If You Can’t Beat ‘em, Join ‘em

In what appears to be a deal with the devil, Hollywood (20th Century Fox, Paramount and Warner Brothers) has decided to join forces with the popular peer-to-peer technology maker, BitTorrent, to create an online store will offer thousands of classic movies and television shows, as well as a large library of PC games and music videos.

It an important development from a number of different angles but one thing resonated with me is how the movie/video industry has addressed the P2P issue in a much different way than the music industry. Rather than try to bludgeon the video world legally, Hollywood has decided to play ball and create win-win situations. These deals don’t mean free video downloads will evaporate but at least Hollywood is trying to address the P2P in a pro-active way rather than following the music industry’s nasty legal agenda.

Can you imagine what would have happened if the music industry has co-oped Napster, which was a wonderful discovery tool (see my earlier post today on the need for discovery tools), instead of treating it like the devil? Napster’s emasculation was a sad development for a service with so much potential. Who knows, maybe Napster could have been a bigger and better iTunes if it was nurtured rather than neutered. Who knows whether the alliance between Bit Torrent and Hollywood will be successful but at least they’re trying.

For more, check out Mathew Ingram, who believes the Bit Torrent-Hollywood deal is doomed to fail, and IP Democracy, which points to the fact DRM issues could stop consumers from using the new service.