Eirik Solheim from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corportation (NRK) was recently interviewed by the German site tagesschau.de about NRK's successful experiment with BitTorrent as a means of distributing one of their most popular series on the Internet, free of DRM and any other restrictions.
Solheim is asked the obvious question (aren't you giving up control of your own material). His answer is this:
If you want control of your content you need to lock it down in a vault and never show it to anyone. We gave up control of our content the day we started broadcasting. For years our most popular content have been available on BitTorrent and on sites like YouTube anyway. DRM doesn't work. The only way to control your content is to be the best provider of it. If people want it on YouTube then you should publish it on YouTube or in a system that give the same experience. If people want it on BitTorrent then you should provide that. If you do it right people will come to your official publish point and you'll end up with more control.
Yes. It is really that simple. “If you do it right people will come to your official publish point and you'll end up with more control.” Publishers of the world, listen and learn!
Full interview: Thoughts on BitTorrent distribution for a public broadcaster.
Comments
Now, this sound all good. But remember that the likely motivation for doing this, is that the state channel NRK wants to charge all internet users for the yearly license fee that all owners of televisions now pay.
Maybe you're right. I still think it is a good thing. I am a big fan of public service broadcasting funded by a flat license fee, rather than a pay-per-view system.