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BitTorrent Goes Corporate
May. 9th, 2006 07:26 pmFrom IMDb News:
Using a good old if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em strategy, Warner Bros. announced Monday that it will use BitTorrent's file-sharing technology to sell and rent its movies and TV shows online. Today's (Tuesday) Daily Variety speculated that other major studios are likely to follow suit. In an interview with the trade publication, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group president Kevin Tsujihara remarked that BitTorrent now faces "a challenge of converting their users who are used to getting product for free to purchase it legitimately." BitTorrent president Ashin Navin acknowledged that it was unlikely that BitTorrent users will want to pay for just a bare-bones Internet service.
Me now: Uh-huh. What have we learned about taking a technology that has few centralized costs and trying to make people pay for it? People come back all pissed off, angry, and full of healthy open-source alternatives. I'm not saying I'm not willing to pay for a useful service -- I'm just saying that teaming up with corporate America to flush out illicit content from what was most likely conceived as a point of distribution for said content... well, I could go on, but the sentence is getting muddled.
As for myself, I never use BitTorrent except in scenarios where I know ahead of time I will be making a gainful purchase of the material or when that gainful purchase is currently impossible. I believe in supporting the artist, and I believe in supporting technological advancement. But I draw a line at doing so in service of the corporate suits.
Using a good old if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-'em strategy, Warner Bros. announced Monday that it will use BitTorrent's file-sharing technology to sell and rent its movies and TV shows online. Today's (Tuesday) Daily Variety speculated that other major studios are likely to follow suit. In an interview with the trade publication, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group president Kevin Tsujihara remarked that BitTorrent now faces "a challenge of converting their users who are used to getting product for free to purchase it legitimately." BitTorrent president Ashin Navin acknowledged that it was unlikely that BitTorrent users will want to pay for just a bare-bones Internet service.
Me now: Uh-huh. What have we learned about taking a technology that has few centralized costs and trying to make people pay for it? People come back all pissed off, angry, and full of healthy open-source alternatives. I'm not saying I'm not willing to pay for a useful service -- I'm just saying that teaming up with corporate America to flush out illicit content from what was most likely conceived as a point of distribution for said content... well, I could go on, but the sentence is getting muddled.
As for myself, I never use BitTorrent except in scenarios where I know ahead of time I will be making a gainful purchase of the material or when that gainful purchase is currently impossible. I believe in supporting the artist, and I believe in supporting technological advancement. But I draw a line at doing so in service of the corporate suits.
