The video unit for the Warner Bros. film and television studio announced today that it plans to begin selling films and television shows via the file sharing service BitTorrent, once regarded among the most egregious file sharing services in terms of video and software piracy.
According to Warner Bros., it will initially make more than 200 films available via BitTorrent, including major titles like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, and The Matrix. The company also plans to sell episodes of its television series archive, including The Dukes of Hazzard the influential sci-fi show Babylon 5 via BitTorrent.com. Material will be available via BitTorrent the same day the titles are released to retail channels. WB video selections should become available via BitTorrent by mid-2006.
However, in terms of accessibility, movies and TV shows available via BitTorrent may be interesting in concept only. Films and television episodes will be protected with a new DRM technology developed by BitTorrent, and buyers will not be able to burn the material to DVD. According to Reuters, television episodes will be priced at a rate comparable to the $1-per-episode rates elsewhere on the Internet, and movies will carry prices equivalent to a new DVD. Customers may wind up paying bandwidth and storage costs in addition to full purchase price to obtain a version of a film they can use less flexibly than a standard DVD.
Warner Bros. move follows a few months after BitTorrent reached an agreement with the MPAA to remove pirated material from its BitTorrent search engine, making it more difficult for users to find illegally copied material using the BitTorrent service. BitTorrent continues to monitor data available via the service and disables access to pirated material.
No additional details have been published regard BitTorrent’s DRM technology, including whether users will be able to transfer purchased movies and shows to other computers, home entertainment systems, or portable devices, or what platforms will be supported.
