BitTorrent Video Download Store Falls Flat 195
seriously writes "We've all heard about BitTorrent going legit this week with legal movie and TV show downloads. Ars Technica took a look at the service to see how usable it was and ran into a few snags, including not being able to download or even open the video files on some computers. However, the ones that they did manage to open varied a lot in quality. Overall, they blame DRM: 'Without knowing whether browser compatibility and dysfunctional video files are a rare occurrence or not, it's hard to say whether BitTorrent's service is a good one overall. Our initial experiences have been disappointing and frustrating, and guess what the culprit is once again? DRM. Why the DRM failed to work on 50% of our purchases is not clear, but whatever the cause, it's simply unacceptable.'"
again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Once again proving the point that DRM is nothing but punishment for being a paying customer.
Re:again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is a week long enough to tell if a service will work in the long run? Imagine if we used such journalistic skills for companies like Microsoft or McDonalds...
"After a solid 7 hours of being open, it's clear, Microsoft will never make a sale."
Tom
short term profit (Score:5, Insightful)
The more we can download all of our media, the less need there is for a giant distibution company. I don't think the big players want legal, easy, inexpensive media downloads.
Re:again... (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:You must be a quick reader... (Score:5, Insightful)
I read the article before it appeared here. Obviously someone else did because they posted it to slashdot.
I'm not saying the OP read the article, but this article appeared on Ars Technica before it appeared here. This isn't some story that slashdot broke.
DRM failed? Say it ain't so! (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, maybe its because most DRM works only by virtually destroying a user's PC? When DRM makers finally agree on a standard (for better or for worse) THEN we'll start seeing progress (on the part of DRM breaking 'hackers').
Legit is a funny term for an industry cartel (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's not confuse "adding DRM" with "going legitimate" please.
DRM to be considered harmful (Score:5, Insightful)
In the end, the easiest thing for a consumer to do will be to just open up The Pirate Bay and type the name of a movie they want. It's sure to work wherever they want, provided they have the codec to play it. And if they don't, they can convert it to MPEG-2, or any other such standard.
Consumers do not want to buy a separate version of their music for their iPod, their Zune, their Gigabeat, their [insert name of portable Flash/USB player here], etc. They don't want to spend hundreds upon hundreds of dollars on new technology to hear what they want, either. Audio CDs have worked for nearly two decades. This goes for video as well. The *AA's need to realise that.
Then again, it's what Apple and Microsoft want: to lock people into their player, so that they must buy another if it breaks. Interoperability would just make every player equal... Oh no, we have to actually think of new features for our players instead of just relying on lock-in to bring us sales! What should we do?!
P.S.: Many stories on Slashdot seem to revolve around DRM lately. I have an impression of déjà vu...
WHY? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? If failed because it is defective by design. It failed because they (whomever "they" are) don't have control over all the various bits and pieces. It failed because DRM deliberately breaks things, on purpose. DRM fails, unless you have complete and utter control over all aspects of distribution/playback, and simply put, they don't have control over people's PCs. Nor will they ever.
And, it is simply unacceptable. But rather than look at the real problem (DRM), they are blaming the distribution protocol (BT).
One last point: The whole "whatever the cause" is turning a blind eye to the real issue, which is DRM cannot work on systems (not just computers) that they don't control. PERIOD.
I just wish the industry technocrats would just look at the obvious. DRM doesn't increase (or maintain) control, it decreases satisfaction in the customer, which makes it
DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, I'll get flamed to death, but oh well. To make a statement like that is silly. That's like trying a new piece of software and then condemning all software in that category because one failed. Apple has shown that properly written DRM can have a minimal impact on the "user experience". Just because the DRM mechanism used by BitTorrent sucks, I guess the naysayers feel the urge to exclaim, "It was the DRM" (visions of MP and Death with outstretched fingers). In reality, it was BitTorrents DRM, and hugely important distinction. We cry and moan when one flaw in OSS causes critics to then paint all OSS with the same brush, but we are so quick to do the same when it suits us. But hey, I guess that means that we're only human.
Because "they" want to get paid "again" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:short term profit (Score:3, Insightful)
I would have to disagree. The value of the "big players" to the actual content creators' isn't their ability to distribute films, it's their available capital and connections which are used to create insane amounts of marketing, world-wide.
For the independent movie producer, finding a distribution company to manufacture and distribute movies is relatively cheap and easy. What's prohibitively expensive is the TV ads, Billboard Ads, Radio Station ads and all the other publicity (in SONY's case even fake movie reviewers) which ensures the "blockbuster" movies are a hit; usually regardless of their actual quality.
The horrendous (but still very commercially successful) Da Vinci Code movie is a recent example.
why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is the objection to DRM or Microsoft DRM (Score:1, Insightful)
The former. The concept of DRM is inherently flawed. You have a choice between either being forced to use a crippled device that is not the general purpose PC that we all know and love, or having DRM which will be cracked with very little effort. You cannot have both.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather leave my computer alone and not be able to rent movies. I personally don't believe that movie rentals, however cool they might be, are so great that they should be an excuse to destroy the most powerful invention of the past few decades.
Re:Is the objection to DRM or Microsoft DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Renting is a antiquated term when viewed with respect to digital media of any type. The biggest issue is that there has been a tiered pricing model in the past based on length of access - that access was limited by a physical medium. Both the software and music industries recognized that there is no "rental" when the data is so easy to reproduce as to be trivial - and in response they made certain that copyright law forbid the rental of the physical media which contained those works (I don't have the citiation, but in the US it is true). For video, it was relatively expensive and/or inconvenient to copy the works, and rental stores flourished. I still remember annual and initiation fees (many north of $100) just to have the priveledge to rent the movies.
The idea of renting something doesn't really make sense in a world where there are no incremental costs to produce, and no exclusivity of use of an item. But there's the problem, too. Most consumers put a lower price expectation on a "loaned" item than to own the item - that's natural because we've all grown up to believe in scarcity. There is no scarcity in digital media - the first copy costs an insane amount to produce; the second costs almost nothing. Now, on the opposite side of that debate are the content providers/producers. They value their end-user item at a fixed cost, as if there were an incremental production, packaging, handling, and delivery cost - just like they've always had. In return for reducing or eliminating most of those costs, a lower fee may be paid for a time-limited use. Except that digital media eliminates nearly all of the incremental costs.
So we're at a stalemate where consumers expect a $2-$3 product and the producers want to sell a $20 product. No, let me correct that - the producers expect to sell a $30 product - the "suggested retail price" - even though consumers are used to finding the traditional product at a significant discount, closer to $20. So you've got a 10:1 expectation gap as a result of the data revolution. Until that gets settled, there will be DRM, and nobody will really be happy.
Re:Is the objection to DRM or Microsoft DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as buying movies through downloads, you definitely don't need DRM. The whole experience would be better without it. Just convert it to whatever format you like, or burn it to a DVD.
Wake me up When We have Watermarking (Score:3, Insightful)
You've got to get over your Control-Freak needs to tell people where, when, and how they can use their media (DRM) so you can get on with making a profit by actually selling huge amounts of it.
Once you give up on the idea of selling me Back to the Future 25 different times over the next half century this is all going to work out well for you.
Re:again... (Score:4, Insightful)
I can make no judgment as to how many of them played Frogger.
Re:Why bother? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why bother? (Score:3, Insightful)
My advice to you is to skip past the ones you don't want to see to the ones you DO. For example, I watched "I, Robot" the other night, with a buddy.
It was a 40 minute download (YMMV) for $2.99. And yes, we spent that 40 minutes making popcorn, chatting, and such. The movie was great - my friend's video projector put it up at a whopping 60 inches, and yes, it was good quality at that level.
And no, I didn't try downloading it from ThePirateBay, but now that you mention it, here I go... Ok, I got a torrent, and yeah, it will be another 3 hours 40 minutes until it's downloaded at 64KB/s.
What is your time worth? I'd say on a Friday night, I'd rather pay $2.99 to download a movie in 40 minutes than get it for free in 4 hours. Seems like a good deal to me.
Mmmm, okay, lets see (Score:4, Insightful)
If I go into a newly opened restaurant, give my order and seven hours later I would still be waiting for my food, I would NOT give that restaurant another chance.
You seem to have an amazingly silly idea of how you sell things. In the real world you get your stuff in order and THEN launch. I know I know, this the computer industry, home of the patch and beta release, but regular stores like McDonalds do NOT work that way.
Why on earth you label a regular business with Microsoft or for that matter an IT company is beyond me.
You can rest assure that when McD launches a new hamburger they will have at least done some testing to see that the majority of customers are in fact able to digest it. They also do not attempt to stop you from feeding that burger to your dog, splitting a cola with your friends or use the ice cubes to cool your overheated radiator.
If the article is accurate then it is extremely bad, but expected, news for the site. Crippling DRM, inability to just take the customers money (imagine if McD refused to sell you food because it thought you were from the wrong country) and just plain not being able to match up with the ease of downloading the same stuff for free.
I could have gotten all the stuff he payed for, for less and play it without WiMP. Oh and used the money for snacks and drinks.
You know the funny thing? It is not that I am cheap, I got money to burn, and never had a trouble renting or buying stuff before. Just that it has gotten so much easier to just fire up a torrent.
Frankly this looks the same as when napster went legit. Too little, too late.
Re:Is the objection to DRM or Microsoft DRM (Score:1, Insightful)
The profit margin on a $20 DVD is probably about 50%. Half of the purchase price goes into manufacturing, shipping, and paying the store.
The profit margin on a $4 online movie purchase could be over 90%. Bandwidth and servers are very cheap and there are basically no other marginal costs to pay.
Online distribution should be win-win, but the big studios seem determined to make it a lose-lose.
Re:DRM to be considered harmful (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, because Apple allows me to run OSX on my Dell M2010 and I can copy all my iTunes music to my Zune or other non iPod MP3 player. Aperature really flies on Vista. I'm so glad Apple wrote that app cross-platform so us PC users can use it too, iWork and iLife also. Wait, you mean I can't do either of these things? I'm shocked, truly shocked. Apple uses vendor lock-in too? To hell you say. I guess Microsoft can finally use their patent on vendor lock-in to kill Apple once and for all.
Re:WHY? (Score:3, Insightful)
You may well have had that in mind when you wrote it; I'm not claiming this is news to you. I bring this up because I want to say that while it wouldn't make me ecstatic, I would be satisfied with the compromise of not being able to play DRM'ed content at all on my "general purpose" computer, and confining DRM'ed content to my "gaming console". (Possibly made cheaper by removing the gaming stuff, although as I'd still want download support and a hard drive on this device that doesn't quite take us down to "(HD-)DVD player".)
In theory, I'm against DRM. In practice, I can deal with it to some degree, on the condition market forces are allowed full play. But "a monopolistic operating system provider mandating the extensive crippling of my computer so it can 'safely' play DRM'ed content" is not acceptable to me. I think that as we get more and more "dedicated entertainment devices", the logic of crippling the general-purpose computer so it can be graciously allowed some small chance to play "premium" content is a bad trade for customers and society at large.
(If Microsoft is ultimately successful at getting the entire industry to make Vista-only hardware, "somebody" needs to re-open monopoly proceedings against Microsoft; I can hardly imagine a clearer demonstration of monopoly power than a software company fully making all hardware companies its bitch, even if some of them go into it willingly.)