• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, December 6, 2005

Have you been paying attention to BitTorrent?

If you aren't familiar with it, you should probably do a little research. BitTorrent is a peer to peer software that allows you to share files, especially larger ones such as movies and TV shows, by gathering pieces of the file from hundreds of other hard drives and reassembling them on your computer. It allows you to download these larger files in a much faster manner than was previously available on the other P2P network, it doesn't bog down your computer, and it is fast becoming the preferred partner of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and the source for legal downloading of movies online.

The BitTorrent phenomenon has been relatively quiet (even though it did get coverage in Time magazine), but has very strong implications for digital media. If BitTorrent becomes a mainstream tool in the same way as iTunes, we could see the movie industry embrace the Internet as a distribution tool for new movies! On-demand content delivery would become very exciting, as first-run and new release movies could become available in the privacy of your own home direct from the studios, and the movie industry would avoid the pitfalls and errors that the record industry went through by waiting too long to embrace the Web.

There are many implications of BitTorrent. For example:

1. Long-form content can be developed and distributed in a much easier fashion through BitTorrent than any other method short of streaming. The difference is that streaming does not provide users with a permanent copy, and they need to be online to access it. BitTorrent would allow you to retain a copy of the content and watch it even when you're offline.

2. If long-form content becomes more pervasive, it's inevitable that advertisers will start to embrace the model, too. Infomercials are a proven tool for influencing consumer perception and driving sales, as are product placement and branded entertainment. As distribution of these formats becomes easier, more advertisers are likely to embrace it and look to the Web as the primary distribution tool.

3. Theatre owners would lose revenue, so they will certainly fight this, because a customers could download a movie at home and play it on their home theatre, integrated with their digital home. Theatre owners are already feeling the pinch of digital media and they are finding new ways to lure customers by building other activities to surround content, and finding new revenue streams such as holding corporate events in theatre spaces. As they fight the model, will customers demand increased distribution models?

4. What type of security measures will studios take to ensure that their movies will not be distributed to other users? Will they embrace the key technologies that some of the record companies have put in place that limit copying between one and four times?

All of these models are very interesting, but the bottom line is that, once again, the customer is in control. As the customers demand content be made available to them in this format, we'll see them launch. The movie industry is already listening, realizing they already suffer from digital piracy, so we should applaud them for reacting by looking to embrace a technology rather than fight it.

Now--if the BitTorrent model just worked with the iTunes interface, Steve Jobs would have the primary tool for distribution of movies online as well.

I give it three months.