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Peerflix Launches P2P DVD Sharing Service
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Tue Sep 20, 2005 07:29 PM
from the more-than-one-way-to-skin-a-cat dept.
from the more-than-one-way-to-skin-a-cat dept.
Dotnaught writes "Peerflix has offically launched, ending a 12 month beta test. The company manages the peer-to-peer trading of physical DVDs (with CDs and videogames coming soon) by mail. As the article in InformationWeek suggests, while such trades may be legal under the first-sale doctrine of U.S. Copyright Act, content owners won't be pleased -- discs are easy to copy and there's ample precedent to suggest users will dupe discs before trading them."
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as opposed to the NetFlix project? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:as opposed to the NetFlix project? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:as opposed to the NetFlix project? (Score:3, Interesting)
RTFA (Score:3, Informative)
Re:RTFA (Score:2)
Why use this instead of Netflix? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Why use this instead of Netflix? (Score:4, Insightful)
Different strokes for different folks.
Assume that you get 3 movies out each week from Netflix for $17.99. That's $215.88/year, and with 52.18 weeks in the year, that's 156.54 movies a year, for the cost of $1.38/movie.
Peerflix costs about the same ($.99 + $.37 = $1.36/movie).
So what is better? If I wanted to rent movies, I'd use Netflix. If I wanted to own movies by trading out movies I don't like in my collection, I'd use Peerflix.
Disclaimer: Happy Netflix customer. ;) I prefer to rent, not own.
Parent
Re:as opposed to the NetFlix project? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is more offensive because it encourages you to use your rights under the first-sale doctrine.
It also pisses them off because no money flows to them. Netflix and every video store also annoys them, but its (mostly) too late to stop that, at least in the short term.
They won't be happy until they get a fee everytime a person views their movie.
Greedy bastards, aren't they?
Parent
Asks about piracy (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Asks about piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the submitter is suggesting that the end user would make a copy, keep the copy, then send on the original, not the copy...
Parent
Re:Asks about piracy (Score:5, Funny)
I usually see a little box drawn on the disc with a sharpie. Next to the box, the word "copied" is written. If there is a check in the little box, well, you know it's been pirated.
Parent
Re:Asks about piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
But the submitter probably was suggesting the usual rent-burn-return piracy. It's just not the only form out there is all.
Parent
Blockbuster can check (Score:3, Funny)
When they'd find someone with suspicious renting patterns, they'd collect all the discs he returned and send them off for "analysis"
It's an interesting idea to convince your employees and even store managers that you are capable of doing something technically impossible, presumably with the hope that it'll trick your customers too.
Re:Blockbuster can check (Score:3, Insightful)
So they'd be able to tell if somebody scanned it with a laser one time as opposed to others? I don't think so.
Re:Blockbuster can check (Score:3, Funny)
My uncle's brother's friend's cousin's auntie's dog's hairdresser's sister got busted by the FBI for returning DVDs she copied! They totally flipped out and busted down her door and everything!
And she's not even American - she lives in Wales
Free DVD Gwendolyn!
Re:Asks about piracy (Score:5, Funny)
Scratch marks. The pirate will leave scratch marks when they put the disk in its packaging 'cos they have a hook hand.
Plus, the notes on the back of the box differ in telltale ways from the usual fare, for example they might say stuff like "Ahar me mateys, this be a fine film, 'two hooks up' raves the critics! The whole crew will rejoice at this swashbuckler of a picture, plus an extra DVD with a treasure chest of bonus scenes! Rated ARRRRRR!"
Parent
Re:Asks about piracy (Score:3, Insightful)
Me, I've attempted to use way too many pirated discs (it wasn't mine, it was given to me by friend(s) and I didn't realise until I started watching it). The quality has been so shit that I've given up. Sure there's ways to pirate stuff while keeping the quality, but I've been burned so many times (friend rents a DVD and burns it) that I've given up with all of it and now refuse to watch any pir
Fighting The Waves (Score:5, Insightful)
And even then... would companied like Paramount have to sue themselves for owning something like Blockbuster?
Lying, cheating bastards (Score:5, Insightful)
Reference:
- the "do not pirate" commericals in a theatre, after you've paid to see the movie
- The FBI warning at the beginning of every DVD that you can't fast-forward through
- Unskippable advertisements on DVDs, especially rentals
Parent
Re:Lying, cheating bastards (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Lying, cheating bastards (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah, right (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe thet's it, people will realize what turkys they are when Peerflix gets flooded with those loosers.
"content owners won't be pleased.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, content owners will NEVER be pleased, what they'd like you to do is pay $$$$$ and keep the stuff.
There will always be people that copy (be it legal or not). But this creates an opportunity for those people who don't want to spend lots of money on new films but want to stay legitimate as well.
This is GREAT! (Score:4, Interesting)
I like the whole idea. In fact, my friends and I have been doing this for years now. We never buy the same game (unless it's needed to play networked games) and just pass it around between each other when we're finished. Always have new games to play and typically at about 1/4 the cost.
Now it has happened and will continue to happen that we all like the game so much that we end up buying our individual copies of the game anyway. I really like this idea though!
Why'd this take so long? (Score:4, Insightful)
I used to do this with my friends in college - I bought Eye of the Beholder, he bought Ultima Underworld. When we finished them, we'd trade boxes.
"Users will dupe discs before trading them" (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems to me that labelling anything as a cooperative act between peers leads to mad content owners.
I don't see the advantage (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, if you're someone who really wants to watch a lot of movies, wants to count on being able to get new releases relatively soon, I don't know if this would work out so hot. With Netflix for $18/mo if you really push it, you can get maybe 9-12 DVDs a month. Of course if you sit on your discs, you might only get five or six a month. But they at least ship stuff on a schedule, not whenever they feel like hunting down a DVD and walking it out to the mailbox. I guess I'm just pretty cynical, and relying upon other Joes to send me their movies in a reasonalble timeframe with reasonable quality.
Do I get this right.. You print out the mailer from your printer?
And movies are assigned "peerbux" ratings, so you can't offer up a bunch of Clint Eastwood movies from the 70s and expect to get the complete Sopranos in return? How does that work? You need to build up a library of good movies so you can give them away? I'm not understanding.
*shrug*
I just don't see it as being worth the hassle, but good for you if you like it.
Re:I don't see the advantage (Score:3, Informative)
Ripping traded discs (Score:4, Insightful)
What is this easy DVD copying method that they (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be nice if these media retards understood that the reasons why MP3s took off in the late 1990s was that hard drive capacities increased dramatically in a short period of time relative to the capacity of CD-ROMs, because CD-RW drives became real cheap all of a sudden and because the people who liked making mix tapes really liked a format that was a lot easier to deal with that allowed you to make mix CDs with hundreds of songs just by pointing and clicking. None of these things apply with DVDs, the biggest hard drive you can get today will only hold 100 uncompressed DVD images (I'm assuming that we don't want further compression because it degrades the image which looks like shit on a big screen TV), people don't make video mix tapes (although it would be kind of interesting) and also because it's still a pain in the ass to strip CSS off of DVDs. Jesus Christ, could these lazy media bastards just put down the grape-flavored MPAA piracy Kool-Aid for once?
DVDShrink (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, check out DVDShrink [dvdshrink.org]. Not only will it strip CSS, it will automatically calculate the necessary compression ratio to transfer that dual-layer disc onto a single-layer disc. If you want to preserve quality, you can cut out special features, or just rip the main track and remove all menus, previews, etc.
Sure, it might not be quite as nice as the original, but about 30% of the DVDs I've backed up were single-layer anyways, and I enjoy being able to easily rip out the stupid mandatory preview tracks.
This program and many others like it make DVD copying a breeze; some of the advanced functionality might scare people off, but for the most part it's point and click.
So while I think the MPAA has a lot of things wrong--like bascially their entire distribution model as well as their take on piracy, in the U.S. if not globally--they are correct in believing that DVDs are easily copied.
Parent
Re:What is this easy DVD copying method that they (Score:3, Informative)
Don't blame the problems you've had with some particular crappy codec on "compression" as a whole.
Using libavcodec, I can re-encode a DVD to MPEG-2 at 1/2 the size or sometimes less. With MPEG-4, halve that again (1/4 the size) but won't play on most DVD players. And that's all without artifacts, without quality degredation of any kind (even on a "big screen"). In fact, the copies
Re:What is this easy DVD copying method that they (Score:3, Informative)
However, I have a 42" plasma HDTV connected to the buffalo linktheater. I have been ripping all my DVD's to divx format and placing them on my hard disk (which is streamed to the linktheater, when it requests.)
when I rip to divx format, I do 2 pass encoding, to a VBR of 2kbps, this makes a 2 hour DVD about 2 Gig. for everything, put blue sky shots, it is impossible to tell on this TV the difference from the 2 gig divx f
Amazing, Isn't It? (Score:5, Interesting)
The "average user" can't (according to the Windows shills) figure out how to run Linux - but they can figure out how to duplicate a DVD and then share it over a P2P network (according to said "average users" writing for the RIAA and MPAA).
What's wrong with this picture?
Re:Amazing, Isn't It? (Score:3, Insightful)
2) Click on "Clone DVD"
3) Wait for popup message to say "Change disks"
4) Change disks
5) Write name of DVD on disk.
Gosh. That's _much_ harder than learning Linux.
bah... we already have a trading medium (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:bah... we already have a trading medium (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, you get the sale price less the Amazon seller fee and a $1 service charge. It's not based off the original purchase price, as resold DVDs typically don't sell for anywhere near original cost to you. And who gets the extra amount Amazon reimburses for shipping (which is treated separately from its fees)?
Whomever is behind replaylink.com is basically printing out the mailer and charging you for that nicety. Why not sell it yourself and not pay the fee? It's pretty easy to list items for sale on Amazon, with no need to share information with another third-party.
It also seems a bit shady vis-a-vis Amazon's resale policy, what with a seller listing items for trade that aren't in its direct possession ... neat idea, but it basically introduces a second middle-man (in addition to Amazon) to the transaction between true buyer and true seller.
Parent
they already have this service for free (Score:5, Interesting)
check one out some time.
Re:they already have this service for free (Score:3)
The Situation in a Nutshell (Score:4, Interesting)
The fact that digitization is making it easier and easier to distribute this media after the showing in theatres is completely beyond the moral scope of these companies.
They quite simply found a lot of free cash in the 80s with cable TV distribution and VHS rentals. That free cash was never theirs by right in the first place, and they offered a viable distribution service back then...those times are over, and the right to reap all those free profits is being taken back by the real bosses in a free market, the customer.
Eat shit and die MPAA/RIAA
My own Peerflix experience... (Score:5, Informative)
I've only had 1 problem so far. I got a copy of Night of the Living Dead that was scrathed to hell. When it arrived, it played, so I confirmed it. Of course, when I played it, I found that a couple minutes would not play. But because I had let a week or so pass between receipt and claim, I was out of luck. I wrote about 5 emails to their CS about this, and got 1 response, which really had nothing to do with my complaint. But otherwise nearly all the movies I've gotten are in very good condition.
The bad part is that a lot of movies are technically "available", but might only be in the hands of 1 or 2 other users, neither of which actually intends to share their copy, but has it listed for one reason or another. So it sometimes takes a few weeks (or more) to get some movies. Also, maybe half the movies I listed have been requested by others. But then again, I didn't expect the demand to be extremely high for that copy of The Mask someone gave me. Generally, good movies get requested fairly quickly.
If you have a specific movie in mind that you want right away, Peerflix isn't the best solution. But if you have a list of 20 or so movies you would like to get eventually, it's a nice service.
My only other complaint would be that when your "Peerbux" goes to zero, it automatically charges another $5 worth to you, rather than waiting until you actually want to buy something. This is obviously a nice way for the company to get a few bucks extra from everyone in the end, but it strikes me as shadey.
As far a Piracy goes, well, it's really no different than renting movies or using Netflix, so I think it's a non-issue as it pertains to Peerflix specifically.
Re:My own Peerflix experience... (Score:5, Interesting)
You're in luck! This movie is in the Public Domain due to a forgotten copyright renewal back in The Good Old Days when they were still required.
Download and burn a copy. It's legal. Check around.
http://www.archive.org/details/night_of_the_livin
Parent
Been there, done that... (Score:3, Informative)
First Sale (Score:4, Interesting)
That's just because it isn't software. On more than one occasion I have been told by software companies that selling your used copy was illegal, even if the sale included all packing material and an affidavit that you wiped your harddrive of the product. They argue that the First Sale Doctrine does not apply to them because the software was never sold, only licensed. They have shut down eBay sales of software and sent cease and desist notices to yard sales.
All the DVD manufacturers need to do to stop Peerflix, is to slap a license on every DVD. It won't be legal, but that hasn't stopped the software industry or its lapdogs in the judiciary.
Re:First Sale (Score:4, Informative)
District courts in California and Texas have disagreed [wikipedia.org]
If you're in Missouri, though.. watch out.
Parent
DRM the US Postal Service (Score:3, Funny)
When you mail someone a DVD you don't want any more, it's like walking into Best Buy, shoplifting a DVD, and shooting the cashier on the way out.
It's unfortunate, but pirates are using this "postal system" to destroy the value created by hard working movie creators. If the postal system is allowed to go on unchecked it will destroy the movie industry. No movies will ever be made again.
We question the use of this so called postal "service". The creators should have known that it would be abused this way. However, some people claim that there are legal and valid uses for the postal system. Fortunately there is a very reasonable compromise, Digital Rights Management in the postal system. This will close the analog hole. When you mail something, a postal employee will open up your mail and carefully examine what is inside. If it's a copyright protected movie on DVD, or copyright protected music on CD, or a copyright protected page torn out of a magazine, the employee will refuse to deliver the message. Your average US Postal Service customer won't notice any change. Only pirates will be inconvienced.
We here at the MPAA trust that all law abiding, moral citizens will support this perfect plan. We also look forward to your support for our future plan to monitor all physical human contact to eliminate the "handing a DVD to your friend" loophole.
Sincerely, the perfectly reasonable MPAA who is doing this for your own good.
Re:Conversion Rate? (Score:3, Interesting)
I seen a lot of copies of "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Fight Club" with Sharpie labels on people's shelves at home...
Re:99 cents per envelope? (Score:2)
You're not lending out the disc; you are trading it for peerbux, which you can use to purchase movies on your want list -- provided you pay the admin fee.
The $0.99 is to cover administrative costs for the transaction (and to pay the owners of the company and their lawyers).
This, other than the fact that it
(1) is trading physical products; and
(2) c
Re:RIAA files suit against Peerflix (Score:3, Informative)
The only option the MPAA would have would seem to be to bribe the corrupted politicians to pass a new law banning First-sale doctrine [wikipedia.org].
I just signed up for the service to give it a try. I have some DVD's that I just don't watch anymore. There is no legal re
Re:Has any company tried mailing audio-cds before? (Score:3, Informative)
While you can just go out and rent DVDs as you like, you'd have to argue that you were actually selling the CDs and that it wasn't a convoluted rental scheme.
Libraries have an exception, but not just anyone is a library.