File sharers: winning the war
p2p news / p2pnet: Until very recently, movie studios and other digital media providers had a huge advantage over p2p file sharing: quality.
Mp3 downloads were at 64 kbps mp3s and, even worse, movies were at 200 Mb. And the movie downloads weren’t instant: you had to wait days for a download to finish, because of the slow internet connections.
Today, most file sharers have broadband dsl connections which offer almost instant downloads of music, and we only have to wait a few hours for a complete song and almost perfect movie to download.
These offer the same experience as commercial products such as CDs or DVDs and in fact, ordinary people can’t hear or see the difference.
The only disadvantage of downloading from file sharing networks is you don’t get a physical product, only content. But at the same time, downloads are easy to achieve and you have many titles to choose from. And all of this has created a strange kind of competition.
Most of us buy studio-products on occasion, but we simply don’t have enough money to buy everything we watch (meaning, download).
To tell the truth, I haven’t even opened most of my dvds. I simply don’t feel it necessary when I can watch the movies from the downloaded file.
The studios are now trying to get into file sharing, but again and again, they fail. You can download a single music track “legally” from iTunes for a dollar. However, it’s not only more expensive than a download (yep… you actually have to pay for it), it also has a low sound quality and the total value is even less because of the embed DRM. And of course, you can choose only from a few songs compared to the millions of mp3s that are available on file sharing networks.
A solution like this will never work. Only a very few people will pay more for less value, and even then, only because it’s termed ‘legal’.
But the problem only starts here.
While DRM and other solutions actually lower the value of ‘legal’ products, p2p downloads don’t have the same problems.
Not long ago, my grandfather mistakenly deleted his favorite Jane Fonda film. He couldn’t find it anywhere else, so he ordered it from amazon.com. When it arrived he called me, saying it wouldn’t play.
Of course it wouldn’t, and that was because of something called region-coding (and we live in Europe). As the last remaining solution, I found it online and downloaded it for him. Now he has a divx-compatible dvd player, and many new downloaded movies.
File sharing is winning the battle and the studios are starting to loose the entire war.
New DRM solutions like hdcp will make it impossible (for a normal human being) to watch something in full quality if he or she don’t have the compatible hardware. At the same time, I’m pretty downloaded copies won’t have the same restrictions. For most people, they’ll provide better quality.
Even now without hd-dvd – or anything like it – available sometimes you can find releases with “over-dvd” picture quality available for download.
The studios are in a war against file sharing based on false assumptions such as ‘people care about what’s legal’ or ‘people are worried about the possible sanctions’.
However, people only care about themselves. We’re selfish and we’d like to have the best which in this case means the best quality available.
And if the studios can’t supply it, the warez scene can.
Benedek Toth – p2pnet
[Toth is a software engineer from Hungary. He edits p2pinfo Magyarország, which focuses on file sharing and related issues. He also contibutes to a movie portal and many other files sharing-related sites. ]
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November 5th, 2005 at 5:22 pm
hey
you could have stripped the region coding from the Jane Fonda DVD and burnt it to a new disc, that way you could keep subs and extra stuff. Don’t download crappy divx.
November 5th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
A thought occurred to me. We download MP3 files, not because we get the same sound quality, but because the files are compressed and take up less space. Meaning we could store more songs on a smaller hard drive. What seems odd is that the record companies are rushing to provide low bitrate, DRM’ed music while at the same time, disc storage is getting larger and cheaper. Pretty soon it will reach the point where actual CD quality WAV files will be desired over compressed MP3 files. Even now, with 300GB hard drives, you can store well over 300 complete uncompressed CD’s, and that includes all of the crappy songs. When this becomes the choice format, what do you think will happen to all these compressed music download sites ?
November 5th, 2005 at 7:20 pm
With good dsp effects, like those provided by Winamp + DFX, mp3’s can sound 100 times better than an original cd.
Often cd’s sound flat, liveless, unless of course you want to buy the most expensive sound system available. While with dsp effects, mp3’s can sound great even on very modest systems.
November 6th, 2005 at 1:45 am
DSP effects!?! Blah! Blah I say! Talk about utter garbage. Now, in the case of MP3 files, which are quite lossy, I may agree that DSP effects are needed, but this is precicely because the format is lossy. Your using effects to try to fill in some of what was lost in the encoding process. I suppose in the case of a improperly mastered CD this MAY also apply, and there is no shortage of those these days. In that case however, it’s mostly overdriven stuff to the point of clipping, and no DSP effect will help that. But I would not think of applying DSP effects to a properly mastered CD, especially a remastered one. I prefer to listen to the material to way it was meant to be heard by the original artist if at all possible. Going to a live performance will always be the best method of achieving that goal, but that’s clearly impractical, so a properly matered CD is the next best thing. In my opinion, DSP effects clearly ruin the ambiance of such albums. Then again, I’m not cheap and have a half way decent system that I’m happy with. You don’t need to spend a lot to get decent sound, honestly. Not using lossy formats goes a long way as well.
Regarding movies, I’ve never downloaded a show or movie that was clearly better than a store bought DVD, ever. Close on rare occasions with HDTV television shows, but never superior. You also lose the 5.1 audio most of the time too. I call bull shit on this article. That of course doesn’t mean I don’t use P2P to download shows and the occasional movie, which I do. It’s a great way to get a heads up on shows before they play locally for example, or to get something you missed because they changed the time on you and your VCR/PVR didn’t record it. With movies I prefer to rent them. Blockbuster often gives free rentals if cetain movies arent in, which most of the time their not ever since introducing their no late fees plan lol.
November 6th, 2005 at 2:09 am
The article never states that the downloaded video files are better, only that there’s no problems with region-encoding. Besides, it might not be “better”, but if you manage to download the DVD iso or a high quality 1.4GB divx version, it’s pretty much the same.
I don’t have 5.1 sound, so that part doesn’t really affect me at all.
Oh, how many times have I rented a movie only to find the dvd all scratched and sometimes not play at all!
How many times did I download a cool movie only to find cleverly disguised porn!
November 6th, 2005 at 4:54 am
“you could have stripped the region coding from the Jane Fonda DVD and burnt it to a new disc, that way you could keep subs and extra stuff. Don’t download crappy divx. Don’t download crappy divx.”
I agree completely. Download XviD! It’s a legal codec that’s free. Remember that nearly all DivX files found online are copies of movies or TV shows and DivX is supposed to be a commercial product. When you play a copied movie with DivX codec you are violating 2 copyrights, since 99.9% of the time the movie was encoded with an illegal copy. Meanwhile, XviD is free, although you can’t avoid violation #1. But who cares right?