Stage6: The Beginning of the End for Streaming Video
Written by J.J. King on March 08, 2008So DivX Corporation’s Stage6 has croaked. The service’s ‘goodbye, cruel word’ note says it was a victim of its own success, but that it proved ‘it’s possible to distribute true high definition video on the Internet’. What it really showed is how deliriously inefficient streaming video is, whether it’s high def or otherwise.
It cost at least $1m a month to run Stage6 with its 17.4 million unique users a month, whereas (at an informed guess) The Pirate Bay costs about $50,000 a month all-in for its 92.5 million. That’s $57,000 per million users for Stage6; $540 per million for The Pirate Bay (not including people using its tracker without visiting the site, which adds a lot of Mininova’s traffic as well, not to mention the other big indexes.) So at the very least, The Pirate Bay is a hundred and five times more efficient than Stage6 was.
But inefficiency is not the only reason the service is no more, while the vilified Pirate Bay, Mininova et al. are still with us. Stage6 was also a lot more illegal than a BitTorrent tracker — whether it pretended to be complying with the DMCA or not. Surprisingly under reported after the abrupt demise of the service was the 6th Feb US court ruling against DivX’s attempt to establish its protection under the DMCA’s safe harbour provisions ahead of a legal battle with Universal Music Group. My reading of the company’s consequent, speedy exit from the stage (and correct me if you think I’m wrong) is that Stage6 didn’t have the cash or confidence to test its luck any further. (How much this affects DivX as a whole remains to be seen. But only six days after the court decision, Jerome Vashisht Rota, the inventor of DivX and a major shareholder in DivX corporation, was openly dumping stock.)
It’s not hard to read the tea leaves. While GooTube (famously being sued by Viacom on pretty much the same grounds) probably won’t lose sleep, smaller players eating their lunches off of pirate content will be paying very close attention. VCs burning money on pushing streaming media to the masses will at least want to imagine some returns on their investment rather than the further expense of executives in the dock.
So why is the exit of Stage6 a step in the right direction? Because for all the hyperbole in the mainstream (and sometimes online) media about the YouTube or Google Video or Stage6 ‘revolution‘, the relationship to media they offer us is far too traditional. Come to this place. Be served your media (and suck down your advertising along with it). Go away again. Yes, we can upload material, but I’m not the only one who feels that this wasn’t the primary function of Stage6, even if it did distribute about 50,000 copies of STEAL THIS FILM II before its demise. No need to share, no need to understand the technology, no need to think. It’s what they called ‘lean back’ media: millions of people slouching thoughtlessly in front of an marketing-emitting portal.
The promise of P2P is a thorough breakdown of the kind of power that congeals in a portal like Stage6. A user-owned, user-operated infrastructure that doesn’t require massive investment, doesn’t by default allow oligarchs to make more money from us. A disruptive, mutable infrastructure that brings media to us in the context we choose, forcing a massive re-think about what, why and how we create — as individuals, as businesses, as a society.
It is lazy for us to rely at all on portals like Stage6, but worse than lazy, it’s dangerous. It suggests we don’t value the potential autonomy P2P offers us. Our old media masters profited from control of content: are we really so happy to swap them for new ones who profit from control of our eyeballs? However lazy we are, I think that most of us are able to see that that this isn’t a model that we want to encourage. The demise of Stage6 and the portals that will follow gives us cause to think about strengthening our infrastructures: and that can’t be a bad thing.
Previously: Diferior, an Easy to Use BitTorrent CMS
Next: Anonymize BitTorrent Transfers with BTGuard
62 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
Pages: « 1 2 [3] Show All
Ads ! Adverts are the manipulative, devious (and often moronic) work of marketing creatives who have ZERO respect for you.
If you think industrialization was rash and bad for the environment, just consider the cluster-fuck that advertising is causing in (y)our heads.
Weapons grade psy-ops in everyones home every day, on billboards every day, in our papers every day, on our radio every day, even rammed into your letter box and inbox.
It does not matter if it is the latest hip,subtle $250 Millon ad campaign for BMW or a 0.01 cent unsolicited bulk email for cialis; it is all designed to subvert your autonomy.
adblock and p2p help me keep these souless shits away. However this is all mute when you consider assholes such as http://www.phorm.com/
ps JJK thank you very much for the article. So refreshing to read a principled point of view.
JJ that was a GREAT article but a HARD READ
dont call me stoopid because i follow the herd, i am a bottom feeder, when there is no more butt i look for another butt i dont go to college and get smart
DONT call me lazy, i am reading your fukin blogg! just show me the way to go
Hahaha, you call Stage6 more dangerous than P2P? Sorry, but it really just isn’t.
Streaming stuff is - in my opinion - always better than P2P. More convenient, no seeding, less dangerous. Too bad it just doesn’t work ’cause BitTorrent is way more efficient for every user and streaming is waaaay too inefficient.
ddos http://www.flaming-phoenix.com!
“until you’re appointed to staff (which wont be in this lifetime) keep your opinions to yourself. This has already caused me enough problems and i’m telling you i’m ready to hit the ban button on some ppl.”
last i looked - takes members to make an admin.
F the uck OFF OK…..
stage6 rocked, does rock and will continue to rock….
wer else could u get HD freaking streaming on a network that gave you 1.5 GB/PS download speed… hell if it wasnt for the .divx format that it used to let you download it… i would’ve left torrents a long long time ago….
Keep up to date with developments on Stage6 and DivX and catch up with stage6 members at The Stage6 Community Forum
http://stage6.forumer.com
51> holy crap relax. Regardless of how expertly the marketing campaign designed by highly trained creative types that literally do not care about you beyond discovering how to reach their message to you, you are capable of in fact just ignoring it, or carrying on your life. Not one of them is forcing you to purchase anything, merely hoping you will. In the process huge corporations that you don’t normally like are subsidizing the creation of material you do, so you’re paying personally for a SIGNIFICANTLY smaller segment of it’s creation.
BT streaming is possible once the networks speeds increase…
?? Question ?? - Where are you getting your figures for the costs to run Stage 6 and Pirate Bay?? I’d be very interested to see your
‘notes’ on this… What service differences exist between the two platforms??
3 references to this post
Pages: « 1 2 [3] Show All
Add your response