After months and months of hype, curiosity, wonder, and just about every other emotion possible under the sun, BitTorrent Inc opens its movie download service for business.Offering more than 5,000 titles, from digital movies, TV shows, games, Japanese anime, and other media, the BitTorrent Entertainment Network (BEN) aims to succeed in finally making its famed BitTorrent client server a mechanism for paid legal video content downloads. Bram Cohen, BitTorrent’s co-founder and chief executive and the inventor of the technology, said the new store would offer a compelling alternative to the illegal system. “I think what consumers want is a good experience,” he said, “and the first part of that is making the content they want available legitimately.” It will work slightly differently than rival video content download services like Apple's iTunes or Microsoft's Xbox Live service, in that movies will only be rented while TV shows will be purchased outright. After "purchasing" a film online and downloading it to your PC, the movie will "expire" 24 hours after you begin watching it or 30 days overall. New flics like "Superman Returns" will cost $3.99, while classic movies like "Reservoir Dogs" will cost $2.99. Video content will only play in Microsoft's Windows Media Player 11, which is secured by Microsoft's anti-piracy DRM software.
Here are some examples of what's currently being offered: Jackass Number 2 ($3.99) Little Miss Sunshine ($3.99) Saw III ($3.99) A Clockwork Orange ($2.99) Beetle Uncensored ($3.99) (from Howard Stern show fame) Breaking Bonaduce ($1.99) Chappelle's Show ($1.99) Ashwin Navin, BitTorrent's co- founder and CEO, said the company had secured the right to permit users to buy outright digital copies of films, but that 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." "I just don't know who in marketing at the other stores thinks that $25 movie downloads are going to do it for consumers," said Navin. "We're really hammering the studios to say, 'Go easy on this audience,'" Navin said. "We need to give them a price that feels like a good value relative to what they were getting for free." But he added that the anti-piracy software that will protect files in the new store, which the studios insist on including, will make the experience more cumbersome for users. For his part Bram Cohen, creator of the BitTorrent protocol and BitTorrent Inc.'s co-founder and chief executive, isn't happy with the DRM restrictions also. “We are not happy with the user interface implications” of digital rights management, or D.R.M., Mr. Cohen said. “It’s an unfortunate thing. We would really like to strip it all away.” I agree as it really seems like BEN will be nothing more than a fancy "Netflix" or something. Not only can you not transfer movies to other device to watch but, you never actually "own" the movie. Cohen furthers: DRM causes major usability problems for all users, which is a major issue in and of itself. Some of the usability issues are fundamental, and some are limitations of the currently available systems, but as Steve Jobs obliquely indicated in his recent statements about DRM, a lot more of the problems are fundamental than the people who insist on DRM schemes for their content are willing to admit.I think overall that the pricing and selection are pretty good but, the system of DRM protections and portability restrictions make it a non-starter in my book. As Navin himself points out, "We need to give them a price that feels like a good value relative to what they were getting for free." Well said. At $4 bucks for little more than an overnight video rental, BEN has yet to sell me on the merits of its new service. To boot are the movie studios not taking into consideration the fact that I am paying the bandwidth costs necessary to transport the movie to PC? No discount for that heh? It's $4 bucks for a movie rental at Blockbuster Video and the like, so when you take into account that their only current costs are loading it onto a central server, unlike the production,. shipping, stocking, etc. costs associated with a brick and mortar retailer, why is the price the same? So much for getting a deal. Moreover, I don't think the new BitTorrent Entertainment Network will live up to the hype or the expectations that BitTorrent users had hoped for. Central to the dashed hopes will be the twin issues of price and DRM. Time will tell if the movie studios relent and give BitTorrent Inc. more leeway in addressing these concerns but, I think it will be years before they comfortable enough to fully embrace the new BitTorrent distribution platform.  RELATED NEWS AND "HOW TO" GUIDES:µTorrent sells out, gets bought by BitTorrent Inc.BitTorrent keeps going legit'; Azureus to offer BBC shows ...Could BitTorrent Inc. be the new model for file-sharing legitimacy?BitTorrent Inc. wants to provide a "better experience than piracy"BitTorrent torrent sites & search enginesuTorrent - A Beginner's guide to BitTorrent downloadingWatch The Simpsons, The Office, Jackass, South Park, Lost, X-Men, and More On-Demand For FreeSOULXTC: "walkin' the streets of P2P"
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I mean look at the pluses they advertise:
a) quick movie downloads ----> no biggie, and to boot I get to pay for the bandwidth it uses.
b) huge selection of content to choose from ----> ever been on TorrentSpy? Demonoid? BiteME-TV?
c) It's LEGAL ----> I guess this would be a selling point for mom and pop type people who don't want to break the law but, that just proves the point that it will be all that more difficult to succeed because I doubt mom and pop will be able to configure a BitTorrent client server correctly.......PORT FORWARDING anyone? Fugghedaboutit!
I wish them the best of luck but, as it currently stands things dont look so good and really doom it to fail unless it can lure the people it was intended to target - PIRATES! So far it just appeals to those who were afraid to get sued before and really does nothing more than give them a Netflix alternative.
I mean what reason would you have to use it?
I really do wish them well, but just like music rentals, this is doomed to fail in my opinion.
DRM doesn't work if people choose alternative sources or walk their happy asses down to a blockbuster rent a flick on a monthly unlimited plan and rip the shit outta it
the very fact that they include DRM is what stops them from making money...lose the DRM and maybe just maybe people won't mind spending 15 bucks on a digital copy of a movie thats running in theaters
theaters hate this type of multi-format release and as such would want more of the box office gross from week one but it wouldn't phase studios who produce quality product
you could argue that people would no doubt share the clean copy they've downloaded but it's already happening and most people are honest enough to pay for what they like and bash garbage for what it is
basically people should be allowed to download a low res copy of any given film for free as a preview
if you like it buy the dvd/blu-ray/hd-dvd or mp4/avi copy or go see it on the big screen
that way no one feels cheated and good films thrive while shitty money makers die a classic imdb 100 worst death (honeymooners movie....stomp the yard...you got served..delta farce.....need I say more?)