If you aren't familiar with BitTorrent, it's a technology that allows users to download huge files from the Internet, and it's also the delivery method of choice for pirates. Television shows, movies, radio, software: You name it and you can probably find an illegal copy of it on a torrent search engine. Tape it Off the Internet, or TIOTI, has launched, in private beta, a new site which will blend Web 2.0 features, a torrent search engine and legitimate pay download video services. When Torrentfreak interviewed Paul Pod, one of the founders of the project, he said TIOTI wanted to create a "Napster moment," for television downloads. TIOTI will probably follow in the footsteps of Napster, but not in the way Pod is hoping.

The BitTorrent community is pretty much as lawless as you can get. Television shows and movies appear on BitTorrent sites before they air on broadcast TV and before their big screen release dates in some cases. The commercials are stripped out of the television shows. Files are sometimes wrought with malware. The fact that TIOTI has links to legitimate download-for-pay services won't mitigate the fact that they're basically doing exactly what sites like PirateBay.org have been doing for years. And those sites are constantly under fire for distributing illegal material.

Valleywag has a funny take on the news, and they aren't far off the mark. The networks and studios are actually working very hard to bring their content to the digital arena in a way that can keep the content profitable. Illegal torrents of their shows with the commercials cut out are a direct threat to this initiative and they won't stand for a mainstream company cannibalizing this new revenue stream. — Brian Ward

Go to story from torrentfreak
Go to story from Valleywag
Go to story from TechCrunch

Technorati tags: piracy, bittorrent, tioti.