Hollywood meets p2p

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p2p news / p2pnet: "Back in the Internet boom years, it took several hours to download a movie before you could even watch it," says Bambi Francisco in Market Watch, going on, "Today it takes less than a minute to start playing.

"How many companies, besides Apple, could have attracted such media and Wall Street fanfare with the introduction of a 2-inch-screened gadget to watch sitcoms and music videos? How many companies, besides Google, can make traditional media feel compelled to license their valuable content, lest they risk losing their audience to other content providers who will?"

But how many people really give a damn?

Francisco is writing about commercial flics which are - and always will be, if the corporations continue to have their way - thoroughly polluted with DRM (Digital Restrictions Management). Moreover, she's writing as if they're the only game in town,

However, thanks the Net, Hollywood is for the first time facing genuine competition. It's called p2p. And it's short-hand for the truly new waves of online entertainment experiences exemplified by the indie music sites (which are causing such alarm in the music industry) and the new movies such as Finland's Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, a small but high-res digital movie created specifically for fast downloads and with no restrictions of any kind.

Moreover, these kinds of entertainments are made for responsible people, not for all those child and mom-and-pop criminals who have to be stopped by any and all means from "stealing" from the entertainment cartels.

"To be sure, digital-download skeptics argue that the market for Internet movie rentals or purchases is limited by technology," says the Market Watch story. "Indeed, watching a movie on the PC at your desk is not as enjoyable as watching while leisurely lying on your couch or bed."

Whether that statement is true or not depends, of course, on the individual. But if lying on your couch or bed is where it's at, there'll be no problem. Wireless transmission and other technoligies will allow you to send your downloads from your computer or mobile to a flat screen anywhere in the house.

Resolution? No worries. Small files, but crystal clear. Speed? No worries. And you won't be renting a stream that passes fleetingly through your system, and only then if you allow the MPAA's owners to plant their own software on your hard drive, with all that implies.

With the new indie movies, you'll get to keep what you buy.

Francisco writes about the likes of CinemaNow, MovieLink and StarzTicket, all hard-core Hollywood.

They are "clearly demonstrating on-demand movies from the Internet are possible," she says. "Other sites that allow consumers to watch copyrighted video are operating as well, notably. BitTorrent - a technology that allows faster video downloads - is also helping to alleviate the stress on networks so that video downloads are easier."

Actually, they haven't demonstrated anything. P2p file sharers did that and now the entertainment industry is trying desperately to catch up.

"Additionally, there is a growing demand for video on alternative platforms, such as the Internet and mobile devices," the story continues. "There is a consumer base increasingly conditioned to watch their entertainment wherever and whenever they want it. And, importantly, there is a growing interest on the part of TV studios and networks to experiment with new ways to license their content since they're losing valuable advertising dollars to the Web."

Francisco is correct, as far as she goes. But she doesn't go far enough.

The commercial services are no longer all there is and no matter how cleverly they're marketed and presented, they'll increasingly be hard against offerings from the independents who are to the entertainment cartels what Firefox is to Internet Explorer.

"The jury is still out on which model will be favored by consumers," concludes the article. But that's not really the case.

Every day, around the world, hundreds of thousands of new people sign up for Net accounts and as they do, they discover that online they, and not the corporations, are in charge. They're the jury and they live in a universe that's parallel to Hollywood's. They can choose from, but aren't restricted to, cartel offerings.

And they're not 'consumers' who automatically go, sheep-like, for purpose-built formulaic cartel 'product'. They're 'customers' with free choice, once again.

Will they opt for indie offerings from creators who push the edges of the envelope as they work with, instead of against, the p2p technologies of the 21st digital century? Or will they choose Britney Spears and Herbie II?

You know the answer.