it doesn't do anything I do not tell it to do. Any TV broadcaster expecting my VCR to delete a show after 24 hours is obviously delusional.
And just the same, my computer will not erase a show unless I tell it to do so. Anyone expecting otherwise is obviously delususional. Their idea that my computer will delete or disable a file is entirely based on the notion that they gave me viewer software that was deliberately sabotaged to contain a delete or disable command, and that they assume I will not bother or will not know how to either remove that instruction or to write my own viewer without that instuction. Tehy are handing people software with a delete/disable instruction and assuming people will be too lazy or ignorant to avoid issuing that instruction to their computer.
If they want to rely on people being too lazy or ignorant to avoid issuing that instruction to their computer to delete or disable the show, FINE. However they have absolfuckinglutely no right to pull out a gun and imprison anyone who chooses NOT lazily/ignorantly issue that command to their own property themselves.
The MPAA and RIAA have bribed congress, and they are cartels explicitly abusing their monopoly power to eliminate competition. To extend their monopoly power to control and restrict hardware manufacturers and control and restrict hardware markets and control and restrict retailers and control and restrict retail markets. Cartels consipiring not only to exclude competition between DRM and non-DRM, but to exclude competition on DRM terms either... because any real competition on DRM terms always favors the less crippled product and inevitably to no DRM at all.
No, we did not agree to those terms.
Just look at the music services. They all have the exact same DRM terms as iTunes. Why is that? Because the RIAA would have been nailed to the wall for their anti-trust law violations had they gone so far as to impose a Windows-only market for online music sales. So Apple had some leverage. Apple was about to walk away from the negotiating table... so the RIAA gave Apple better DRM terms than anyone else. And of course Apple iTunes SLAUGHTERED all of the competition based on their slightly-less-oppessive DRM. Natural market forces rapidly kill off any attempt to cripple a product if there is any genuine competition. A free market will first kill off the most oppressive of competeing DRMs, and then ultimately kill off any attempt to use any crippling DRM at all. The RIAA had to GIFT the same Apple DRM terms to all of the other services just to keep them alive. DRM imposed through an indutry cartel conspiring to deny not only a non-DRM market, but conspiring to deny any competition on DRM terms either.
When you have no free market, when you have monopolies controlling and dictating the market, then no, no one has agreed to anything.
And just because we're not talking about food... just because we can "voluntarily" be excluded from any market at all, that does not any sort of "legitimate agreement" or "legitimate choice not to agree".
And teh solution is so simple. The free market and free market competition will natually repair all of these problems if we fix the DMCA. If we simply decriminalize innocent non-infringing people watchign their media in the way they choose, if we decriminalize innocent non-infringing products for viewing media. If we simply pass the DMCRA. In fact my current sig is a link to support the DMCA, to ask your congress critters to support the DMCA.
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