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Does Legal Online Video Content Delivery Exist? 45

Posted by Cliff from the digital-cable-has-it dept.
RingDev asks: "I'm working on a system integration project for my CIS capstone. One of the systems we are integrating is a Windows MCE PVR. One of the topics that came up implementing a movie on demand or rental system using an existing online content provider. But the question we have run into is, are there any? Is the only option for online video content (TV shows, movies) P2P and BT clients? Is there no company out there that handles licensing and provides DRM'd content?"
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Does Legal Online Video Content Delivery Exist? More

Does Legal Online Video Content Delivery Exist?

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  • "Legal"? (Score:3, Informative)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @11:17AM (#13526158) Homepage
    There's nothing wrong with using BitTorrent for distributing legal content. DRM was deliberately left out of the spec, because it would've made it horribly complicated and because it's much better to put the DRM in the payload being transferred rather than try to work it into the protocol.
    • I know the guys at http://authena.org/ [authena.org] and http://22surf.org/ [22surf.org] are working on solutions for DRM & online delivery. I think they're blending both proprietary and open source protocols. DRMTORRENT coul be cool. :)
      • Here's some more info on Authena & 22surf:

        http://authena.org/ [authena.org]

        Authena software is based on a philosophy of creators' rights, and its three pillars are:

        1. Full Artistic Control: Open Source CMS allows Artist-Hackers to get under the hood to change themes, graphics, UI, sound quality, modules, etc.

        2. Distribution: Open Source CMS coupled with RDF/RSS fosters efficient searches and syndication on the semantic web, and thus effective distribution.

        3. DRM: Open Source CMS coupled with an extensible rights lang
    • No, Bittorrent is not suitable protocol for that purpose.
      If I paid for the content, there's no way I would saturate my upstream to upload it to others while downloading it for myself.
      Bandwidth is cheap, if you are running a huge media company.
      If those companies arrange deals with operators as content providers, I'm sure they would get all the bandwidth they need for selling content to the operators customers.

      Since MPAA/RIAA are lobbying the rant about movies/dvds/cds being different mediums for deliver

  • here's two that i use (Score:4, Informative)

    by putch ( 469506 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @11:24AM (#13526185) Homepage
    movielink allows you to 'rent' movies for anywhere from .$99 to $5. quality is decent though certainly not DVD. speed is good. selection is sparse.
    http://www.movielink.com/ [movielink.com]

    you can also get "starz on demand" through realplayer for approx $13 a month. you're limited to the current line up of STARZ movies--and they often suck. but it's better than paying $70 for premium cable. quality is ok, but still not DVD.
    http://starz.real.com/ [real.com]

    but i dont know if those are the kind of things the poster wants. his question was amorphous at best.

  • To clarify his question... (Score:3, Informative)

    by cgenman ( 325138 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @12:04PM (#13526313) Homepage
    What it seems like the submitter wants, is an existing online video rental company with a bunch of licensed videos who he can partner with to rent to people who use his PVR / set-top box. In much the same way that there are companies that handle B2B licensing and delivery of music, are there established companies that handle licensing and delivery of movies to hardware vendors? Who handles the in-house entertainment systems for motels and hotels?

    As a side note, there are legal videos online. Check the internet archives [archive.org] feature film division for quite a few classics, including The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari [archive.org], Night of the Living Dead [archive.org], The Charlie Chaplin Film Festival [archive.org], and period genre shlock like sex madness [archive.org] and hemp for victory [archive.org]. That's not really what he's asking for, but it's worth mentioning for the other people who may be reading. Anywhere that has Santa Claus Conquers the Martians [archive.org] deserves a nod.

    • That is exactly what I'm talking about! Thanks for the link also, it may not be as all inclusive as I had hoped, but we may be able to organize a library system that works off of different standards. (ie: a bit torrent library, a internet archives library, etc)

      It really seems like this technology/business model just doesn't exist yet.

      -Rick
    • Wow, thanks for the link...I had no idea such an awesome free historical film collection was online.

  • Counterintuitive (Score:3, Informative)

    by Sundroid ( 777083 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @12:12PM (#13526333) Homepage
    OurMedia (at www.ourmedia.org), still in Alpha, provides storage space for video and film makers to upload their digital contents that use, mostly, Creative Commons rights model.

    Seems like you're interested in providing existing Hollywood TV and movie products. The question I throw it back at you is: why bother? Anyone who has watched one episode too many of those bad or mediocre TV shows and movies churned out by the industrial machine, at one time or another, must have thought that the home movies made by his cousin, as amateurish as they are, still beat those glossy images produced by a group of people who are in it for the money.

    Speaking of money, you should know by now that TV and film producers hang on to their rights as if giving them away were akin to giving their manhood away. The notion that someone out there is thinking, "Jeez, I can't watch enough of those shows on WB network, and darn it, where can I pay to download them online?" is, you know, counterintuitive.
    • Anyone who has watched one episode too many of those bad or mediocre TV shows and movies churned out by the industrial machine, at one time or another, must have thought that the home movies made by his cousin, as amateurish as they are, still beat those glossy images produced by a group of people who are in it for the money.

      Here's the big secret that all of us whiney creative-but-poor types don't like to point out.

      Most of the big talent in hollywood was a crappy kid with a videocamera once too. And the bi

    • Re:Counterintuitive (Score:2, Interesting)

      by RingDev ( 879105 )
      "Seems like you're interested in providing existing Hollywood TV and movie products. The question I throw it back at you is: why bother?"

      Why bother? A $50 BILLION industry? The $30 Billion battle over DVDs, 2.6 MILLION netflix subscribers? And you say why bother? A seemless open standard DRM could open up huge markets as broadband penetration continues to rise. Having tools in place to immediately take advantage of such a DRM, and the connections/money to get in bed with the content producers (Hollywood)

      • Re:Counterintuitive (Score:4, Informative)

        by sl956 ( 200477 ) * on Saturday September 10, 2005 @03:54PM (#13527409)

        A seemless open standard DRM could open up huge markets
        Yes, and so could a magic carpet...
        Please stop dreaming about "seemless open standard DRM": DRM systems don't work.
        For a non-technical explanation, you should probably read Bruce Schneier [schneier.com] or Microsofts Darknet paper [mit.edu].

        • Re:Counterintuitive (Score:4, Interesting)

          by RingDev ( 879105 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @04:10PM (#13527489) Homepage Journal
          I disagree. Papers have shown that illegal file sharing has little effect on profit margines. And as such, can be assumed to be a mitigated loss. There will always be people who break DRMs. Look at DeCCS, by your logic, every signle DVD released should have been immediately pirated and made as available as public domain. But they weren't. Why? because it's too much of a hassle. Why deal with multiple clients, crappy searchs, fake files, and days worth of waiting to get a movie that you could drive down to the video store and picked up for $2?

          I'm not dreaming about a PERFECT system, I'm dreaming about a system that is good enough to provide a simple way for the majority of consumers to legally obtain content online.

          Look at iTunes. Personally, I think their specific DRM sucks donkey balls. BUT, all they did was provide a way for consumers to easily and legally aquire content online. And now it is a multi-million dollar revenue source for Apple. This should be a screaming fireball of a wake up call for veture capitalist to invest in DRMs and content delivery. Because if Apple can wrap content in a crap sandwich, offer it up on a silver platter and make millions, what do you think a GOOD solution could do?

          Imagine an international open standard DRM. One that has a simple API for authenticating the user, and determining the date. That API could be availible to Windows, Linux, Apple, what ever. No more of this iPod/Tunes only crap. No more DMCA violations to watch DVDs on Linux. Just one open standard DRM. You could even advance the DRM technology and maintain the standard API. So if someone ever cracks the DRM, you can patch it with out having to re-write all of the readers and delivery system.

          -Rick

          • Re:Counterintuitive (Score:3, Insightful)

            by sl956 ( 200477 ) *
            I said: "DRM systems don't work."
            You replied: "I disagree."

            So let's see your argumnents to disagree :

            There will always be people who break DRMs. Look at DeCCS, by your logic, every signle DVD released should have been immediately pirated and made as available as public domain. But they weren't. Why? because it's too much of a hassle. Why deal with multiple clients, crappy searchs, fake files, and days worth of waiting to get a movie that you could drive down to the video store and picked up for $2?

            • Sorry for the confussion, my goal was two fold. first to show the demand of an online content delivery system. Which we both agree exists. And Second the means of a control method, a DRM. Which we don't agree on.

              I would not see any point for a centralized user database, or user tracking in any case. I understand the issues of having the data in the enemy's hands, but there's no real way arround that in this case. The goal here is not to make a an inpenitrable standard. It is to make a standard where for
              • I have no idea how DVD Jon has kept his ass out of jail

                Well duh, because he did nothing illegal.

                Moreover I would say he did absolutely nothing wrong. He wrote some extremely useful software which, amongst other things, enabled people to view the DVDs they bought on their Linux machines and enabled people to ignore stupid region coding on DVDs they bought and enabled people to skip the SEVERAL MINUTES of advertizments with the fast-forward and menu buttons LOCKED OUT at the beginning of some DVDs they bought
                • I would like to commend you on your excellent use of a loaded question. Although I think my favorite is still "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?"

                  DVD Jon is not a copywrite infringer. He is a DCMA violator. His (US) cohorts from DeCCS were arrested. At the time, I beleive he was living in Sweeden where the laws are a bit more lax and he wasn't extridited to the US. Since then, he has released new tools that break actual DRMs, but I beleive it was Apple that finally just hired him on instead of press
                  • 'innocent infringers'

                    Huh? Who or what is an 'innocent infringer'? And why would you or I want to defend infringers? I certainly did not defend infringement.

                    I moved this part to the top because maybe it highlights some communication problem?

                    I would like to commend you on your excellent use of a loaded question. Although I think my favorite is still "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?"

                    If you want to claim it was a "wife beating" question, fine. Please explain how so. You may not LIKE the question, but th
                    • To clarify your loaded question. You said, "please please please explain to me how and why you justify the position that noninfringing people should be imprisoned"

                      That implies that I do justify the imprisonment of the innocent. Thus a loaded question which I have no desire to answer, any more then you have a desire to answer my question about your wife beating habbits.

                      As for the communication break down between what you are calling "noninfringers" and what I am calling "innocent infringers". Making a
                    • I'm not a fan of petitions

                      Actually it's more than just a petition. If you enter your address it figures out who your representative is in Washington and it fires off an individual message right to them. You can edit the message to say anything you like. In fact you will almost certainly get a snailmail reply from your congressional represenative with a form letter thanking you for your input.

                      Now lets say someone in Sweden figures out your security grabs a copy of your entire library, then sells them all for
                    • "We hypothethicaly now have you advocating DRM, but with absolutely no DRM system that does not require a law imprisoning innocent people to be effective. If we remove the double negative from that... we hypothethicaly now have you advocating DRM, and it is a DRM system that *does* require a law imprisoning innocent people to be effective."

                      What the?!?! Hypothetically, You are not a murderer and you have not raped anyone. But if we remove both of those negatives, you are a murdering rapist? That makes no
                    • You are not a murderer and you have not raped anyone. But if we remove both of those negatives, you are a murdering rapist?

                      If option one is that I ham not a murderer, and option two is that I am not a rapist (and in this particular case options one and two could overlap), and *IF* we were to hypothetically pass on both options one and two, then YES, in fact the ONLY REMAINING POSSIBILITY would be that I am a murdering rapist.

                      That is not any sort of personal attack, and you should not have taken it as a pers
                    • "If option one is that I ham not a murderer, and option two is that I am not a rapist (and in this particular case options one and two could overlap), and *IF* we were to hypothetically pass on both options one and two, then YES, in fact the ONLY REMAINING POSSIBILITY would be that I am a murdering rapist."

                      My point being that wether or not I refute you claims of not being a rapist or a murderer, you are (with all likelihood) not a rapist or a murderer.

                      "TYou proceed to describe a DRM system that will p
      • "all the industry has to do is offer a legal means to get the content and people will swarm to it."

        There is already a "legal means" offered by Hollywood, and it's called "syndication", which is how they put old, popular shows on Sunday afternoons and Weekday mornings at 2am, so the fans can set their Tivo timer and record them.

        I may be harsh on Hollywood people for their greediness, but I'd never call them stupid, in fact many of them are quite smart. Hollywood has already looked at this model of put
  • Cinema Now and Movielink are already integrated into the Online Spotlight section as well as TV Tonic and a host of news video feeds.

    I personally use Cinema Now and Movielink and the quality is excellent.
    • Awesome! I'm not the developer working on the MCE portion of the code, but hopefully that developer can track down the api set for grabbing the movies. Thanks! -Rick

  • Streaming video does... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sam1am ( 753369 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @03:11PM (#13527175)
    There are at least a couple streaming video solutions out there:

    ESPN Gameplan [go.com]

    MLB.tv [mlb.com]

    Probably not exactly what you're looking for, though...
  • www.akimbo.com

    Offers VoD service. They have ~40 or so 'channels' covering cartoons, sports, movies, travel, adult, indie & music. Service is roughly $10/mo. with some individual programs having a small charge.

    Their service does require a set-top box from them right now, which runs WinXP-Embedded and contains an OEM MSI motherboard. Their docs specifiy that they are using WindowMedia9 with DRM to deliver the content. They are claiming that you will be able to use their service with a PC soon (WinXP-MCE).
  • DivX.com has a Video On Demand service. See https://vod.divx.com/ [divx.com].

    DivX certified DVD players have a built-in code which you provide while downloading the movie from DivX.com. This then you burn to DVD RW, etc and play in your DVD player.

    There are some restrictions on how many times you can play the content though.

  • Adelphia Cable has it, although it's limited to what they're currently showing that month (you can't just watch anything you want).

    http://adelphia.com/cable_entertainment/inDemand_p pv.cfm [adelphia.com]
  • In Canberra, Australia, we have video on demand delivered by two companies over our broadband network by our local cable company, Transact [transact.com.au].

    The content is provided by VOD [vod.net.au] and AnyTime [anytimeworld.com].
  • Here in Holland legal video and movie content has been available for a while.

    From all public channels and some commercial ones, pretty much everything that is aired is afterwards available via the internet, indefinitely, for free (streamed, no DRM) from here [omroep.nl] and here [talpa.tv]. You can watch entire seasons of shows online without commercials, which is really great.

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