Online service becomes legal

A peer-to-peer service once used to pirate videos online has released a legal alternative for entertainment seekers.

The new service, called BitTorrent Entertainment Network, became available to the public at BitTorrent.com Feb. 26, said Lily Lin, director of communications at BitTorrent.

BitTorrent has become licensed partners with studios including 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures and television channels including VH1, Comedy Central and Warner Bros. Entertainment, Lin said, adding that the partnerships allow the service to legally distribute their content.

Downloadable movies are available for purchase or rent, Lin said. Rented content can be viewed for up to 24 hours within 30 days after payment, according to the terms of service.

Newly released movies available for rental are $3.99, while older titles are $2.99 to rent. Television shows and music videos are available for purchase at $1.99 per episode or video, according to a BitTorrent press release.

PC-based games range in price for purchase from between $10 and $30, Lin said. Most songs are available at no charge, she said.

Most downloads can be played using Windows Media Player 11 on PCs, Lin said. Free downloads can also be played on Mac and Linux operating systems, Lin said.

Lin said BitTorrent's main audience is 16- to 34-year-old men because they primarily use their computers to listen to music and watch videos. "For a lot of college-aged students, because dorm room size is so limited, most viewing [is done from their computers]," she said.

The BitTorrent Entertainment Network's compatibility is not restricted to any one device, allowing for users to upload downloads onto any device they may have, Lin said.

"We also have self-published content, so if you're an independent artist you have a channel to distribute your work and present your work alongside major studios," Lin said.

Carleen Maitland, assistant professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), said students who usually download online content illegally are not likely to change their behavior with the introduction of BitTorrent's new service. But after they graduate and the threat of legal action "has a little more bite," students may wish to download legally, she said.

John Bagby, professor in the College of IST, said he is hopeful legal forms of peer-to-peer file sharing will continue to arise. "If a peer-to-peer service can be developed that has a legal business model, what we need is another form of a business model that will make this content available at reasonable prices that reasonable customers [would be interested in]," he said.

It may be difficult for users to adapt to the design of BitTorrent's service if it's radically different from other, more familiar services such as iTunes and Napster, and such a difference could "be the death of it," Maitland said.

"One thing that's not clear that needs to be understood is whether the behavior of music downloaders is the same as video downloaders," Maitland said. "There are always issues of who are the users and what are they trying to get out of it."