BitTorrent Opens Paid Online Store
The word BitTorrent will be probably little redefined from today. Company BitTorrent, owner of BitTorrent.com (which is returning Error 500 now by the way), rolled out a paid music and movie download service today on this address, leveraging its fast distribution system infamous for the massive piracy it facilitated when it debuted in 2001.The BitTorrent Entertainment Network — launched with movies such as “Superman Returns,” TV shows including “24″ and PC games — will be a new entrant challenging other download services such as Apple’s iTunes Store and Amazon.com’s Unbox. BitTorrent’s service is stocked with 5,000 movies, TV shows, PC games and music.
BitTorrent, based in San Francisco, has reached agreements with more than 35 entertainment companies including 20th Century Fox, Viacom’s MTV Networks and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios to offer their content using its peer-to-peer (P-to-P) technology. The company cooperates also with Bram Cohem, the well-known founder of this whole technology. BitTorrent will use digital rights management (DRM) technology from Microsoft that will prevent protected content from being redistributed on the Internet or played on a different PC, according to The New York Times. Content will play through Windows Media Player 11, Microsoft’s multimedia application. Some content, however, will not have DRM, BitTorrent said.
TV shows on BitTorrent are purchased for ownership, but movies will expire after either 30 days or 24 hours after a user starts watching. TV downloads will cost $1.99, while movie rentals will range from $2.99 to $3.99. By comparison, TV shows cost $1.99 on Unbox, and movies — that can be owned and played on two PCs and two portable music players — cost up to $14.99. Similarly, the iTunes Store sells to own, with TV episodes priced at $1.99 and movies ranging from $9.99 to $14.99. Finally, NewTorrents.info and hundreds of other torrent websites offer similar material for free. Under the same technology name – little ironic, isn’t it…
Comments(16)
sell outs
AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHA
I think that says it all.
no money coming out of my pocket
I like free, everything from my ps3, wii to anything else
As soon as they get rid of the #^$%#& DRM and add more HD content I’ll definitely use it.
Why do they release stuff that is of lesser quality than what can be found for free, and contains DRM, with expiration dates. Don’t they get it, if you want to compete with free, you have to offer something MORE, not less.
What I don’t get is why bittorrent? Just for the amount of people that use it? It’s a great protocol for increasing p2p efficiency, but I don’t know whether it has any particular use in distributing payed content. I’m not sure whether there will still be a swarm, but if I’m paying to download something, I’m sure as hell not gonna give em any of my upload. For one, there won’t be any penalties (I should hope) for having a bad ratio, and second I will feel like I already payed my dues.
And what about all the connection problems associated with BT? People are not going to want to spend their time figuring out how to get connectable so they can pay to download stuff.
Why bittorrent over direct download, is all I’m saying.
Some people are stupid
exactly mithi, its ridiculous.
lol, God damn ! I’m not spending shit !
They’re bloody mad !
Hearye, hear ye! I can relate to watch it is you are saying. BitTorrent?! Watch the statistics, watch your clients browser, what are your peers and seeds using, probably 50% uTorrent, 35% Azureus and 15% using crap such as BitComet and BitLord. Dont see BitTorrent on there. And when it comes down to availlability, distribution and payment… I understand what youre saying Kevin, but if you could get High Definition stuff by paying, you sure as hell could get the same without having to pay. Theres a reason why pirating is so popular and it wont just dissapear with this ‘new idea’. If you really want to make a difference? Get R5’s a-like releases globally! Legal, rough dvd versions, only a few bucks. That would be worth while perhaps. Don’t know much about you guys pockets, but mine are empty, Ill stick to the free goodies.
me 2
I love Bitlord! I just hope that torrents don
t get shut down like Napster!
lame as all hell! thanks for the network technology structure, that’s about it
I would like to see a professional review on the distributed content: Is their quality better than scene quality ? It will probably be a small pixalated youtube-sized resolution I believe with my guess.
After having a look around the site, most of the films/movies are for use in the US only. So your buggered if you live anywhere else in the world!!
This is not going to work, unless they
a) Remove DRM – which does not work.
b) Make it available for everyone to download.
And why would you want to spend a day or two downloading a rental when a trip to Blockbusters would be quicker!!