
A Clever End Run Around the Movie-Streaming Gremlins - J3L2404
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/technology/personaltech/17pogue.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&src=twr
======
candeira
Not necessarily a new idea. Just an old idea repurposed to fit a legal
loophole instead of a technical need.

From Wired Sept 1994, Fran-On-Demand:
<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.09/cable.labs.html>

"When an order for, say, Coneheads, comes in, she rushes to the giant
videotape library on the far wall, retrieves the correct title, and hurries to
insert it into the appropriate place in a gleaming bank of VCRs. During prime-
time hours, two people share this job. But right now, on a Wednesday
afternoon, it's all Fran.

Fran may or may not realize that her job category will soon be phased out. Her
employer, cable colossus Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI), is conducting this
market test with AT&T and US West. But all the other interactive television
trials just getting underway are powered by computers, not by people like
her."

The article ends in a chowderish claim:

"Watching any movie, any time - video-on-demand - is supposed to be the killer
app that propels dozens of new interactive TV services into American homes by
the end of the century. The home shopping, the custom news programs, the play-
along game shows, the dozen or so simultaneous football games, the home
banking, the on-demand Roseanne, the whole 500-channel scenario that cable
companies have been hyping - all of this is supposed to piggyback on the
raging success of movies-on-demand. But there's one glitch: there's not much
demand for movies-on-demand"

TV's problem has ended up not being lack of demand, but disaggregation. People
want movies on demand, and they can get them better and cheaper from companies
that aren't in the traditional "TV business".

The same is happening all around. Newspapers' incomes are not down due to lack
of demand for classifieds. It just happens that people who used to pay
newspapers to print classifieds now post them somewhere else.

------
Dylanlacey
Although this is a _kinda_ clever solution, part of the problem's premise is
false.

Subtitles, directors commentary, alternate languages and the like aren't
magical DVD only features. There's no technical reason that streaming
solutions can't offer all these extra content streams except that they...
don't. It's like arguing that, because you can ask HJ's to put extra onions on
your burger and you can't at MickyD's, that MickyD's has flaws. They don't,
they just don't offer that option YET.

I think their solution is clever, but it's a strawman problem.

~~~
dangrossman
I disagree. There are actual non-technical issues here that prevent streaming
services from offering those options, that this company completely avoids.
Language dubs and subtitle tracks are separately copyrighted works and the
streaming services would have to negotiate separately for every possible
combination. Sometimes the French dub of a movie is owned by a different
company than the English one; the English subtitles for a Japanese TV series
are owned by a different company than the Japanese one, etc. The DVD publisher
already negotiated the rights for the language and subtitle tracks on the
disc, so streaming a physical DVD gets you access to them, where Netflix might
never be able to negotiate rights to the same combinations.

------
sorbus
Meanwhile, their home page:

"Zediva.com is temporarily down for maintenance.

"We experienced some exceptional customer growth this week as we officially
launched Zediva to the public. We're delighted by the attention from the
media, and the overwhelming enthusiasm of our new and prospective customers.
We are, however, very disappointed that the resulting surge of customers has
negatively impacted your experience.

"We do hope that you forgive us, and that you try back another time soon.
We're working diligently to build capacity to serve America's hungry appetite
for new release movies.

"In the meantime....please follow us on Twitter and/or Facebook where we'll
update our status. "

------
rmc
Want to get around all those silly restrictions? Pirate the film. Eventually
the law will give up, in the same way to gave up about, porn, condoms, and men
having sex with each other.

~~~
iwwr
The amount of effort put into inconveniencing the user is really incredible.

------
brown9-2
_Furthermore, the lawyers have viciously clipped the wings of the streaming-
movie era. You have to start watching a movie within 30 days of renting it and
finish it within 24 hours._

Which streaming service does this describe?

The author paints "streaming" with an overly broad brush. Having only
experience with Netflix, this quoted sentence describes a system I've never
heard of - and saying Netflix's selection is from the Carter era is a gross
simplification.

~~~
modeless
Amazon, Apple, Zune, Vudu, CinemaNow. Netflix is unique, though Amazon Prime
is just getting around to trying a similar model.

The real problem with online rentals isn't the rental period, though; it's the
ridiculous price. In a world where Redbox rents new releases for $1 who would
pay $4 each to stream crappy catalog titles?

~~~
georgekv
Well, the price is ridiculous in relation to the 24hr viewing period. $5 for a
5 day viewing window would be more reasonable.

Honestly, don't any of these people have children? Kids don't always go for
something in one take.

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sbisker
Some MIT students tried this with music CDs in a project called LAMP (the
Library Access to Music Project) back in the early 2000s. Kids could use the
internet to select and listen to CDs played automatically via jukeboxes over
one of 16 dedicated cable channels, which was hooked up to the audio for their
chosen CD.

As far as I know, it's still running over there on campus, perfectly legal
(though a current student could tell us for sure - I haven't tried to use it
since 2006.) So there's _some_ precedent for this sort of scheme working
without lawyers descending on it. Of course, suing students would have been
far more uncouth than suing a for-profit organization.

<http://lamp.mit.edu/lamp-qa.html>

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speleding
The article doesn't mention it, but this would also seem like the solution for
streaming outside the US. Services like iTunes and Netflix are only available
to a small part of the internet (US + a few other countries), citing legal
issues for not being available anywhere else. This would give Zediva a huge
potential market to themselves.

I'm in Europe and signing up as soon as they'll let me to see if it works
here. Perhaps, finally, video on demand for the rest of us.

------
swampplanet
When I first read about Zediva and how they planned to work it, I laughed. Are
they going to have tons of people going around changing dvd machines. I
pictured a huge warehouse with people running around putting dvds in machines.

~~~
jerf
"Are they going to have tons of people going around changing dvd machines[?]"

In the short term, maybe. In the longterm, this can be automated with
robotics, and not even very difficult ones. Certainly feasible today, if not
something a startup can quite just run out and buy.

And of course, if they buy a hundred DVDs, why not shortcut the entire process
and send a "cached" stream? What's the difference between a "cached" DVD and a
DVD?

This is one particular manifestation of something I've been saying for a
decade now, which is that like it or not and regardless of the challenges
sooner or later the law is going to have to give up the idea that the
mechanical source of content has any meaning, because whatever rules you draw
can be gamed. The only question you'll ultimately be able to ask is whether
you have the rights to view a movie or not.

And let me just underline the _one particular manifestation_ bit one more
time. Once the kind of people who frequent this site start really thinking
about how to game the system in this style you can generate a dozen ideas in
an hour, each of which the law really has no current answer to. One
immediately obvious example is that if this is legal for DVDs it obviously
ought to be legal for CDs, right? Why not a library that takes video of a book
two thousand miles away and physically turns pages? (It wouldn't take much
post-processing of a video stream to make that feasible.) Why not add caching
of the streams to any of those things? If caching in general is wrong, is it
OK for me to go ahead and advance the book one page while letting the reader
read the previous page, so they don't have to wait for the robot to turn the
page laboriously? What if I mix in some P2P, can I stream my neighbor's copy
of something? And so on and so on for dozens of questions resulting in
hundreds of lawsuits and brutally conflicting and downright gibberish
precedents for decades, until someone finally manages to sit down and really
straighten this out somewhere around 2050.

~~~
checker
Why not use late model computers or DVD players with some sort of digital
input to control playback without mechanical input? It's not the player that's
limited by the law, right?

------
innernette
There is no clean-cut loophole here. People have tried similar services before
(e.g., VHS, in a smaller area, such as a single video store or hotel building)
and the Courts found a violation of the public performance right. See Redd
Horne (749 F.2d 154,
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/749_F2d_154.htm>).

More precisely, the question is this: are they transmitting a performance of
the DVD to the public? This gets a little convoluted thanks to the circular
definition of "public" in § 101. There is an argument that the transmission is
only to private homes, if Zediva puts restrictions on how/where their service
can be used.

Sometimes people forget that reproduction isn't the only way to infringe.
Depending on how their technology works, there may also be infringing
reproduction in the buffer.

------
OpieCunningham
Can't imagine this is going to last.

CSS authorizes digital output of video content when one in a limited set of
copy protection systems is in place on the digital output. IP streaming video
is obviously a digital output and though Zediva may be using copy protection
within Flash, I highly doubt that specific type of copy protection is
authorized by the CSS license. Additionally, CSS may only authorize specific
digital outputs, in which case IP streaming through Flash is unlikely to be
one of them.

Therefore, Zediva is very likely circumventing CSS, which is a DMCA violation.

~~~
_delirium
Aren't you allowed to circumvent for interoperability? If the "these are just
really long video cables" argument would hold up on its own, and the CSS-
circumvention issue were the only thing standing in the way, then it seems
like they could argue that they were circumventing CSS for the purpose of
interoperating with their fancy software video cable. And if that argument
_doesn't_ hold up, then their rental/streaming business is probably not legal
anyway for licensing reasons, even without the circumventing-CSS issue.

Disclaimer: my knowledge of this area of law is somewhat spotty, so I could be
wrong.

~~~
pyre
Not legal for licensing reasons how? If I buy a video from the store, I'm
legally able to rent it out to others without the permission of the studios.
Most large chains cut profit-sharing deals with the studios to get better-
than-wholesale prices on DVDs. I won't comment on Redbox b/c it cuts too close
to my day-job and don't want my comments coming back to bite me.

~~~
URSpider94
There have been articles about Redbox that stated that it will buy retail
copies of DVD's for rental, if it has to, to achieve parity with other rental
companies. You're right, the studios don't like it, but there is nothing that
they can do about it.

------
donnyg107
This is such a clever and world changing idea. Forever services like
blockbuster depended on your not being able to share your movie with everyone
you know in the two days you rent it. But now that you can, companies like
this one are sending a wake up call to producers holding new licenses and
telling them that the old model just won't work. Maybe the music and book
industries can take a hint (and much of everything else once we all have
fabbers in our offices and studies). Maybe movies should only come out as
downloadable non sharable files, for a third of the price. They'd need
excellent security, but I can't imagine the world pointing in any other
direction. I say, ditch the disks, and work on creating files that can only
work on the computer which bought them. That, or bring back the VHS's.

------
jaysonelliot
I don't need better movie selections as much as I need better streaming
performance.

At this point, I stick to downloads, whether it's from Amazon or iTunes,
because nothing ruins a good movie like stutters, freezes, or the dreaded
Netflix "this movie cannot be played" error.

------
eli
Cute idea, but I surely wouldn't invest in it. At some point in the future the
licensing scheme that favors physical DVDs over digital copies will come into
line with reality and they're going to be stuck holding a lot of pointless
hardware.

~~~
joeag
Not in our lifetime.

~~~
eli
Well, if this idea of "streaming" physical DVDs ever actually caught on, I'm
confident the movie companies would sign a deal with e.g. Netflix to offer
those same movies for streaming with a per-view fee. They'd have nothing to
lose and would make more money.

You really think there won't be rational movie streaming licensing in our
_lifetime_? I'll take that long bet.

~~~
joeag
Lots of money has been made by the lack of rationality of those who control
movies (Hollywood). I exaggerate to make a point, but if it is in my lifetime,
it might be just barely.

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baggachipz
I can't resist chiming in and reiterating how stunningly stupid the MPAA is.
People have fistfuls of cash that they're ready to hand over to watch content,
and these cartel cavemen refuse to allow it. Then they wonder why people
pirate.

------
J3L2404
Maybe this is for novelty protest or subterfuge. It can't be profitable to
stream DVD's individually, can it?

~~~
trustfundbaby
Sure it can ... netflix is cool, but watching movies is usually a spontaneous
thing ... you have no idea how many netflix movies I've had sent over and then
let sit for months because I didn't really feel like watching them when I
actually had time to.

With regards to money ... a dvd costs what? Like 10 bucks ...

If they have just 5 people watch one at $2 a pop ...They've made their money
back ... and these are top 100 titles (another clever move btw) ... so they
are guaranteed to beat that in their first week every time.

Of course there is overhead to think about etc etc ... but I think its clear
that they can be pretty profitable pretty fast, even though it seems rather
awkward at first glance.

I'd give them my money if I were an investor.

