The first HD-DVD movie has finally found its way into the hallowed halls of BitTorrent. The move could be the first small pebble that starts an avalanche of HD-DVD content to be ripped, released, and scorned by the MPAA as a bane to civilization itself.
Friday, Jason Lee Miller wrote about Pirate Bay and its campaign to purchase Sealand in order to safely warehouse its torrent based content free of copyright laws and restrictions.
Pirate Bay, as well as other download repositories, may be looking at a new collection of HD-DVD content to dish out to the pirating community.
Reports surfaced yesterday of a complete rip from the HD-DVD of Serenity, a movie based off Joss Whedon’s short-lived Firefly television series. Much buzz has surrounding the leaked content, which appeared on BitTorrent, and has ignited speculation into more HD-DVD titles that could be served up very soon.
TorrentFreak lets us in on what other movies might be on the horizon:
It hasn’t even been a month since the HD-DVD ripper, BackupHDDVD was released and we’re already seeing high definition feature films pop up on torrent sites. Other than Serenity, it is rumoured that HD-DVDs of the movies Batman Begins, Chronicles of Riddick, 12 Monkeys and King Kong have been decrypted and consequently shown up on torrent sites. Yesterday, a handful of hackers figured out how to extract the unique volume key from HD-DVDs.
Do you hear that “thud” sound? I think it’s the result of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) experiencing an all-out aneurysm, and subsequently hitting the deck.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way.
The RIAA, crooked as they are, had the good sense to embrace the fact that people weren’t going to stop downloading music illegally. So, instead of flushing money down the toilet in legal battles and anti-piracy campaigns, the RIAA decided to quit fighting the online music juggernaut and instead worked with the record companies and found a way (albeit a flawed one) to monetize the downloading process.
The MPAA needs to follow suit in this instance. They need to wake up and realize that the downloading of video content isn’t the end of the world.
In fact, it’s the beginning of a whole new market. Instead of immediately taking a posture of opposition, the MPAA should work with studios and distributors to find a way to make it easy for the average person to download a movie in whichever format (DVD, HD-DVD, BluRay) they wish.
If you can make it legal, you can make it profitable as well.
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Joe is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest ebusiness news.
