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October 30, 2007
Headweb : Legal Video Download To DVD Out of Sweden
We're seeing a few more examples of video downloading as a legal business proposition these days. For example, TIOTI, which supports downloading and streaming of TV and video recordings. It recently raised capital from early stage UK venture firm Pond Ventures, according to Techcrunch UK.
And News from Blognation Japan is that network operator KDDI is trying to make a business out legal movie downloads using watermarking as a way to protect copyright.
Sweden, the same country that brought us PirateBay and Kazaa, has another contender to add to the list, Headweb for legal P2P downloads to DVD
Development began in August last year and the team, along with two business angels, has invested about €1M in the venture so far. It is slated to launch this week. Read on for an edited Q&A we did with co-founder Peter Alvarsson by email.
Founded by 26 year old Peter Alvarsson, along with Ingemar Bygdestam and Pelka Hansson who all come out of the DVD and content indusry, Headweb got underway in early 2006.
Stockholm Style - Peter Alvarsson co-founder and COO of Headweb
Two things make Headweb stand out besides its use of Bittorrent.
1) it has a way to increase user numbers quickly. It motivates users to bring in friends by giving them credits to acquire free videos. The same system encourages users to make their PCs available to the network
2) It is legal and has a copy-protection system based on watermarking that could be more consumer-friendly than the alternatives in use today. The startup owns its watermarking tech.
What has been the reaction of content owners, studios and the like to your proposition?
Some movie studios have come further than others regarding legal movie downloads, both mentally and practically. Some companies embrace our technology with open arms and believe this really is what the market needs. Other companies are more conservative and protective but they also know that they need to change and open up to get any revenues at all. The music industry is starting to go DRM free now, the same thing will happen to the movie industry too, it's just a matter of time.
The team has done a lot in a relatively short time.
Yes, it is a lot in a short time, but more is yet to come. Your conclusions are very exact: it is a copyright protection system designed for people.
And with your own watermark technology, you have the basis for another kind of business in case this one flops.
True. We have already received propositions about licensing the technology for other ventures and services.
Do we have it right, you use a bittorrent platform for distribution of videos based on Xvid, an open source alternative to Divx?
We will soon also offer the movies in Xvid (MPEG4 format) so the users can choose which format they want depending on personal taste and bandwidth.
However, initially we will distribute an "electronic DVD", meaning we distribute what's on a physical DVD disc. That's why you can burn the movie and watch it in any regular DVD player in the world. The electronic DVD is based on MPEG2 compression.
The electronic DVD can be up to 4,5Gb in size while the Xvid version will be around 1 Gb.
Later, more formats will be introduced.
What is the client like?
Our client contains download functionality, playback functionality (Media Player) and burn functionality. The user shouldnt need any other software to use the service.
Tell us about pricing and how customers earn credit towards the purchase of titles.
There are several ways of earning credits. One is by being an uploader. Also, by being active socially in the community you can earn credits in different ways. Inviting friends is one way. Writing reviews is another.
… And there are no limits on how many credits you can earn.
We wont have one fixed price though, different movies will have different prices depending on age etc but be in the range of 6 to 14 Euro. There are different payment methods like credit card, pre-pay (load your Headweb account with money, good for parents wanting to give to their kids).
We are looking at implementing more payment methods too.
You have developers in far flung places, any tips for our readers on how you managed the team, did you use any collaboration tools or project management tools that helped?
Yes, this has been a fun part of the project, we work a lot with chat applications like Skype. Google Docs sometimes for sharing documents. And a developer forum where we discuss specific parts of the project.
One last thing, I can see parents telling their kids to use Headweb, but what about others. What do you offer that Pirate Bay or its alternatives, don't? Let's assume that a PB user doesn't care if the downloading is legal or not, what other reason does he have to switch to Headway?
There are many things with illegal alternatives that are problematic: You don't know what quality the files are in (maybe it is recorded from a movie screen), files might be infected with viruses, you dont know if the download contains what it says it should (spam files). And it could be problematic for users to know what kind of player and decoder they should use for playback.
There are also issues with subtitles that comes with illegal downloads, they are often translated by home users which means the quality can be so-so sometimes.
Headweb will always guarantee a good quality movie including surround sound and the real subtitles. Downloads are free from viruses and spam and it will be very easy to play it back on your computer and burn it since everything is included in one package.
We know that many people are not very technical and will want this "works from the box" experience (compare with the iPod and iTunes) and we believe that the market is much bigger than those using illegal services today.
So in a way the pirates are our customers but many "pirates" will continue to use illegal services so we're actually not in this game to convert pirates to legal customers but instead focusing on making the service available to "everyone".
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Thanks for the interview and for reading the alarm:clock euro.
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Other sources on Headweb
Read The Local : Feature on Headweb
Read Legal Bittorent DVDs
Read Latest on Bittorrent (the company)
Posted on October 30, 2007 09:13 AM | Posted to Early stage | Permalink
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