Warner Bros. Announces launch of in2Movies

Warner Bros. has announced  the launch of in2Movies, a legal p2p network as a distribution mechanism for their movies.  An extract of the release is as follows;

"The decentralized component of GNAB makes it possible for the first time to distribute larger files like movies with the efficiency and economies of a distributed, peer-to-peer network."

 It looks like Warner Bros. will be leveraging the bandwidth of the subscribers for the distribution.  The question I have is will it be cheaper?  

Electronic distribution of media is usually cheaper to begin with since you don't have to include all the overhead for packaging, distribution (physical) and shipping. Other than the initial seed file distribution bandwidth costs, Using a p2p network distributes the bandwidth cost burden among the subscriber base, so not only are you using your bandwidth to download the movie, you're also helping Warner Bros. by giving up some of your bandwidth for other users to download (Unless you're a leach). 

While the technical savvy among us realize this, there is a huge contingent of the population that doesn't and will blindly buy into the plan to download movies with fast download speeds without realizing the cost savings and bandwidth they are providing the distribution company.

Check out this information on how much bandwidth actually costs.  An OC3 (155 megabits per sec) averages between $20,000 and $45,000 a month.  Assuming a single OC3 would meet the needs of a distribution company to distribute movies on the internet, moving to a p2p distribution could save the distribution company around $540,000 a year.

We as consumers must demand from the movie companies that implement p2p as a distribution mechanism  include price reductions that reflect the cost savings associated with the distribution of downloads among the subscribers.