San Francisco’s BitTorrent Inc., the file-sharing site that became popular for offering free, illegal downloads of pirated movies and television shows, said that it has struck a deal with Warner Bros. to make some of those same films and shows legally available online.
This summer, BitTorrent users will be able to download about 200 Warner Bros. hits such as "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" and "The Matrix" using peer-to-peer technology. No set prices were disclosed, though the films are expected to cost about the price of a DVD, while the television shows, such as "Babylon 5," will cost about $1 or more, BitTorrent said.
The move comes as Hollywood seeks to tap into the massive market for online video content, still currently dominated by bootleggers.
The deal comes as it becomes easier to post and find copyrighted video on the Web. Hollywood, in response, has moved aggressively to offer alternatives: Fox recently began selling episodes of "24" and "Prison Break" on iTunes. Last week, ABC started streaming the latest episodes of four popular television shows on its Web site for free. And last month, Movielink.com started selling movie downloads of new releases from studios such as Sony, Universal and MGM.
They have been our adversary in a lot of ways, Dan Glickman, the chief executive officer of the Motion Picture Association of America, said about BitTorrent. But now "the groundswell is happening in the ways studios are harnessing new technology to give consumers more access online. That is a big part of the piracy-fighting effort. That is happening now all over the place."
Last year, BitTorrent agreed to remove links to pirated versions of movies from its site and remove online links leading to illegal content owned by the seven studio members of the Motion Picture Association of America.
However, this agreement also represents an admission from Hollywood that online piracy continues to cost the film industry billions of dollars in lost revenues.
If we can convert 5, 10, 15 per cent of the peer-to-peer users that have been obtaining our product from illegitimate sources to becoming legitimate buyers of our product, that has the potential of a huge impact on our industry and our economics, Kevin Tsujihara, president of the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group, said.
The partnership also marks a shift as Hollywood adopts the same technology that made it possible to share copyrighted material illegally. Developed several years ago by Bram Cohen, BitTorrent’s unique peer-to-peer technology let users download large files more quickly than at other sites, making it especially appealing for long shows or films. About 65 million people have downloaded BitTorrent’s software.
Warner Bros. is trying to find a balance: Even as the Internet opens up new doors to piracy, it also offers new opportunities to promote its films and shows and distribute them to consumers in new ways, said Darcy Antonellis, executive vice president of Warner Bros.’ distribution technology and operations department.
Hollywood studios lost an estimated $6.1 billion from piracy last year, according to an MPAA study. Of that, about $2.3 billion came from Internet piracy.
Ashwin Navin, the president and co-founder of BitTorrent, said: "Those are the kinds of baby steps to offer users a good trade off, a good alternative to doing things the wrong way."
The distribution channel will leverage BitTorrent’s revolutionary "file-swarming" technology, which enables the transfer of massive files from a Web site to a PC with the speed and bandwidth efficiency of peer-assisted transfers.
Rather than download a single large file from one central computer, it assembles files from separate bits of data downloaded from several computer users across the internet. This method of delivery will qualify as the first peer-assisted network in the US that combines guaranteed availability, high-quality video and rapid download rates. It will provide a platform to offer US consumers’ legal content on both video-on-demand (VOD) and electronic-sell-through (EST) basis to coincide with the DVD release.
The download promises to be much faster as compared to conventional downloads, depending on how many individual computers in the network have the file. It is believed that more the number of computers, faster would be the process. Once a particular movie has been "seeded" on the system, Warner Brors., estimates a download could take as little as 10 minutes. That is much quicker – and cheaper – than on the systems the film studios have so far adopted.
The service will be much quicker for consumers than conventional downloads and should offer Warner cost savings.
Warner Bros. said that the launch of a "legal" BitTorrent online video service allows them to extend their reach to places that content would have otherwise not reached legally. Antonellis said that such agreements are not only a better way to reach existing and potential customers, but that they are also an indicator of the critical role distribution technologies will play in the future of entertainment.
BitTorrent, which is in talks with additional Hollywood studios, said it hopes that by offering a legitimate and dependable service, users of the site will convert.
"Piracy can be difficult," said Navin,. "You do not know if it has a virus, or has been dubbed in a different language."
Navin said he does not expect the deal to affect retailers, which will be selling DVD copies at the same time, because it will be intended for the online audience.
Earlier this year, Hollywood finally entrusted its blockbusters to the web with six major studios joining forces for the first time to make new films available to download over the internet on the same day they are released on DVD.
More than 200 titles went on sale through Movielink, a film site set up in 2002 as a joint venture between Warner Brothers, Sony Pictures, Universal, MGM and Paramount. Movielink’s backers have argued that film downloads have so far failed to catch on because must-watch titles have only been available to buy online as long as two months after they hit supermarket shelves as DVDs.
Warner Bros also plans to sell permanent copies of television series and films online, which can later be burned onto backup DVDs. However the burned copies can be played only on machines that are used for download and not on standard DVD players.
But it could offer competition for Apple Computer Inc., which sells television shows and short film clips at its iTunes Music Store. BitTorrent expects to offer ways to download the material for portable devices when it initiates the service this summer.
However, question marks have been raised over whether the new film services offer good value for money. In America, some films which are being offered on CinemaNow and Movielink are cheaper to buy as DVDs in stores such as WalMart, which sell them as loss-leaders.
Moreover, some critics have pointed out that the downloadable versions do not come with features such as extra scenes that DVD buyers have come to expect and that some users could find the internet formats unwieldy.
Although no specific date has been given, the service is expected to start this summer. The pricing for the service has also not been announced but sources reveal that television shows might cost as little as $1 while films might cost around the same amount as DVDs.