Home Media Magazine - October 14-20, 2007 - (Page 19) www.homemediamagazine.com ELECTRONIC DELIVERY BITTORRENT HAS FASTER P2P TECHNOLOGY By Erik Gruenwedel itTorrent said it has new technology that allows users and content holders to download and stream Internet-based videos, movies and games more quickly. Unlike single-server networks that become handicapped when increases in traffic attempt to download entire video files, BitTorrent’s Delivery Network Accelerator (DNA) speeds up existing peerto-peer (P2P) technology by splitting a video file among multiple users. The DNA is seen as a potential boon to media companies, software publishers and studios seeking to distribute large content files. “Implementing [DNA] allows our customers to deliver a better user experience … with the security and reliability of a managed service,” said Ashwin Navin, president and co-founder of BitTorrent. The San Francisco-based file-sharing network, once disparaged by Hollywood for allegedly spearheading illegal downloads of movies on P2P software, now is seen by some as a trailblazer in attempting to monetize legitimate electronic distribution. BitTorrent currently has movie, TV episodic streaming and download deals (from $1.99 each) with Image Entertainment, Lionsgate, Paramount Studios, MTV, ThinkFilm, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., among others. Brightcove, a Cambridge, Mass.-based Web TV platform, said it will use DNA to jumpstart its nascent video service. “By integrating [DNA] in our Internet TV service, we can give our content publishers the option to deliver full-screen, broadcast-quality streaming video to their viewers,” said Jeremy Allaire, chairman and CEO of Brightcove. Warner Exec Says Digital Offers More ‘Shelf Space’ By Chris Tribbey arner Bros. has 6,600 films in the vault. Only about 1,500 have found their way to DVD. The studio has the rights to roughly 50,000 TV episodes. Consumers have had access to only about 5,000 of those on DVD. According to Jim Wuthrich, SVP of digital distribution for the studio, that could change soon. Thanks to the DVD Copy Control Association’s Sept. 20 decision to allow its Content Scramble System (CSS) to be licensed, consumers could one day have access to most everything the studios own via DVD-burning kiosks in stores, download-to-burn at home or even through DVD mail orders. “[The CSS decision] will jump-start the digital distribution business,” Wuthrich told attendees Oct. 9 at the DVD Forum’s North America DVD Conference in Universal City, Calif. “Studios have just reams and reams of content that we don’t publish today that we can wrap around this product.” CSS encryption, which offers basic copy protection, is used on most DVDs sold at retail. Now that the technology is available to the download-toburn realm, what content providers can offer could be limitless. “We can actually make individual [TV] episodes available it’s a great way for the studios to test demand,” Wuthrich said, adding that even big- W box retailers such as Wal-Mart, the No. 1 U.S. DVD seller, could take advantage. Instead of 2,000 DVDs on the shelf, Wal-Mart could offer 20,000 on a kiosk. “Is there a lot of demand they’re missing?” Wuthrich said. “Absolutely.” Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Shelf space constraints would no longer be a problem, Wuthrich said, and customers would rarely exit their local video store empty-handed because they couldn’t find the film or TV series they were seeking. Almost all of it would be available digitally, just waiting to be burned to a DVD. Hard-copy returns by retailers would be less of a worry for studios. And if consumers can download-to-burn at home on their laptop, it will bridge “the 10-foot gap between the PC and the TV,” Wuthrich said. More than one study has pointed out that digital downloads are difficult to get to the TV, where consumers want to watch their films. That might not be a problem much longer. “People know what to do with a shiny disc,” said Jim Taylor, SVP and GM of Sonic Solutions, which has partnered with more than a dozen companies to explore new download-to-burn avenues. Warner Bros. estimates that by 2010 the new options for digital distribution could be a $1.5 billion cash cow for the studios, Wuthrich said, and 20% of the overall home media business. But that’s not a given, and is mostly contingent on mass-adoption of download-to-burn DVD kiosks by stores, as well as consumers taking a liking to PCs that have the technology, he added. Sonic Solutions’ Taylor added that bandwidth issues persist: the immediate availability of any TV series or movie will take time. “We expect this to take a while to get going,” Wuthrich said. Yet Warner Bros. is already getting a head start on the possibilities: The Dec. 11 DVD of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will include options for two downloads of the movie, one for the PC, another for portable media devices. It’s an experiment, Wuthrich admitted. “Where we need standards … is around the usage rights,” he said. Analysts: Anti-File-Sharing Court Win Has Little Impact on Movies By Erik Gruenwedel he music industry’s recent court victory whereby a Minnesota woman was found guilty of sharing illegally downloaded music files isn’t expected to hinder illegal movie downloads, say media analysts and consumer advocates. They say technology, or lack thereof, impedes all but the most dedicated hacker from disseminating a typical Hollywood movie beyond their computer screen. Jammie Thomas was found guilty by a Duluth jury and fined $220,000, or $9,250 per song. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) , which filed the suit on behalf of Capitol Records and others, had sought millions in damages. Richard Doherty, media analyst with The Envisioneering Group, said the sheer size of a movie file compared to a relatively minuscule music file coupled with aggressive antipiracy efforts by the movie industry have limited illegal downloads. He said the Motion Picture Associ- T TOP ONLINE TITLES Week ended October 8, 2007 TITLE STUDIO ELECTRONIC SELLTHROUGH Fantastic Four: Rise …Fox RENTAL DOWNLOADS Fracture New Line Week ended October 7, 2007 TITLE STUDIO ELECTRONIC SELLTHROUGH Fantastic Four: Rise …Fox RENTAL DOWNLOADS Wild Hogs Dis./Touchstone FOR COMPLETE CHARTS, PLEASE SEE PAGE 31 ation of America (MPAA) has been successfully infiltrating online networks with phony Hollywood movies, which upon being illegally downloaded over several hours, informs the culprit, better luck next time. “Instead of getting Debbie Does Dallas, you get ‘Digital Does Nothing’ on your desktop,” Doherty said. He said the amount of damages awarded to the RIAA in light of the legal fees spent prosecuting the case would likely prevent the MPAA from considering similar action against a consumer. Doherty said the RIAA usually sends cease and desist letters to alleged pirates and fines them thereafter upon non-compliance. He said if a movie pirate attempts to share multiple titles from a PC, the device’s bandwidth would evaporate. With the time required to transfer a movie via a file-sharing network, the odds of an interruption during the process increases. “There are more tech frustrations in trying to steal a movie than a mu- sic CD,” Doherty said. The MPAA is pleased with the ruling, indicating it underscored the value of intellectual copyrights. “The case demonstrates that the courts will hold people accountable for illegally downloading on the Internet,” said Elizabeth Kaltman, a spokesperson for the MPAA. Fred von Lohmann, senior intellectual property attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties organization, said the MPAA has quietly been pursuing legal action against consumers illegally downloading movies for about two years, but they’re not as public about it as the RIAA. He said most movie file-sharing is done via P2P networks, which download a file from multiple sources. As a result, illegal downloading would be easier for the MPAA to prove, he said. “The MPAA will sue you for downloading (a reproduction claim without permission), and they will sue you for uploading (a distribution claim without permission),” Lohmann said. BRIEFS I CBS BOWS ORIGINAL WEBBASED HORROR SERIES In time for Halloween, CBS Interactive, a unit of CBS Corp., has begun streaming original Internet-based short-form comedies about watching horror movies. The 18 two-minute streams titled How to Survive a Horror Movie: All the Skills to Dodge the Kills, stream for free on CBS.com and DodgetheKills.com, among other sites. The videos are based on the eponymous book by Seth Grahame-Smith and include episodes such as: “Seven Things to Never, Ever Put in a Child’s Room”; “How to Tell if You Have Been Dead Since the Beginning of the Movie”; “How to Defeat a Killer Doll”; “How to Tell if Your House Is Haunted” and “How to Survive a Night of Babysitting.” New episodes stream Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays through Oct. 25. —Erik Gruenwedel October 14–20, 2007 Home Media Magazine http://www.homemediamagazine.com http://CBS.com
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