BitTorrent Inc Foresees a Future Without DRM

Written by Ernesto on September 22, 2006 

BitTorrent Inc. is opening it’s online media store within a couple of months. Although they will use DRM (digital rights management) in the early stages, they predict that add supported content will eventually win from DRM, not only in BitTorrent’s store
Ashwin Navin, president and co-founder of BitTorrent told IDG News Service:
The bottom line is that [...]

BitTorrent Inc. is opening it’s online media store within a couple of months. Although they will use DRM (digital rights management) in the early stages, they predict that add supported content will eventually win from DRM, not only in BitTorrent’s store

BitTorrentAshwin Navin, president and co-founder of BitTorrent told IDG News Service:

The bottom line is that DRM is bad for the content provider and it’s bad for the consumer, and the reason it’s being used today is because we’re in the very early stages of a new product cycle for the entertainment industry and they want to walk before they run.

I think the future will not be marked by digital rights management. It will be marked by advertising-supported content that’s clear of DRM, because the content publisher wants it to be as widely distributed as possible and consumed over as many platforms as possible. And we hope to be part of that evolution, and to drive that evolution wherever we can.

In response to the question ‘Why DRM is bad for content providers Navin said:

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.

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2 Responses

1 Sep 22, 2006 at 13:28 by SixDays http://sixdays.se

What strikes my mind is that if they are using DRM, it will not be possible to use the users as seeds, since every file will be unique. If they don’t implement some kind of DRM scheme that allows them to separate license altogether from the DRM infected files. Or am I out in the blue?

2 Sep 22, 2006 at 18:09 by TuxPaper

Sixdays,

The DRM’d file can be the same. Usually the license is stored elsewhere on your computer. That’s why you get the aquire license message when you first play the media. It usually goes out on the internet to verify that you bought the content, then flags it in your computer’s DRM database.

That aside, I think DRM is pointless from a “stopping illegal copies” standpoint. By the time any legal online site gets the media, it’s already been out in the illegal world and anyone who didn’t want to pay already has it. From a “limit the # of views, copies, view time” point of view, I can understand why DRM is there, although I certainly wouldn’t pay for any media with those limitations (unless it was 0.10cents ;) )

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