Other file-sharing companies have tried to go legit and failed as there has never been enough assurances of content security to make the movie executives feel comfortable enough to embrace the P2P medium.
Having BitTorrent, which has massive amounts of street-cred and brand familiarity, sign a deal with Hollywood studios is big news, and could mean a huge paradigm shift for the selection of movie and TV content by users and the speed with which they will be able to access it.
The privately held company said it signed agreements with Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures, News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate, Palm Pictures and Kadokawa Pictures USA.
The San Francisco-based BitTorrent also inked content deals with cable television networks G4 and Starz Media along with several Viacom-owned networks, including MTV Networks, VH1, SpikeTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and Logo.
BitTorrent plans to debut the commercial video service in February and expects to offer thousands of video titles in addition to music and software.
It has yet to disclose a pricing scheme but, has said individual TV shows could be priced as low as $1, and movies will be sold for about the price of a DVD.
TV shows and most films can be purchased and burned on a backup DVD, although the copy will only play on the computer used to buy the original and not on standard DVD players. Some films will only be available for viewing a limited number of times.
Movies will be available for purchase on BitTorrent on the same day that the DVDs comes out. Palm Pictures will even allow people to purchase some full-length feature films before they are released to the theater or DVD.
Movies that will be available on the service include “X-Men: The Last Stand,” “Ringu,” “Saw III,” “13 Tzameti,” “Mission: Impossible III,” and “Ghost in the Shell.”
“We’re thrilled to be partnering with world-renowned entertainment companies and TV networks,” said Ashwin Navin, President and Co-founder of BitTorrent, in a statement.
“Our audience has a voracious appetite for digital content and by offering the titles they want with a solid user experience, it’s a win-win situation for both content providers as well as our users,” he added.
Hollywood studios, frustrated in their efforts to formulate a winning internet strategy to stem the illegal swapping of their film and TV content online, see this move as a means to succeed where the music industry failed.
Rather than face a costly and endless quagmire in fighting digital distribution like the music industry, Hollywood studios are playing it smart and embracing the technology, if at the very least half-heartedly.
“We come to the table with a solution to piracy,” said Eric Patterson, BitTorrent’s general manager of consumer services. “Millions of people are using BitTorrent to download content legally and illegally. We know from our research that 30 percent of that audience will pay for content. We’re going to help the studios turn an enormous problem into a viable sales channel.”
Over the next few years we should expect to see more and more experimentation with digital distribution methods as Hollywood and the P2P community try to fine tune their relationship.
In the meantime, this BitTorrent partnership is a huge leap forward for them both.
The content on BitTorrent was previously limited to foreign “Bollywood” or public domain type movies and clips, and so now this development which allows them to distribute mainstream content is truly groundbreaking for the site.
By building a new video distribution service around the software, BitTorrent and the Hollywood studios hope to use the software’s popularity and download speeds to its advantage. In contrast to Apple’s iTunes, which offers it video content from a central bank of computers via direct connect, thereby leading to lengthy download waits, BitTorrent will almost certainly guarantee fast download speeds. Per the nature of the BitTorrent protocol, users will be uploading data as well as downloading it, creating an unlimited of distribution points for others to connect to and further increase the rate of file transfers.
I have to say that this is good news for both the movie industry and members of the P2P community because it means that we may all just get along after all.
Taking a look at the mess the music industry made, angering consumers and artist alike with no tangible progress in stemming the tide of digital distribution, the movie industry smartly looked at the future of technology and decided to embrace P2P rather than fight and costly and ultimately losing battle against it.
“Cheers” to Hollywood and “cheers” to BitTorrent Inc. for proving that not all the “suits” are dumb after all. Maybe we can all just get along.
As a side note, GigaOm claimed and confirmed all in the same story that Bram Cohen, CEO and founder of BitTorrent Inc. as well as the well-known creator of the BitTorrent protocol itself, was being “…replaced by a more seasoned manager, and apparently have hired a head hunter, to lead the search.” This claim has apparently been
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This is BAD news for anybody that downloads TV shows in my opinion. The copyright holders now have a better reason to go after people who share TV shows. Previously there wasn’t much heat on them.
Maybe but considering a bunch of stations already stream a bunch of their stuff for free like Fox or ABC for instance dont think they will really care about TV shows its the movies they’re worried about the 100 million dollar blockbuster that gets leaked on the internet…..thats where they take a hit.