WARNING! MediaPost amended their story slightly since this news was posted this morning… It appears now as if BitTorrent does now want to team with Joost but actually build a similar service… competing with Joost. I left the original mediapost text as a reference. Please read the updated source text for more details:
Original Mediapost news content follow:
BIG PEER-TO-PEER INTERNET COMPANY BitTorrent says it wants to join the race to create an ad-supported TV program Internet site.
During a panel session at the OMMA Expo called “Big Media–Disintermediated,” Eric Patterson, vice president and general manager of consumer services for BitTorrent, said the peer-to-peer technology company will be looking to join Joost in launching a new Net TV service.
“We see us moving to an advertising-supported model at the end of the year so people can consume TV shows in the same way they consume programs on television,” said Patterson, who didn’t disclose any other details.
BitTorrent is a massive peer-to-peer technology company. Some 135 million people worldwide have downloaded files using BitTorrent, some one-third of all P2P traffic on the Internet. Last month, BitTorrent launched BitTorrent Entertainment Network, a new service that has compiled the rights to more than 3,000 movies, 1,000 games and 1,000 music videos from 34 participating content providers. The network has deals with Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate, Warner Bros. and MGM.
Like iTunes Music Stores, the BitTorrent business is a pay Internet service, where users can rent movies for $4 each, download-to-own TV shows and music videos for $2 each. BitTorrent also plans to add a digital-rights-management-free music download service in the near future.
Recently, Joost, which said it would start an agnostic TV Internet service, announced it had a deal with Viacom. As part of the agreement, the big media company would provide Joost with hundreds of TV shows. Joost is in beta test right now, and will launch later this year.
Joost founders started up Kazaa, the peer-to-peer Internet music downloading Internet company, and Skype, the peer-to-peer technology Internet phone service. Like BitTorrent, Joost executives believe that using peer-to-peer technology averts the coming broadband capacity crunch.
Both Kazaa and BitTorrent have had a history of unauthorized digital-content distribution. Now the founders of both companies are setting themselves up to provide above-board digital-entertainment services.
An agnostic IPTV service? I don’t follow…
Thanks for this info. But doesn’t BitTorrent actually download files onto your computer, instead of streaming it as Joost does? At least the BitTorrent client in Democracy TV (1) does, which is nice, because even if you have a low bandwidth connection, you can view videos without hiccups once they have finished downloading.
But even if video files downloadable via BitTorrent for Joost were to have Digital Restriction Management that would make disappear after N viewing, and a state-of-the-art anti-copy chastity belt, having the file on one’s hard disk would make it even easier to copy than with the present streaming files – see your own YouTube video (2). It doesn’t matter with Democracy, because Democracy only downloads stuff under licenses that explicitly authorize copying. But it would for the copyrighted content proposed by Joost.
One sentence slightly irked me in the article you quote: “Both Kazaa and BitTorrent have had a history of unauthorized digital-content distribution”. Nope. They offer the possibility to share digital content, and if this possibility is used in an unauthorized manner, this is the user’s responsibility, not the service provider’s.
spreading, but that’s another thing
In a February 25, 2007, article entitled “BitTorrent, Joost put download tech to legal use” on Yahoo News (3), the disinformation is even worse: “it [i.e. BitTorrent] also is used by such sites as Pirate Bay to allow illegal downloads of Hollywood movies”. The Pirate Bay (4) does not “use” BitTorrent, it is a BitTorrent tracker, i.e. search engine.
When the Swedish police seized the Pirate Bay’s server at the request of MPAA on 31/05/06, there was in fact an international uproar, because the seizure violated the principle of non liability of service providers, and in particular of search engine providers.
MPAA triumphally announced the same day: “SWEDISH AUTHORITIES SINK PIRATE BAY” with the misleading subtitle “Huge Worldwide Supplier of Illegal Movies Told No Safe Harbors for Facilitators of Piracy!” (5).
But the “sunken” Pirate Bay was back up on June 1st 2006, and never was sued. Fluctuat nec mergitur. The point is that “facilitation of piracy” is not a legal concept.
Now Viacom too is trying to violate the principle of the non-liability of service providers by sueing YouTube/Google for “facilitating” copyright violation by their users. Some Joost fans wonder if this is good news for Joost. Well, it might be – if Viacom loses clamorously, as it should, because then maybe Joost might negotiate a better bargain with them. But should Google/YouTube go for an out-of-court settlement, implicitly accepting liability, this would be extremely bad news for Joost, which is a service provider too.
(1) http://www.getdemocracy.com
(2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9teXTUXwkEw
(3) http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070226/music_nm/p2p_dc
(4) http://thepiratebay.org/
(5) http://www.mpaa.org/press_releases/2006_05_31.pdf
LOL I started my previous comment before you wrote the update – and before MediaPost changed their version. It makes far more sense this way.
Good thing you are keeping the original: maybe it’ll teach MediaPost they should tell when they make such radical changes in an article.
Ironically, the http://www.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fa=main.about page says:
“MediaPost Events
Several times a year, MediaPost Events, including the OMMA and Forecast Conferences, deliver directly to our members the same level of content and expertise found on our sites and publications.”
So they can’t report correctly what is being said at one of their own events?