Yes, but to do that you'd have to download two versions then throw some special software at them - or someone else would have to do this then supply a new torrent without them, which would mean you weren't getting it from an official source any more. Whereas if your movie has embedded directives saying "get some ads from ads.hbo.com to fill in 6:25 to 7:45", it seems pretty trivial to have the player software respond to that as "skip straight from 6:25 to 7:45".
As for the DRM software thing - that does solve that problem, but to me it is a deal killer. Yes, I would probably download TV from the "official" torrent with ads if it's just a movie, but if it's some DRM-laden mess that has to be played through their proprietary player, no way. Also, there would seem to be very little chance of getting a Linux version of the DRM software which would be a practical deal-killer for me even if I got past the conceptual issue.
How hard would it be for someone to download both versions, do the diffs, and create the instructions, get torrent X, and play from 0:30 to 6:25, skip straight to 7:45, etc?
The differencing task would be the perfect app for the new unlimited inbound bandwidth at linode. :)
As for the DRM software thing - that does solve that problem, but to me it is a deal killer. Yes, I would probably download TV from the "official" torrent with ads if it's just a movie, but if it's some DRM-laden mess that has to be played through their proprietary player, no way. Also, there would seem to be very little chance of getting a Linux version of the DRM software which would be a practical deal-killer for me even if I got past the conceptual issue.