In a licensing partnership with media studios, BitTorrent is now launching a "legitimate" Web site that will sell video downloads of film and TV shows.
With approximately 135 million people downloading the software, the company is hoping to tap into about a third of them that will pay for the service legally.
Some of the studios represented are 20th Century Fox (NWS-A), MGM, Warner Bros. (TWX), Paramount Pictures (VIA), and Lionsgate.
The targeted audience will be young males who have used the software in the past to trade in pirated content to watch on their computer screens.
"The vast majority of our audience just loves digital content," Ashwin Navin, president and co-founder of BitTorrent, told The Associated Press. "Now we have to program for that audience and create a better experience for that content so the audience converts to the service that makes the studios money."
Pricing for the targeted demographic will be consistent with competitors like Apple's (AAPL) iTunes who charge $1.99 for downloaded TV shows. Also included on the new site will be movie rentals available for 24-hour viewing periods at $3.99 for new titles and $2.99 for older offerings.
The site won't offer films for sale because the company feels the prices demanded by studios is too high for their specific, young audience, which is young males between the ages of 15 and 35.
Also included with the service will be the popular high-definition video and Japanese anime. Content creators will also be able to publish their own material to the site to compete with the content offered by studios.
The value of the BitTorrent technology is in the speed of downloads which comes from separate bits of data being downloaded from various computer users scattered across the Internet. Downloads are completed in about half the time as a result.
At this time BitTorrent will be protected by Windows Media DRM and will only play on Windows Media Player.
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