BitTorRENT
I’m sure by now everyone knows that a name long synonymous with pirating, BitTorent, has cleaned up its act and released a full-fledged video download store…well if you call PC-only, movie rental-only, DRMed up the wazoo “full-fledged”.
Most of the buzz about the service on the Internet is awful. Just like it was for Amazon’s Unbox and more recently Walmart’s and Netflix’ services. And guess what they all share in common? They all are PC-only and use Microsoft’s Media Player DRM.
Why do these companies just not understand, that yes, most people use PCs, but most people who would be early adopters of these services use either Macs, Linux, or use PCs but use Firefox or Opera and not IE as their web browser? Furthermore the “average” PC user that they may be trying to reach likely does not want to watch a rented movie on their computer.
It’s almost like all these services are rushing to get out of the gate, only to run right off a cliff like Lemmings.
In my mind this is going is all going to come down to who else, Apple and Microsoft. Apple has iTunes + Apple TV (if it ever comes out) while Microsoft has the Xbox 360 Download Service (with all the HD content you could want…but only 20 GB to store it on).
I also realize that services like BitTorrent’s are likely hamstrung by the Hollywood studios who will only allow releases on platforms they deem safe (that’s another discussion), but they might be better off taking some advice: if you don’t have anything nice to contribute, don’t contribute anything at all.
