shouting loudly

BitTorrent now selling content

BitTorrent, long decried by studios as the source of all evil, has become the next great hope for turning online freeloaders into paying internet customers.

Customers can rent Analyze That and other, um, hit movies for just $2.99 to $3.99 for one day. They can also buy single episodes of TV shows for $1.99. Unfortunately, the system requirements look like Bill Gates’ personal fantasy: Win XP, Windows Media Player 10 or higher, IE 6 or higher–you know, just the basics.

Far worse, however, is the price-to-value ratio. Anyone who uses BitTorrent knows the studios and BitTorrent.com aren’t paying for the bandwidth; the users are. Many are undoubtedly asking: am I supposed to pay brick-and-mortar prices to companies that are pocketing virtually the whole tab?

Without serious optimization, BT downloads also take substantially longer per MB than, say, an iTunes Music Store purchase (where one can also buy TV shows for $1.99 and actually put them on an iPod). Even when properly optimized, a BitTorrent user has to support a lot of uploading (read: give away a lot of bandwidth) to get good speeds.

To top it off, the movies are tethered to one computer, and TV shows can be played on up to two. Online music store downloads, despite lossy codecs, still sound great when burned to CD or played through a decent computer audio output. But who watches TV shows and movies on their computers? People who are willing to settle because their personal space is limited to one bederoom or because they didn’t pay for the content in the first place.

Many will say that this demographic’s entrenched habit of pirating content is the reason the studios won’t make much income on selling content through BitTorrent. But many more customers would pay if that purchase looked more like ownership. If I could play it on any of 5 authorized computers, or if I could burn one or two DVD copies, I would be much more persuaded. At least, buying online would work its way into my mix of purchasing options.

Want me to line up to buy content online? Strip off all the DRM, and I’ll pay full retail price to actually feel like I own the files, EULA notwithstanding. Let me watch it on my laptop and burn a copy to watch on my TV and burn another if my dog eats the first one and watch it in 15 years when I’ve long since forgotten my password. BT freaks don’t just want free as in beer; they also crave free as in freedom. It’s hard to compete against free and free with full-price and tethered.

I’d pay a reasonable price, millions would join me, and the studios would make some real money on internet downloads. If it makes everyone feel more confident that I’ll not be posting my version online, embed my name and address in a unique watermark.

Until then, this internet addict will keep buying physical DVDs, and the legit content on BitTorrent will practically sit idle while full-quality hacked copies fill the tubes. I hope the studios analyze that before their window completely shrinks.