Torrential Reign

BitTorrent may be changing movie-viewing habits, too. Most Hollywood films are now available for download from BitTorrent networks on or before their premiere dates. Some are “cams,” low-grade videos shot inside movie theatres via concealed camcorders, à la Seinfeld. Others are “screeners,” higher-quality copies of pre-release dvds that are distributed to movie critics and industry insiders. All are anathema to the Motion Picture Association of America (mpaa), the Hollywood trade lobby leading the legal charge against BitTorrent (and funding the anti-piracy commercials that precede many current films).

In Napster’s day, the corporate fight against file-sharing was led by the Recording Industry Association of America (riaa), the music industry’s version of the mpaa. The riaa’s legal manoeuvring shut down Napster in 2001, but indirectly spurred the development of Kazaa, Limewire, and related downloading services. BitTorrent, by bringing big-media files into play, has fuelled the mpaa’s ire. The technology is a direct threat not only to box-office receipts but to dvd sales, which is where the real money is made these days. According to the mpaa’s confidential-but-leaked-online “All Media Revenue Report” for 2003, home-entertainment sales accounted for 82 percent of that year’s studio revenues. BitTorrent, I would argue, is also the reason why rental outlets such as Blockbuster are drowning—why else dismiss late fees?—and movie theatres are taking the unusual step of lowering ticket prices.

Since December 2004, the mpaa has launched international lawsuits against nearly 100 BitTorrent trackers, aiming to crush the community by staunching its hubs. The offensive worked for a while—for a few months this winter, torrent content was hard (though not impossible) to find. But now I don’t remember the last time I looked for a TV torrent and came up empty.

The reason the mpaa, riaa, and like-minded lobbies are panicked is obvious: entertainment industries, at their root, are manufacturers. They spend huge amounts of money creating content, then earn it back by selling finished products. File-sharing, the big studios and major labels argue, shortcircuits this business model. Not everyone, though, accepts their word as gospel. Even musicians, the first group of creative professionals to feel the full brunt of file-sharing, are divided over its impact: some kvetch that file-sharing keeps them from feeding their kids; others argue that the Internet turns on so many new fans that any money lost on record sales is recouped elsewhere, such as through increased tour revenues.

With the global spread of broadband modem connections likely to fuel BitTorrent’s growth, current media-distribution models—movie theatres, record stores, and commercial television—could become redundant. In that doomsday scenario, why would record labels and television and movie studios keep making content? Because blank tapes killed the music industry in the seventies, vcrs destroyed television in the eighties, and Napster ruined the early years of this decade. BitTorrent is today’s consumer crisis; tomorrow’s will carry a new and different name. In the meantime, content creators will respond in the same manner they always have: evolve or dissolve. BitTorrent is new, but the song remains the same.