BitTorrent to pimp the silver screen?

Peer-to-peer company BitTorrent will begin distributing movies and TV shows for top entertainment companies starting this spring, the company is expected to announce today.

In February, BitTorrent will launch a video store where customers can download movies from such Hollywood studios as 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate and Paramount Pictures, as well as TV shows from MTV Networks. Earlier this year, BitTorrent announced a similar partnership with Warner Bros Home Entertainment.

Financial terms of the agreement were not released.

Postcards from the bleeding edge…

Read the latest missive from tech guru and silicon.com columnist, Peter Cochrane, as he blogs from around the world.

The deal comes at a time when Hollywood is looking for a winning internet movie strategy. Short-form video distributed over the net has caught fire on sites such as YouTube. Many in the digital-entertainment realm are preparing for a day when the web will provide an effective and profitable distribution method for feature-length films.

BitTorrent's announcement comes a day after Wal-Mart Stores, the world's largest retailer, launched its own movie download service. Other companies that have struck net distribution agreements with studios are Amazon.com, Apple's iTunes and video-sharing site Guba.

Even by offering thousands of titles, BitTorrent faces tough competition from the massive libraries of Amazon and Wal-Mart. Executives at BitTorrent say they plan to stand out from the pack by offering consumers the speediest way to download a movie.

Developed in 2001, BitTorrent's open source distribution system was designed to help transfer large files over the internet. It allows a single file to be broken into small fragments that are distributed among computers. People then share pieces of the content with one another.

The company also has street credibility with a group that studios want to bring into the fold: pirates.

Eric Patterson, BitTorrent's general manager of consumer services, said: "We come to the table with a solution to piracy. Millions of people are using BitTorrent to download content legally and illegally. We know from our research that 30 per cent of that audience will pay for content. We're going to help the studios turn an enormous problem into a viable sales channel."

Greg Sandoval writes for CNET News.com