BitTorrent makes a deal for TV and movie downloads

I think that at this point the bit torrent technology has become so ubiquitous that some people might not even know that there is an actual Bit Torrent Inc. But there is, and they have announced that they are partnering with a bunch of TV and movie companies to distribute content through their website using torrent technology. Among those in the announcement are 20th Century Fox, G4, Paramount Pictures, Kadokowa Pictures USA, Lionsgate, MTV Networks, Starz Media, and Palm Pictures. The partnership agreements have also helped them to secure another round of financing in the 15 to 25 million dollar ballpark.

That's the happy fluffy bunny part of the announcement. What none of the stories floating around get into is how this is all going to shake down for the customers. This is certainly a case where the devil will be in the details, and knowing only what we know now, I'm not too excited about the service's prospects.

To start, the biggest benefit of moving to torrent's for downloading of content is to ease the load on the seller. The one, and possibly only, advantage this has over something like the iTunes store is that the customers will actually be providing bandwidth. That's all well and good, but the obvious question is "What are you going to give us in exchange for providing bandwidth for your company?" If the dramatically reduced costs for transferring all those files is passed to the customers, cool beans. Given the history of these deals, and those involved, I'm not inclined to think any real savings are coming.

I also have to wonder just how this is going to fly with ISP's. It's one thing to download a big video file, but a completely different animal when you start serving it to all those other customers. If this was to catch on in any big way companies like Comcast would see usage go through the roof. And that's not something that they take lightly. I can't speak with regards to all providers, but I can tell you that there are limits to what Comcast will allow. And if you exceed them they have no problem shutting you off. It's not a great stretch to imagine that they are going to want a piece of the pie as well.

And of course, there is the DRM question. What kind of cruft are these files going to be saddled with. Is it yet another Windows only service? Will it be like the new Walmart downloadable DVD service that is not compatible with the Mac or the iPod? Until these questions are answered, and depending on what those answers are, I can't see anything that makes this idea look remotely appealing.

It's good to see that someone is trying to make use of the technology, but at this point there just isn't enough information, and those involved have long since lost the benefit of the doubt.

[ via Netscape.com ]