I have to digress, regarding the availability of torrents for old movies. At a recent conference I got a chance to look at the content of a non-public site, and

I have to digress, regarding the availability of torrents for old movies. At a recent conference I got a chance to look at the content of a non-public site, and it's by far the most comprehensive catalog of movies with a "delivery time" of less than 24 hours for anything cheaper than FedEx overnight. There were next to no dubbed audio tracks though. It certainly was an interesting view into what already exists and appears to hold itself with just (comparatively) minimal resources on the side of the platform, judging by the absence of anything that looked like it was begging for money. The guy who let me take a look said the best part of it was that it pretty much "just worked", and noted the hassle with physical media handling and DRM breaking in non-standard display configurations/systems being the main reason they don't just buy discs. I mean, we can do games without DRM, why can't we do the same with movies? Sure some will get copied. But it's not too hard to e.g. watermark content or otherwise go after those who share content illegally. If there was a way to buy instant-download DRM-free movies from a comprehensive catalog while paying a reasonable amount for each movie, that would drive many people away from torrents, at least those, that would buy if there were no torrents (i.e., that do it for convenience, not financial reasons). It seems like the MPAA would rather leave that market segment out -- despite music showing that people do buy if they have the financial means and the UX is competetive -- than coordinating the creation of a single such service. Make each rightsholder set his price, and do it as some organisation that doesn't have to provide ROI from skimming money off of each transaction (like amazon marketplace, paypal and ebay).