by Playfuls Staff |
9th May 2006
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group announced a groundbreaking
agreement with BitTorrent Inc. to leverage the company's peer-assisted
delivery system for the electronic sell through of motion picture and
television content in the United States. With this [more] announcement,
Warner Bros. becomes the first major studio to provide legal video
content via the BitTorrent publishing platform.
The announcement follows BitTorrent's agreement with the Motion Picture
Association of America (MPAA) to prevent film piracy and promote
innovation in online digital distribution of content. Content published
with BitTorrent will be available on the BitTorrent.com website and
feature downloadable programming. The distribution channel will
leverage BitTorrent's revolutionary "file-swarming" technology, which
enables the transfer of massive files from a website to a PC with the
speed and bandwidth efficiency of peer-assisted transfers. This new
method of delivery is the first peer-assisted network in the U.S. that
combines guaranteed availability, high-quality video and rapid download
rates.
BitTorrent will provide the first peer-assisted technology platform to
offer U.S. consumers legal content on both a video-on-demand (VOD) and
electronic sell through (EST) basis, day-and-date with the DVD release.
The service is intended to launch in summer of 2006 and will initially
feature more than 200 Warner Bros. new releases, catalog favorites and
television series. Featured titles to be initially offered will include
newer releases such as "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," "Tim
Burton's Corpse Bride," "Dukes of Hazzard," "North Country," and "Rumor
Has It," as well as library titles such as "The Matrix," "Dog Day
Afternoon," "Natural Born Killers," and "National Lampoon's Vegas
Vacation." TV programming will include shows such as "Babylon 5" and
"Dukes of Hazzard."
BitTorrent was designed in 2001 to be an effective publication tool for
large files on the Web. With the launch of BitTorrent's search engine
in 2005, BitTorrent.com became a place for publishers to showcase their
content and consumers to find and download content in one convenient
location. BitTorrent continues to work with the Motion Picture
Association of America (MPAA) to remove copyright infringing content
from its search results and is working with studios to replace that
content, to provide a secure, legal venue for consumers. With
integrated monetization for paid and ad-supported content, the
forthcoming BitTorrent service will be an ideal platform for the online
distribution of popular video.
