Peerflix is a company that hosts a mail type trading program through which you can trade DVDs you own to other members for for 99 cents. Now, the company is negotiating with retailers to create a melding of the service with the brick and mortar stores by offering promotions in which the retailer would bundle a few Peerflix trades on their retail shelves. For the price of a single new DVD movie, you could get 2 or 3 traded movies, creating an attractive value for the shopper that would rather rent than buy normally. These (used) discs could then subsequently be swapped for others for 99 cents on the Peerflix network.
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McNair added that the peer-to-peer service does not violate copyright laws. "It is legal because ownership (of the disc) transfers and no original is being retained," he said. "We have had no negative outreach from the studios." The company's business model also allows it to keep operating costs low. The company never takes ownership of the discs. Owners swap them with each other and Peerflix pockets the 99 cent fee for brokering the exchange. Hence, unlike rental outlets Blockbuster or Netflix, it doesn't have to buy or stock discs. From a consumer's perspective, a disc costs 99 cents, a fee that can be paid for with a credit card or by selling a disc to someone else. |
You must pay the postage with Peerflix unlike other DVD rental firms such as Netflix, but they do provide an envelope and say the postage is about 37 cents. You can check out the story in it's entirety over at C|Net.
Peerflix appears to be catching on and it certainly is a good way to unload
some old DVD's that you no longer wish to keep. You can also get more info about
Peerflix by following this link.
Source: C|Net
