The British Film Institute goes live Wednesday with...
The British Film Institute goes live Wednesday with online access to what it calls a “gold mine of great British cinema,” when it debuts its “BFI Player” service. BFI Player will offer a mix of restored archive and newly produced…
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independent movie content, about 60 percent of it free, the rest through pay-per-view. Available only in the U.K., the launch package includes “hundreds” of feature films, with PPV prices ranging from just under $2, to about $5 for library titles, and about $16 and up for new day-and-date releases, BFI said. New releases available on BFI Player will include The Epic of Everest, the 1924 filmed documentary of the doomed expedition to the summit of Mount Everest by George Mallory and Andrew Irvine. The film has been fully restored for a sold-out London Film Festival screening on Oct. 18. BFI Player’s software uses adaptive-bit-rate technology to match picture quality to the broadband speed available for streaming, BFI said. The sound is stereo only, so far. Digital copy, the option to make a permanent copy with restricted access, is “not quite there just yet,” said Ed Humphrey, BFI’s director of digital. UltraViolet for BFI Player is “on the horizon,” he said. The service uses Widevine digital rights management to deter piracy, said Humphrey, an ex-Disney executive. He acknowledged that hardware and software that exploits the “analog hole” can be used to copy any online stream. “I don’t think that on its own the BFI can solve issues of piracy,” Humphrey told us at a BFI Player preview event in London. “It’s my belief that the more legitimate services you offer people, the less they need to pirate.” Evidence from the MPAA suggests “that the more opportunity you give people to buy legitimately the more they will do so,” he said. “That’s our guiding principle. There’s no absolute barrier to copying. If the world’s biggest businesses can’t crack the problem, then we can’t expect to. But the more legitimate sources there are, the less need there is for piracy. Make it available and make it simple to buy.”