Does the BitTorrent Entertainment Network's DRM only encourage piracy?

With the increasingly beleaguered prospects for the viability of the BitTorrent Entertainment Network, it seems worth pondering why it needs DRM and playback restriction in the first place, and also who and how they impact it's ultimate long-term success.

BitTorrent Inc opened up it's new BitTorrent Entertainment Network video download store to much hype and hoopla almost 2 weeks ago, with it and movie execs heralding claims of "peace in our time." Yet, as we have all discovered, peace is a fragile creature, and the strains of DRM and media player compatibility are destined to end the love affair of the two parties.

BitTorrent Inc. is company that thirsts for profits just like any other yet, the restrictions placed upon it by its movies studio partners have effectively neutered its ability to succeed as envisioned and realize its true potential as a legitimate alternative to piracy and illegal file-sharing.

If it does fail, which I sadly predict will be the case, it will serve as future fodder for movie studio arguments that people don't want to pay for downloads, that downloading in and of itself is the real problem and must be curtailed. Rather than realize that it's the quality of the service being offered, they will no doubt determine that it's simply a lack of demand that was the cause of its failure, that pirates can never go "straight." It will then be a long time before we see the movie studios turning out in droves with such eager anticipation to embrace the digital download medium again.

What's sad is that we see this time and time again it seems with the movie and music industries, that they claim to embrace the future, even peeking out from their office windows and noting how nice it all looks, but then much like "Punxsutawney Phil" of groundhog fame, they quickly retreat inside afraid of nothing more than their own shadow.

I mean what is it that they fear? Is it fear itself like the famous phrase long ago uttered by FDR? I think what they really fear is losing the iron fisted control of their operations that they have long enjoyed..

The record industry is another perfect example.

The record industry secretly longs for the days that it recorded an album, manufactured it, put it on a shelf in the local record store, and then was able to dictate an oftentimes inflated an arbitrary price. The consumer had essentially no recourse or alternative, and was saddled with $20 dollar albums that usually had only a handful of tracks actually worth listening to.

The movie industry is guilty of the same thing.

The movie industry has fought all new technologies tooth and nail until somebody realized that they could make a buck if they tried it. Videocassettes and DVDs eventually became huge money earners for the industry and they learned to embrace them over time. But, now they have encountered a new medium, the digital one, and just like always they fight that which they don't understand.

Sure they have partnered with BitTorrent Inc. to deliver content to digital video content to consumers but, I think they are so afar id of what it may mean for their existing partners like Wal-Mart and also for the future of how consumers obtain content in general, that they are purposefully hamstringing the BitTorrent Entertainment Network's chances of succeeding.

Janko over at P2P Blog tried to buy a simple episode of 30 Days, only to find out that even Windows Media Player couldn't overcome Microsoft's own anti-piracy DRM software. Not a very good way to greet new customers.

So what should the movies studios do? What should a viable digital download service look like?

Well, as Ashwin Navin, BitTorrent Inc. CEO and co-founder, noted previously, "If were no competing effectively with piracy we're not going to win." He also pointed out that it needs to provide value to its customers, not compete against them.

The BitTorrent Entertainment Network as is fails miserably in its goal of "competing effectively against piracy" and providing any sort of value to its customers. The main types of downloads that BEN offers are essentially of two sorts, DVD movie releases and recently aired TV show episodes.

By the time a movie is released on DVD, any self-respecting pirate has long since downloaded a copy of the movie to watch already, and so any sort of DRM or playback restrictions are simply hampering BEN's ability to sell what is thereby essentially an inferior product. I mean let's cut to the chase, we're basically talking about a service that is selling DVD releases, which are already the most prevalent form of movie release on BitTorrent tracker sites.

All the reluctance by the movie studios to release DRM-free movies does is make people continue to download movies for free. Why hassle with paying for it if all it is is a bad version of a Blockbuster Video store rental?

TV shows are the other type of video media that BEN sells, and it too has no need for DRM restrictions. Why? Again, any self-respecting pirate already gets his episodes the night of its first airing(east coast time), or by waiting a few days and using sites like TV Links or PeekVid to stream episodes at ones leisure. Where's the incentive to spend hard-earned cash on buying TV shows if all you get is a bunch of hassle and heap of headache in return?

It seems to me that the movie studios are really only hurting themselves. If they are already losing money to piracy then wouldn't it make sense to try to recoup some of those costs even if it means loosening what kind of control you have over your content? If history has proven one thing when it comes to DRM security, it's that in the end none of it is ever secure.

The new Blu-ray disc format for instance, despite the best efforts of cryptography experts, was hacked in matter of months, and it no doubt took years of trial and research to design and perfect the system. It provides another example of how DRM is really meaningless in the end. Sure it stops the average guy from ripping and transferring "Top Gun" but, is that the type of person that they should really be concerned about in the first place?

Three people you are trying to lure into the fold of paying customers already have means at their disposal to get content of their choice that lacks any DRM or playback restrictions so why not try to compete on at least that much of an equal footing? It doesn't make any sense not to.

Lastly, to tell you truth, I think BEN's real customer base won't be the average guy anyways. There are far too many technical hurdles when it comes to using a BitTorrent client server that many non-tech savvy users will be able to understand. Can you imagine being a BEN tech assistant trying to walk a middle-aged lady in Indiana on how to try to forward her ports? Yuck and more yuck.

So when it comes down to it, the DRM and playback restrictions of BEN content really only has an impact on people who not only won't stand for it in the first place but, also are the very people the BitTorrent Entertainment Network was intended for. It's beyond bad for business, it's actually a business killer.

Navin knows DRM is bad for business, and has said as much before.

In an interview with PC World several Months ago he noted:

The bottom line is that DRM is bad for the content provider and it's bad for the consumer...

The reason it's bad for content providers is because typically a DRM ties a user to one hardware platform, so if I buy my all my music on iTunes, I can't take that content to another hardware environment or another operating platform. There are a certain number of consumers who will be turned off by that, especially people who fear that they may invest in a lot of purchases on one platform today and be frustrated later when they try to switch to another platform, and be turned off with the whole experience. Or some users might not invest in any new content today because they're not sure if they want to have an iPod for the rest of their life.

Well said. DRM only hurts the BitTorrent Entertainment Network's ability to lure the very people it had in mind when it was conceived. It's more than ironic, it's MORONIC.

I just hope that someday the movie studios listen to Navin and allow the BitTorrent Entertainment to do as it envisioned, and that is to provide a "better experience than piracy." So far it only encourages it as fails to yet provide pirates with a legitimate legal alternative to piracy.