P2P TV - Now Mainstream?

For many it remains a dirty secret, but downloading mainstream content from P2P Torrents, such as Limewire, is now common practice around the world.  S'truth, in Australia, even the police turn to the Torrents for their movie-watching.  And it's hard to see this behaviour changing as TV-through-a-browser becomes increasingly normal, but the choice of legitimate content remains limited.  In the UK, for example, the BBC's iPlayer is handling 700k daily requests and has made Web TV quite respectable.  However, even the offering of this broadcasting giant is tiny when compared to the ever-growing world of Torrent services.  In the US, a few big studios, having watched their content slowly leak onto the web through P2P and YouTube, have fought back offering 'professional' options, notably Hulu.  This joint venture between NBC and Fox has become popular enough for Viacom to join the fun and even makes money!  However, it's still a drop in the televisual ocean.  More than 2 million hours of TV is broadcast in the UK alone each year, much of which makes the leap onto P2P networks.  Indeed, among some groups, the use of Torrent services is so engrained that even when a free legal alternative is offered, people stick with the underground option.  This was the case recently when the US drama Prison Break (oh the irony) was downloaded more than one million times via P2P, despite being available gratis from Hulu and Fox.com.  Joost, another big player in the web TV space, which spent a lot of its founders Skype dollars building a place for Hollywood to feel safe online, has knocked the walls of its garden down and launched a browser-based version focusing on the social side of television.  (Although it's not offering anything you can't find elsewhere).  And with players like Blinkbox and Kangaroo due to come online and Apple waiting in the wings, Web TV is set to go through some interesting machinations, including many Kafka-like legal battles no doubt.  The changes are partly driven by the fear of becoming the music industry (RIP), but the mega iTunes-style rewards that await the people who get it right is the really big prize.  However, until then, the Torrents keep on flowing...

[UPDATE: Or maybe The Prison Break tale is just about geography. Either way - very interesting.]

Comments

[Rory MacDonald]

It is a quality of service issue.

You can find what you want on the torrents.

All the legitimate services only deliver content from 2 or 3 companies. The customer doesn't want to be concerned with who the license holder on the content is, which online deals they have done and then have to work out where to find it.

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Rory, I'm reminded of the Doc Searls line : "In networked environments, the demand side supplies itself". Until of course, the supply side catches up....and Steve Jobs makes a fortune!