Commercial P2p Networks?

[wacomcduff]

I was just wondering.

If a company, say Blockbuster Video for example or Time Warner, were to publish a P2P program that charged US$20 per month for unlimited downloads of their media libraries...would anybody subscribe?

[Cyril]

What instead of getting them before Blockbuster for free - ahhhh NAH!

[guit_steel]

Simply answer: yes. This would, of course, be dependent on the quality and selection offered, as well as a reasonable subscription price. Don't think it is likely to happen — would have to be come from studios, not Blockbuster.

[Nost]

Well you can already subscribe to a dvd rental service that sends dvds via mail for about $20 a month or so. You get unlimited rentals and no late fees you just order a number of them at once and return some or all of them when you've watched them and they send you more.

Downloading from Blockbuster would be easier than mailing them back and forth. As far as it being a P2P, it would be more like a B2P (blockbuster 2 peer) program. It wouldn't be a true P2P, strickly speaking.

As far as subscribing, ya I'd look at it if the downloads where fast enough. I couldn't rent four new releases for that much at the store.

[Illuminati]

Originally posted by Nost@12 January 2004 - 16:05
Well you can already subscribe to a dvd rental service that sends dvds via mail for about $20 a month or so. You get unlimited rentals and no late fees you just order a number of them at once and return some or all of them when you've watched them and they send you more.
Damn, I could buy DVDs for the British equivalent of that price :o

Why rent them for a month when you can just buy them for the same (or slightly more)? :lol:

[guit_steel]

Originally posted by Illuminati@12 January 2004 - 10:27
Why rent them for a month when you can just buy them for the same (or slightly more)? :lol:
Nost is referring to Netflix. The $20 per month is not per DVD but the per month subscription fee. The fee entitles u to unlimited DVDs, the only restriction being that u can only have four at a time. When ur done with one, u mail it back and when they recieve it, they mail u the next DVD on your want list.

Good service. I definitely recommend it and I had this type of model in mind when I wrote my first reply.

[wacomcduff]

As far as it being a P2P, it would be more like a B2P (blockbuster 2 peer) program. It wouldn't be a true P2P, strickly speaking.

I was thinking of something like a combination B2P/P2P. For example, Blockbuster hosts Torrent Trackers and Seeders while client software is designed to utilize the Subscribers bandwidth to help propogate content throughout the network and to track the distribution of the material.


This would, of course, be dependent on the quality and selection offered, as well as a reasonable subscription price. Don't think it is likely to happen — would have to be come from studios, not Blockbuster

Actually, I would think the only way the service would work would to NOT be run by Studios or Record Lables. Copyright holders would pay the P2P company a one-time fee to list their media on the network and then recieve a percentage of the P2P's subscription fees based upon how much traffic their material generated across the network. For Example...The network has 3 total songs available for downlaod. One from Mettallica, one from John Denver, and one from Zamfir. The 10 people subscribed to the Network wind up downlaoding Metallica 6 times, John Denver 3 times, and Zamfir 1 time. If the monthly fee for use was $20, then at the end of the month Metallica would recieve $120, John Denver would get $60 and Zamfir would wind up with $20. I would think a revenue sharing model structured like this would generate a wide variety of content and be the fairest way to apportion the subscription fees.

Consider this. There are around 3 million users utilizing the FastTrack network at any given time. The total amount of users is probably around 7 million or so but let's say 10 million for math purposes. 10 million subscribers at $20 per month would work out to $200 million in subscription fees each month or $2.4 Billion a year. If you were the copyright holder, wouldn't you want your media to be listed and get a piece of that $2 Billion pie? And as a subscriber, wouldn't you like a service that was legal, had no fakes, offered swift downloads, wasn't cluttered with 20 different versions of the same media, and was virus/spyware/adware free?


Damn, I could buy DVDs for the British equivalent of that price. Why rent them for a month when you can just buy them for the same (or slightly more)? 

Why pay to rent instead of own them? I'll tell ya why. You can spend your $20 and get one DVD this month or you can spend the same money to get unrestricted access to THOUSANDS of DVD's. As long as you pay the subscription fee, it's basically like owning all of the media offered.

[ThePlasticSurgeon]

These way of distributing media will be bad because:
The files offered would probably contain Digital Rights Management Technology
The files offered would be of inferior quality compared to copies avaliable on P2P networks
Several people (Including myself) would not be happy having a company utilise their upload bandwith to gain profit. The user should be entitled to "leech" access to content or be re-imbursed for their bandwith

[guit_steel]

Originally posted by wacomcduff@12 January 2004 - 12:23

This would, of course, be dependent on the quality and selection offered, as well as a reasonable subscription price. Don't think it is likely to happen — would have to be come from studios, not Blockbuster

Actually, I would think the only way the service would work would to NOT be run by Studios or Record Lables. Copyright holders would pay the P2P company a one-time fee to list their media on the network and then recieve a percentage of the P2P's subscription fees based upon how much traffic their material generated across the network.
I probably wasn't being clear. My impression is that this isn't likely to happen based on the fact that the only way the studios would allow this type of transfer is if they were directly in control. Me thinks past behavior precludes ur plan. :pirate:

[wacomcduff]

Originally posted by ThePlasticSurgeon@12 January 2004 - 21:01
These way of distributing media will be bad because:

The files offered would probably contain Digital Rights Management Technology

The files offered would be of inferior quality compared to copies avaliable on P2P networks

Several people (Including myself) would not be happy having a company utilise their upload bandwith to gain profit. The user should be entitled to "leech" access to content or be re-imbursed for their bandwith


1) I'm not familiar with Digital Rights Management Technology so am unsure how this would negatively impact the hypothetical service I am talking about. Please explain nore about this.

2) Actually, the quality of the files offered would be as good if not better than what is currently available on P2P networks. These files would be authorized by the copyright holders themselves and be provided by the P2P company. They would not be files created by the users of the network. It is in the best interests of not only the copyright holders but that of the P2P company to offer the highest quality products.

3) The P2P company would only utilize your bandwidth when you were running the client application just as the current P2P apps do now. Most likely, the P2P company would only utilize a portion of your badwidth also. You are already paying your ISP for the bandwidth whether it is used or not so why would it be such a big deal if a for-profit company managed that bandwidth while you were connected to their service so that all the subscribers had high download rates? You are doing just that right now and for FREE...what would really change in the end? If the P2P company were to provide ALL the badwidth required to support a robust network and insure high downlaod rates, the cost would most likely kill the business model. The key to getting copyright holders to offer their media for download is allowing them to gain the most return on their investment. High overhead costs of providing all the bandwidth needed would limit the value to the copyright holders. The idea here is to funnel as much of the subscription fees to the copyright holders as possible.

[wacomcduff]

Originally posted by guit_steel@12 January 2004 - 21:10
I probably wasn't being clear.  My impression is that this isn't likely to happen based on the fact that the only way the studios would allow this type of transfer is if they were directly in control.  Me thinks past behavior precludes ur plan.  :pirate:
I tend to disagree on this. There IS incentive for copyright holders to utilize a service such as this. After all, this is only another model for product distribution. Studios already allow Blockbuster to rent their products to consumers based on some sort of payment structure. I.E. Blockbuster buys DVD's from the studio for X amount of dollars then turns around and rents those to consumers to make a profit. This service is no different really.

The incentives and benefits to the copyright holders are these:

1) There is no material cost to distribute their media through this service. They do not have to manufacture DVD's or CD's and packaging, shipping, etc.

2) They do not have to provide the infrastructure needed to distribute the media electronically. The P2P company provides the servers and part of the bandwidth needed and handles the billing, creation of content, software development etc. Once a copyright holder offers their media for download all they have to do is sit back and wait for the check to arrive from the P2P company.

3) This service would not preclude the other distribution models in effect currently. I.E. Blockbuster would still be buying DVD's and other retailers would still be buying CD's and Books and Software to distribute. This service would be a supplement to the copyright holders current revenue streams. As it stands now, copyright holders are recieving NO compensation for files shared on P2P networks. This business model would allow them to generate revenue from the growing Digital Distribution trend.

Thanks for all the input so far. Keep it comin!

[guit_steel]

Originally posted by wacomcduff@12 January 2004 - 16:41
I tend to disagree on this. There IS incentive for copyright holders to utilize a service such as this.
Incentive or not the MPAA and the RIAA have been reesistant to such proposals. U might disagree b/c the model makes sense (I would concur) but the powers that be do not see it this way. Thus the plan is DOA. Doesn&#39;t really matter what u or I think, only what the MPAA and RIAA do. <_<

[G2k1boy]

IMO, this idea wouldn&#39;t work without a creating a new format to protect the distributors files. Because if they stick with AVI or Divx with no protection, there just creating an easier way to pirate. People would just get the movie, copy it to a disk or pass it on a network.

[internet.news]

Originally posted by Nost@12 January 2004 - 16:05
Well you can already subscribe to a dvd rental service that sends dvds via mail for about &#036;20 a month or so. You get unlimited rentals and no late fees you just order a number of them at once and return some or all of them when you&#39;ve watched them and they send you more.

Downloading from Blockbuster would be easier than mailing them back and forth. As far as it being a P2P, it would be more like a B2P (blockbuster 2 peer) program. It wouldn&#39;t be a true P2P, strickly speaking.

As far as subscribing, ya I&#39;d look at it if the downloads where fast enough. I couldn&#39;t rent four new releases for that much at the store.
Subscribe, If a movie company would offer all new films and I would have fast connection means DSL (I&#39;ve heard some companies offering Online Movie watching
with DSL, I could not believer it is so fast&#33;) I probably would subscribe if it is 20Euro = Dollar.

[wacomcduff]

Originally posted by guit_steel@12 January 2004 - 23:10
Doesn&#39;t really matter what u or I think, only what the MPAA and RIAA do. <_<
It really comes down to convincing the copyright holders to take advantage of a service like this. The RIAA and MPAA are not the copyright holders of the media they represent so they can fuck off. Any file offered on a network like this would be authorized by the copyright holder and the revenue share would go directly to them.

I agree with G2k1boy that there would have to be some kind of security implemented that would help prevent distribution of authorized content to unauthorized networks. This would be key in getting copyright holders to publish their media on a network like this. Off the top of my head I would imagine the client software would come with a suite of tools that would allow for burning of music to CD or Movies to DVD with a built-in encrypted "key" that was specific to the user and file. Or possibly a media player that used encrypted keys to authorize playback of legitimately downloaded files. This would in no way STOP piracy of material...it would just make it more difficult. There will ALWAYS be people that will find a way to circumvent whatever protections there are on copyrighted materials or services and distribute them. (i.e. Black Box cable converters, DirectTV access cards, Running a black magic marker around the edge of a CD rofl, etc.)

Apple is already offering a pay-to-download service for music and seem to be having modest success so far. This idea just takes the concept a couple steps beyond that by including all media formats from music, to movies, to software, to documents/books. Speaking of Apple and iMusic...what method do they use to insure that the music downloaded from them is protected? Does anybody have any information on this?