Here’s a product that may put a scare into studio heads.

Taiwan-based Zinnet today unveiled the brite-View CinemaCube, a high-definition multi-media player and BitTorrent downloader. That means it just got easier for people to grab pirated films from the Internet and watch them on their TV.

The device plugs directly into a user’s TV and uses any USB storage device (from thumb drives to external hard drives) to store data. On the surface, that means you could watch your home movies or view photos.

The CinemaCube is also comes with a built-in BitTorrent client, meaning users can access the online file sharing service. It’s also networkable, letting users can grab files (ranging from music to video to photos) from a remote PC to view on their television.

The device, which supports HD content up to 720p and comes with an HDMI port, is on sale now for $89.99.

Previously, people who wanted to watch a pirated movie on their TV would typically have to burn a DVD copy of the download before they could watch it on the couch. The CinemaCube expedites the process – somewhat.

The torrent seed has to already be on the USB storage device you plug into the CinemaCube. In other words, users will need to at least begin the download(s) from their PC, but Zinnet’s device can continue downloading (and sharing) the files once the storage device is attached.

The CinemaCube does flash a quick request that users not download illegal video, audio, etc., but it cannot police what they do.

Of course, there’s nothing illegal about BitTorrent. The file sharing system has countless legitimate uses. But its popularity among pirates makes the CinemaCube something that could be another threat to Hollywood’s bottom line.

Here's a rather interesting suggestion from the Motion Picture Assn. of America, via BoingBoing.

Apparently there's a rulemaking process for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the law that, for better and for worse, limits what average consumers can do with digital copies of music, movies, TV shows and software) going on right now in Washington and educators are asking for an exemption to rip DVDs for classroom purposes.

The MPAA's response seems to be that teachers should play DVD clips on a TV and use a camcorder to record them on a new tape they can play.

Of course, camcording is one of the top ways movies get pirated in theaters and has been regularly attacked by studios. And it's technically illegal for you or I to record a DVD playing on a TV and then use that tape for our own purposes, be they nefarious or not.
But I guess giving teachers the OK to break the security code on a DVD is the worse of two options.

Vimeo has a somewhat amusing video of an MPAA rep showing how it's done.

MPAA shows how to videorecord a TV set from timothy vollmer on Vimeo.

While Hollywood has been busy figuring out whether and how the future of movie distribution will arrive via digital downloads and streaming, a big legal case is presaging a different approach: ripped DVDs.

In the music industry, of course, consumers were ripping CDs onto their computers for years until labels started offering affordable and accessible downloads via iTunes. The fact that it was so easy to get tracks off a CD and then onto an MP3 player (or share it on the Web with friends or the world) was one of the main arguments used to spur the music industry into selling downloads and, finally this year, abandoning restrictive DRM software.

Though there's a decent amount of movies available to download or stream, it's nowhere near as wide a selection as music and the DRM is still very restrictive. One of the obvious reasons is that it's still the best alternative to piracy. Because DVDs come with copy protection, consumers can't easily copy movies onto their computers they way they have always been able to with CDs. And because movies take up numerous gigabytes on a hard drive, most people can't store anywhere close to their entire film collection on a single computer, they way they can their music collection.

But the ongoing case of the motion picture studios against RealNetworks, initially about a piece of not particularly useful piece of software, has turned out to be about that very possibility. Ostensibly it's about the RealDVD software, which lets users copy a DVD onto their hard drive. Given that it limits playback to five machines, while plenty of free programs on the Web do the same thing for free with no such limitations, it was never going to be a major factor in the industry. Especially since, for the storage reasons I noted above, transferring DVDs onto a PC isn't too useful a proposition.

But in court yesterday, RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser unveiled the real heart of the matter: Facet (that's a none-too-sexy prototype on the left), a new piece of hardware the company wants to sell that uses the RealDVD software, has a (presumably) huge hard drive to store hundreds or thousands of copied DVDs, and plugs directly into a television with its own simple interface for watching films.

It's essentially a cheap version of the well regarded by super expensive ($10,000) Kaleidascape.

"Kaleidescapes are like Porsches. They're very expensive. We thought we could develop Chevys, a $300 product that could replace a person's DVD player," Glaser said in court according to CNET News.

Theoretically, Hollywood should have no problem with the Facet's capabilities, as described by CNET:

During Glaser's demonstration of Facet, he showed how the box made the process of scanning, selecting, and pulling up digital DVD copies as simple as managing an iTunes music library.

In addition, the box could instantly provide a synopsis about a film or the movie's cover art, as well as enable a user who interrupts the playback for whatever reason to instantly return to the spot where the movie left off. Glaser used a copy of a box set from the show "The Sopranos" to demonstrate how a Facet owner could begin playing any episode within the set almost instantly.

One little problem, though. As Glaser has admitted, there's no way to ensure that a DVD has only been copied once. There's nothing to stop consumers from renting a copy from Netflix of Blockbuster and then copying it onto the Facet so that they own it for the price of renting. Or, even more alluringly, buy one copy and then share it with an infinite number of friends, all of whom can make a digital copy and then pass it onto the next Facet owner.

CNET summarized Glaser as saying the MPAA's case is nothing more than a "thinly cloaked attempt to quash competition." And it is, without a doubt, an attempt to maintain the current business model through which consumers have to pay more -- sometimes a few bucks along with a DVD, sometimes $10 -- to get a digital copy of a movie they might already own.

On the other hand, it's foolhardy and naive -- in that all-too-typical Silicon Valley way -- to suggest that Facet doesn't enable and encourage mass stealing of movies in the way I described above. If the Facet became popular, studios would have to respond with some draconian new DRM measure on DVDs or by eliminating the low cost rentals that serve consumers so well.

The only fair solution, it seems, is to find a way to build the Facet so that it can only copy any single DVD once. It's easier for me to suggest than an engineer to do. But it's the only way to address very real piracy concerns and keep Real's potentially very useful product on the market so that it really is a matter of legitimate new business model versus legitimate old one.

After a brutal push back from many active Web users and questions from politicians like New York Sen. Chuch Schumer, Time Warner Cable has decided to "shelve" its trial of consumption based broadband Internet pricing, where those who use more bandwidth pay more instead of getting unlimited Internet content for a flat fee.

To a certain extent, that's good news for big media companies. After all the content that eats up the most bandwidth comes from studios, networks, labels, and game publishers -- TV shows streaming on Hulu, movies downloaded from iTunes, music on last.fm, games played or downloaded via Steam and Xbox Live. Bandwidth charges could have put a real crimp in their efforts to build online business models.

On the other hand, those models aren't building smoothly so far, particularly for TV networks, which have seen, to quote Jeff Zucker, analog dollars replaced by digital dimes (in other words, the same shows streamed on the Web generates a fraction of the revenue as when it airs on TV). Many in Hollywood don't want to make it all too easy for their content to be distributed digitally. They'd rather see that happen slowly, giving them time to figure out new business models while preserving old revenue.

And of course the biggest bandwidth hogs probably aren't Hulu or iTunes or Xbox Live: They're bittorrent applications, aka piracy. People who engage in piracy are usually looking to save a few bucks. If downloading a bunch of movies or TV shows moves them into a new pricing tier for Internet access, some would-be pirates might think again.

Fox's leaked copy of Wolverine has been downloaded over one million times in the past week, according to BitTorrent news blog TorrentFreak.

It has the early cut of "Wolverine," without special effects or final music, ranked at no. 1 on its download chart. PirateBay, the world's top directory for downloads from the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol, has "Wolverine" ranked at no. 6. It's the only film on any of the charts that hasn't yet been released.

Fox has certainly been diligent about trying to minimize the damage. It is issuing takedown notices to any websites it finds linking to a BitTorrent download, though as TorrentFreak notes, "new ones are already uploaded before the requests are processed." And of course Fox News columnist Roger Friedman apparently lost his job for reviewing the pirated version of the film (meaning he also downloaded it... uh oh).

In a sense, though, all that may be victory enough for Fox. The fact that links to the movie aren't exactly stable and nobody in the mainstream media dare touches a pirated copy means the leak should be limited to those who are already active in the piracy community.

And will it keep them out of theaters? Not if a highly unscientific survey is to be believed. TorrentFreak has received 6048 responses to its poll asking "Will the ['Wolverine'] leak hurt the movie's success?" of which only 392 people replied, "Yes, I will download it and won't it in the theater / on DVD."

Sure, there's no reason people have to be honest in an online poll. But there's no reason not to be honest either. If anything, the piracy community is famous for wanting to thumb its nose at Hollywood as much as possible. So if only 6% of them say the leak has hurt "Wolverine's" business prospects, Fox might just be OK.

As discussed yesterday, using services like BitTorrent to download movies is still a bit beyond the abilities of the average Internet surfer. For a tentpole as big as "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" (or as big as the studio hopes, anyway), the people who can are a relative drop in the bucket compared to the number who will buy tickets.

Nonetheless, Fox is freaking out today over the leak of that movie onto the Net, even though it's an early print without final music, effects, or, reportedly, footage from winter reshoots. The studio released a statement promising to punish the original source and anyone who reposts it "to the fullest extent of the law" -- obviously meant primarily as a warning to anyone who's thinking of spreading it -- and the word in Hollywood is executives are genuinely upset.

Why? Well, for one thing, it's a break down in a system that has worked pretty well the past few years. After Internet piracy became big, the studios have become much stricter about tracking prints as they make their way through workflows, particularly when they go off the lot to post production houses. It's impossible to prevent copies from being made, but studios use digital watermarks to strike fear into the hears of employees who don't want to end up in jail or on the hook for six figure fines.

Somehow that process broke down, whether in a test screening (as has been reported) or in post. And the print is even said to be watermark-free, meaning Fox can't easily track down the source. That's a major breakdown and embarassment.

But there's more at stake than corporate humiliation. There's a movie with a $100 million-plus budget and a marketing plan to match. And Fox is undoubtedly worried that it could all be undone by bad buzz. If the people who watch this f/x-free, pre-reshoots version of "Wolverine" don't like it, they're sure to start talking about it online. And then the press notices.

By the time final publicity articles start coming out in a few weeks, as well as reviews, watch to see if there are any comments like "Despite bad buzz based on a leaked version of the film..." or "Though early word on the Internet was bad after a copy was pirated..."

If it gets to that point, Fox will be battling an uphill battle with publicity, thanks to piracy. And the crackdown on post houses around Hollywood will become very intense.

For those in Hollywood who want to know just how simple -- but luckily not yet simple enough -- pirating via BitTorrent is, Gizmodo has posted a "handy" how-to guide.

Numerous BitTorrent clients, most notably Vuze, make downloading through the peer-to-peer service fairly easy. But Gizmodo notes that a little advanced knowledge of router settings like "port forwarding" are necessary to get decent download speeds, necessary for actually downloading big video files of TV shows and movies. And because BitTorrent uploads while it downloads, users have to set decent upload speeds in order to "share" (since, hey, some of the stuff on there is indeed legal) content in order to get the stuff they want.

Folks in Hollywood concerned about online pirating will be glad to know adjusting those settings is none-too simple (even with the Gizmodo guide), meaning average Internet noob won't be able to get very good performance out of BitTorrent.

They might be a little less pleased with Gizmodo's tips to "cover your ass" in order to avoid the "RIAA/MPAA/NARC's." Number one, of course, is to not "seed" (make available for sharing) too much content, since that's the only way authorities can detect who's active on BitTorrent and they go after the most heavy users.

Of course, being caught doesn't mean what it used to. The RIAA and MPAA don't sue nearly as many illegal pirates in hopes of halting the practice. Their newest strategy is to get ISPs like Comcast and AT&T to help them keep track and send warnings to folks doing illegal downloading via BitTorrent or other services.

Nonetheless, as Gizmodo explains, piracy is tempting, even with ISPs keeping watch and the growth of legal services like Hulu. Vuze even lets users "subscribe" to TV shows in order to get new episodes as soon as they're available. And unlike Hulu, there are no limits based on what media companies are partnering with, or fighting with, whom.

Hollywood has made a valiant effort, with mixed success, to cut down on DVD piracy in China. But can it stop illegal online streaming that starts in China and spreads around the world?

That's the question raised by MegaVideo. As AllThingsD has observed, the Chinese site has rapidly risen to take the no. 10 spot on Comscore's list of video websites in the U.S., with nearly 7 million users and over 100 million streams in January. Why? Piracy, of course.

MegaVideo is full of pirated TV shows. You can't find them directly from the home page. But do a google search for any popular show and megavideo and you'll find it either hosted on megavideo.com, or embedded on another page. Here's one I got for "battlestar megavideo." Here's one for "dexter megavideo." Even movies. Here's "pirates caribbean megavideo." You get the picture.

As AllThingsD's Peter Kafka noted, the Chinese government's history of cracking down on pirate websites is pretty sketchy. Even if MegaVideo does get shut down, it's hard to imagine a similar site won't pop up soon.

The saving grace for Hollywood is that, as with many piracy sites, MegaVideo isn't too user friendly. It's full of buttons and pop-ups meant to entice users to click on ads and download what's probably malware (I didn't want to find out).

But the rapid growth of MegaVideo -- and it's amazing average 6 hours per month per user -- indicate plenty of people are willing to put up with it. That means Hollywood is going to have to continue to improve Hulu and other sites to make them better alternatives. And Jeff Bewkes will have to think very carefully about his plan to force people to be cable/satellite subscribers in order to access television shows online.

(via H.A.L.)

Remember "DVD Jon?" Norwegian code Jon Johansen became a cause celebre for digital rights types, and a bete noire for Hollywood's DRM lovers, for his role in DeCSS, the popular software program that made it incredibly easy to break the copy protection on DVDs. The Norwegian government went after him, at the request of the big movie studios, but wasn't able to convict him of any crimes.

Well he's one of the folks behind a new company, called doubleTwist, that seems sure to raise eyebrows, if not more, in Hollywood. As this Gizmodo review details, the Mac program organizes the music, photos, videos, etc. stored on your computer (no problem there), connects to portable devices and organizes their media as well (no problem), publishes public feeds of all the media you own (not necessarily a problem), lets friends send any type of file back and forth to each other (ummm, that could be a problem), and auto-converts media formats to make files compatible with any device (definitely a problem, if it's breaking any DRM or terms of service agreements).

The record labels are pretty much done with DRM, you see, but movie studios and tv networks most definitely are not. If you downloaded any file legally and doubleTwist is allowing you to do things with it you're not allowed, they won't be happy. Similarly, if doubleTwist is allowing people to share illegally obtained filed, it could easily be held responsible for the piracy that takes place on its network or via its software (by the same principle that brought down Napster and Grokster).

Of course, Hollywood is a little more lawsuit averse these days than it used to be. All those efforts to scare music and movie pirates via lawsuits have faded away. Big media wants to be seen as digital friendly, not hostile. So it's unlikely it'll go after doubleTwist right away.

But the application could very well become popular. As more and more people manage media on their computers, there's more and more need for better software to manage it. Windows Media Player doesn't cut it and iTunes quickly becomes annoying if you're not downloading everything from Apple and connecting only to iPods. And Gizmodo sure seems to like it, saying "DoubleTwist is an extremely promising app that really could become the de facto standard for media players if they continue to develop and improve on this beta." If it does just that, it could easily catch on. And if there's even a Windows version, well forget about it.

By then, Hollywood undoubtedly will be paying attention. And if they feel doubleTwist is subverting their ability to control the rules on the media they sell, or helping to spread illegal copies of their media that they don't sell, DVD Jon could very well be back in court.