A Legitimate Light on BitTorrent

According to Canadian New outlet, The Star, the CBC is recently aired the finale of a popular Canadian reality show Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister – in which participants tried to convince both television and studio audiences of their fitness for a political future.  While the show concept is interesting by itself – what’s even more interesting is that the CBC has decided to release a high quality version of the finale through BitTorrent. a P2P file sharing software package that has – like most P2P clients – an “iffy” reputation due to being commonly used to copyright infringement though sharing of copyrighted files.

Peer-to-Peer file sharing is a perfectly legitimate software function.  What is questionable is WHAT files are shared.  Most people are familiar with the suits of individuals by the music industry for downloading MP3s they did not have a legal right to.   While legal, P2P software has tended to be viewed rather like smoking “paraphernalia” which, while technically legal and  marketed as “for use with tobacco” is more commonly associated in the public mind with smoking illegal substances such as marijuana.

While the media industry has become more open to distributing their products in download or podcast formats  most have used proprietary software to do so, such as iTunes or Amazon Unbox.  The use of BitTorrent – with it’s perceived shady past – says a lot both about the changing attitudes of the media industry, and the PR work companies like BitTorrent have done to appear more legitimate.

Illegal downloads and copyright infringement continue.  The software and media industries continue to develop more secure and complex data protection systems,  and, to some extent, the media is playing along with the changes in how people want to access content.

It’s hard to say what this evolving beast will look like five years down the road.  I think it’s an evolutionary process worth watching.