While the BitTorrent protocol is generally used to pirate software, music and movies, the BitTorrent company has spent the last couple of years negotiating licensing deals with TV and film companies, and yesterday launched its first legal movie download service.
But the company has plans beyond this, and is planning a plug-in that software makers would be able to integrate into their products that would enable updates to be distributed peer-to-peer, according to Eric Patterson, vice president and general manager of BitTorrent consumer services.
What planning on doing in a couple months is releasing a content distribution service that allows other media companies and software company to utilize this method of distribution, Patterson said.
This would take the form of an invisible plug-in, based on the official BitTorrent client, he said
The company is especially interested in opportunities in the online gaming industry, where updates and patches for, for example, World Of Warcraft, could be transparently distributed in a peer-to-peer fashion through the plug-in, according to Patterson.
We’ve been in talks with all of them, he said of the major online gaming companies.
The advantages of peer-to-peer distribution are pretty clear. A content provider needs to spend less on bandwidth if its users are for the most part delivering the content to each other.
But all that is potential future services. The company kicked off its first wave of legal movie download services with about 35 media companies yesterday.
For now, the company is offering movie rentals for $2.99 for old movies to $3.99 for new ones, and $1.99 TV show episodes on a download-to-own basis. The content will be protected by Microsoft’s Windows Media DRM.
One of the perks of the model as far as BitTorrent is concerned is that if the DRM-protected files make their way onto other P2P networks such as eDonkey or Kazaa, the company will still receive its slice of the revenue whenever a purchase is made.
