Is there a company not getting into the legal video download market at the moment? We've had Microsoft with the Xbox Live Marketplace, Apple with the iTunes Movie Store, Amazon Unbox, TiVo in talks with Amazon, plus the old school services like CinemaNow and MovieLink.Now BitTorrent is getting in on the act with their new peer to peer video download service. Bittorrent has announced deals with 20th Century Fox, G4, Kadokawa, Lionsgate, MTV Networks, Palm Pictures, Paramount and Starz Media for Download to Own and rental services.
Of course we can expect fast download speeds using BitTorrent's p2p technology, so people won't experience the slow download problems that occur with the Xbox Live Marketplace.
There are no details on pricing but I imagine the prices will not be competitive as with all download services. This of course is at the request of content owners to make sure their DVD sales stay healthy.
It will be interesting to see how BitTorrent approaches the DRM issue, consumers hate, content owners love it, and BitTorrent is a popular tool for getting DRM free (illegal) video.
The service is expected to launch in February 2007.
