According to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) Warner Bros. and Bertelsmann AG subsidiary Arvato have partnered in Germany to offer downloadable movies such as "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" via peer-to-peer technology. Here's the key issue from Sarah McBride's story:

In2Movies will use Arvato's new platform, called GNAB to deliver movies. GNAB adds security features onto the movies so they can't be pirated, makes sure the movie owners get paid each time a consumer on In2Movies buys a movie, and routes the movies through computers owned by In2Movies' users.

During the Grokster debate we always heard how P2P was simply a technology; it wasn't evil. That's true; the problem always was with the piracy on P2P, piracy encouraged by P2P software makers. Here a movie label is using P2P as a distribution tool. I'll say this to all those opposed to DRM; if you can convince me this service would exist without DRM, I'll make a donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. This new service, it seems, is further market innovation, driven once again by technological protection methods.

posted by Patrick Ross @ 12:28 PM | DRM & Watermarks, etc., Internet: P2P, Search Engines..., Markets: Business, Investment & Innovation

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