Film and television executives no doubt wish the increasingly popular BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing system never saw the light of day. Thousands of consumers are using the software to download hundreds of movies and hours upon hours of television programming.
But one industry's threat is another's opportunity. There's an upside to allowing viewers to transfer copyright material content over BitTorrent.
As noted by Japanese entrepreneur Joi Ito, fans of the Japanese anime series Naruto regularly post translated episodes of the show to BitTorrent, which attracts more fans to the series.
The relatively obscure program has spawned a global following in online forums, internet relay chat channels and fan sites.
With box sets and special edition DVDs, Ito wrote, the copyright holders can make a tidy sum from fans prepared to "spend thousands of dollars on one show."
However, not everyone is convinced BitTorrent will level the playing field. Heavy.com, a New York-based independent online content provider and marketing outfit, said cheap and easy distribution is only a part of the equation.
Heavy already distributes some content over peer-to-peer networks to "get the word out," said co-CEO Simon Assaad. But he doesn't expect an immediate content shake-up to overthrow the majors.
"People assume that because it's open to everyone there'll be this mass movement of people making quality content that everyone can access, and I don't think that's true," he said.
Even if independents can produce quality content, the marketing clout required to generate an audience will make it harder for smaller players. "Marketing is getting harder as people's attention gets fragmented," Assaad said.
Still, Assaad said word of mouth and community building can work. "You could be a smart marketer and spend a thousand bucks if you spend it in the right places," he said.
So, as far as Assaad is concerned, don't expect the TV and cable stations to close their doors just yet. Controlling the means of mass distribution, it seems, isn't as important as controlling the means of mass marketing. Still, Assaad said, we're in for some changes.
"Technology is forcing people to continuously evolve," Assaad says. "It's being like a shark: If you stop, you die."
Peer-to-peer, however, won't be dying any time soon. Vint Cerf, one of the original developers of the Internet Protocol, says the technology is here to stay, despite the prolonged legal attacks from copyright holders.
"This is an environment where ideas that work typically propagate," Cerf said. "It doesn't matter if they started out in a way that were unsatisfactory to some folks."
That BitTorrent works so well is making Hollywood and the television networks mighty uncomfortable. Peer-to-peer is all grown up, and the war against movie and television piracy is ramping up.
Until recently, BitTorrent piracy was a free-for-all. Suprnova.org, a website started by Adrej Preston, then a 16-year-old Steiner school student in Slovenia, offered millions of torrent files for download, free of charge.
"With BitTorrent you can distribute one file to one thousand people in almost the same amount of time as you would to one person on (the) Kazaa network," said Preston, now 19.
It didn't take long for copyright owners to catch on, and they've been busy suing everyone. SuprNova.org is gone, along with many other torrent trackers offering links to copyright files. That hasn't stopped Preston.
He and his cohorts have released eXeem, a trackerless, Kazaa-like application that lets users search for downloads from a decentralized database.
"EXeem is made so that we do not host any info (about) what is on the network," Preston said. "Even the nodes are made so that they change all the time."
Preston is likely expecting legal hassles. He won't admit to having a stake in Swarm Systems, the company that controls eXeem, describing himself only as "a representative."
Swarm is incorporated in the Caribbean money-laundering haven of Saint Kitts and Nevis. Either way, eXeem seems well placed to cause a few more headaches for Hollywood.
