Looks like the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America has reached an agreement with Bram Cohen (the developer of the BitTorrent P2P program).
The good folks over at CBS give us the following:
The agreement requires 30-year-old software designer Bram Cohen to remove links to pirated versions of movies from his Web site, bittorrent.com, effectively frustrating people who search for illegal copies of films. The agreement calls for BitTorrent to remove Web links leading to illegal content owned by the seven studios that are members of the Motion Picture Association of America.
The agreement means bittorrent.com will comply with procedures outlined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Cohen’s site will not prevent links to illegal files from being posted. But after a studio complains about the file, BitTorrent will notify the offending computer owner and remove the link from its search engine.
The agreement represents the latest effort by the entertainment industry to discourage illegal Internet downloads. It also demonstrates Cohen’s sensitivity toward Hollywood’s piracy problems, making him potentially more attractive to studios for future deals related to movie downloads.
The last part is the rub. This deal probably sets up the framework for the MPAA to use BitTorrent (or a modified version of it) as a future platform for distributing online content. Maybe not a bad move.
I generally think the MPAA is run by a bunch of idiots… but give credit where credit is due. Any idea that has the MPAA try to fight piracy by WORKING WITH people (like in this instance) instead of blindly prosecuting their market base fans is a good idea. Will this solve the problem? No way… but it’s one step… and a good one I think.
This has been on the cards for some time. Its going to be a bit of a gamble for the company that tries this first, and if they do it
right they will have major market share, but if they do it wrong…
Hands up who would be prepared to pay, i dunno, maybe half the fee of going to the movies to download a film legally?
There are a whole bunch of different things they could trial.
My personal favourite is when you go to the cinema and watch a film you get a ticket with an activation number to download the movie to ONE pc for your personal viewing at home(at whatever cost…1/2 or a 1/3 of the price of the film). It won’t have any extras on it, it would just be the film. Then when the dvd is released you can download the extras or the widescreen version etc by paying a little bit more.
I think what i am trying to say is:
* pay to go see the movie at the cinema
* if you like it then you can pay to download the film
* if you really like it then later on you can pay to download trailers, directors commentry, subtitles etc
so you just end up buying the bits and pieces you want. It may seem like fantasty land and would be a bit of a gamble for the big companies used to forcing us to buy set after set of DVDs, but may just restore consumer confidence and “limit” some piracy.