Sony pays $65 million for P2P video site Grouper |
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Sony buying a P2P video site, how about that? It’s not YouTube or Blip.TV, it’s Grouper for the price of $65 million [Hmm Grouper review].
The acquisition by Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE), the Hollywood movie and television production unit of Japan’s Sony (6758.T: Quote, NEWS, Research), aims to infuse the studios with new ideas and talent for movies, television shows and games, a top executive said.
TechCrunch adds to the story more details on what Sony might be using Grouper for:
Sony says they will use Grouper’s technology to share lower quality Sony videos online, distribute DVD quality video by P2P and allow users to create mashups of select Sony media properties. Grouper says the P2P network took the company two years to build.
I like this move by Sony and not because I think the Grouper technology is worth that much (I don’t). $65 million is not a huge overpayment though and it’s major jack for the Grouper crew who have been working their site/product since 2004. Kudos to them.
Let’s hope Sony has learned their lesson and concealing another rootkit won’t ever be on the Grouper upgrade feature list. That shadow will be hard to escape. Still, I like this move and am encouraged for what it could mean down the road.
The screenshot above shows my Hulk rage video has received over 6,100 views on Grouper. That’s the most views I’ve had of any video I’ve shared to these third party video sites to date. The one I created for the Xbox 360 game Dead Rising on YouTube has a little over 1,100 views and one comment.
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Sony Acquires Grouper
Sony Corp’s Sony Pictures announced he acquisition of video startup Grouper. The deal was initially denied by Grouper, according to Grouper. Sony reportedly paid $65 million (cash). Grouper has three products offerings: An online video sharing site A …
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It wouldn’t surprise me if Sony would force people to install a mandatory plugin to use all the features on their new site, and strangely, this plugin will contain a flaw that will allow villains to get in the unsuspecting user’s computer.
Don’t forget, if it ever happens, I’m the one who made the prediction first.
Comment by Kiltak — August 23, 2006 @ 11:01 am PST
[…] When Sony bought the Grouper P2P video service for $65 million in August 2006, they positioned themselves nicely to utilyze P2P if indeed that becomes the chosen method of legal movie distribution in the future. So far though, Sony hasn’t done anything significant with this property. Would be a shame to not see them find some way to incorporate this into their Playstation Store (PS3) and offer TV, movies and videos, including video blogs. I wonder if that’s what they are thinking about? Related PostsNetflix perksCaptain Kirk goes where no DVD club has gone beforeDownload Netflix movies to TiVO could be reality, says mole […]
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