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Brad Stone from the New York Times reports that BitTorrent has signed deals with several entertainment labels, including 20th Century Fox, MGM, Paramount and Warner Brothers, to provide content, legally, over its network. This is good news, but I can’t help but pick out several issues.
The partnership between BitTorrent and the entertainment industry exemplifies one aspect of how DRM provides consumers with additional options in digital media by allowing scaled offerings and tiered prices. ...while [BitTorrent] will sell digital copies of shows like “24” and “Bones” for $1.99 an episode, it will only rent movies. Once the films are on the PC, they expire within 30 days of their purchase or 24 hours after the buyer begins to watch them...
Ashwin Navin, BitTorrent’s co-founder and chief operating officer, said the company had secured the right to permit users to buy outright digital copies of films, but the studios wanted to charge prices that would be too high for most consumers. “We don’t think the current prices are a smart thing to show any user,” he said. “We want to allocate services with very digestible price points.” But wait, if the vast majority of movies and music are available illegally, as the anti-DRM/DMCA crowd likes to say, then what does this business venture really offer consumers? Is BitTorrent's new venture just an effort to raise prices above free?
Look closely at the pricing issue BitTorrent's executive discusses. Of course, those who would do away with DRM and the DMCA will argue that the entertainment industry does not need to recoup much money, that they should just charge $.99 for anything or that digital enertainment distributed at near marginal cost can be licensed for a penny and still provide profits. Well, in that case, lets start with BitTorrent and have them cut their share out of prices, that would be a good place to start reductions. Or BitTorrent can at least offer consumers the choice to buy digital copies of films and pay for half of it. I’m sure BitTorrent’s VC partners would would love to provide consumers with more “freedom” at lower prices after giving BitTorrent $30 million.
And look, apparently, BitTorrent is not enamoured with DRM. …[Bram Cohen, BitTorrent’s co-founder and CEO] added that the antipiracy software that will protect files in the new store, which the studios insist on including, will make the experience more cumbersome for users. “We are not happy with the user interface implications” of …DRM... “It’s an unfortunate thing. We would really like to strip it all away.” Does BitTorrent offer non-DRMd services for creators that want to distribute their works in free formats? If Mr. Cohen is that concerned with consumer experience, I hope he will give creators a choice on how to distribute their work rather than play some Jobsian PR game. Better yet, BitTorrent can volunteer ongoing tech support so the entertainment labels can spin-off and run their own BitTorrent service under the non-rivalrous BitTorrent trademark. Factoring in time, BitTorrent's profits may fall to zero in the future because of competition, so it should start competing by innovating new technologies and revenue streams rather than sitting on its laurels, and harming comptetition, consumers and the entertainment labels.
BitTorrent should do what it can to help consumers, and stop pushing the blame onto entertainment firms that have introduced it to the legitimate side of the industry.
posted by Noel Le @ 10:54 AM | DRM & Watermarks, etc.
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