brian's blog

From MSNBC, Napster eyes movie, game downloads:

Chris Gorog, Napster chairman and chief executive, said the US-listed group could apply its online music model to films, TV programming and other video content allowing users to sample and access content over the web.

This is exciting. If the MPAA and other organizations want to reduce the amount of content pirated via BitTorrent, an essential step is to allow a dead-simple legal alternative for distribution online.

Here's my feature wishlist:

• Allow me to watch once anytime, an unlimited number of times within a 48 hour period, or "own" a permanent copy
• Enable transfer to a limited number of other computers / devices (laptop, portable player, set top box, etc)
• Burnable to DVD - unless the price is high, it may be unrealistic to expect the studios to allow this feature since it would likely eat into highly profitable DVD sales
• Enable download of whole seasons of TV shows
• Less emphasis on streamed content - I have yet to see streamed video content perform reliably. I'd rather take the time to download.
• Fast downloads - perhaps via Akamai or even, ironically, some sort of BitTorrent scheme
• A choice of compression levels, and...
• A Mac version, of course