Category Archives: BitTorrent Next

BitTorrent Exclusive TV-Series Writes History

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To most people in the entertainment industry BitTorrent is seen as a tool to download video and music without the consent of copyright owners, but there are also many artists who see it as a vital part of their business. The BitTorrent-only TV-series Pioneer One is one of the most progressive projects in this regard, and today the producers have released the third episode, with the fourth being scheduled for a release in the coming weeks.

It’s almost a year ago when we first wrote about the idea of two young filmmakers who had a plan to make a TV-show to be released on BitTorrent only, completely funded by the public.

In the months that followed this idea slowly transformed into something real. Within a few days the makers secured enough money to shoot a pilot, and with the help of many volunteers it was released to the public during June last year.

The pilot was released on the VODO platform, which guaranteed maximum exposure through partners like The Pirate Bay and FrostWire, but getting people to download it was the easiest part of the puzzle. There were still five episodes to go to finish the first season.

Luckily, many people liked what they saw and decided to donate money to keep the project going. An additional $20,000 was raised in two weeks and the counter topped the $30,000 mark early September – enough money to shoot more episodes.

As was hoped, the project was kept alive by fans of the show and the second episode was released late last year.

Today, Pioneer One reached another milestone as episode 3 of the show was just released. The fourth is currently scheduled for a release next month. Pioneer One writer Josh Bernhard is convinced that despite the unusual release format the show’s fan base is growing.

“The release of episode 2 demonstrated that the audience was still there, with more people discovering the show for the first time. I think each new episode is going to build our momentum, and people are going to become more invested as we reveal more pieces of the story,” Bernhard told us.

Pioneer One Episode 3

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And it’s not just BitTorrent users following the project, there has been plenty of recognition from other filmmakers and traditional TV people too. The peer-funded episode won an award for ‘Best Drama Pilot’ at the New York Television Festival, which was quite a morale booster for the makers and an indication that they are on the right track.

“I think the idea of BitTorrent as a viable means of distributing content is really starting to break through,” Bernhard said. “BitTorrent has something of a stigma, especially for people in the entertainment industry. When you say BitTorrent, I think a lot of people hear ‘piracy’ and stop listening. But between Pioneer One, Zenith and other projects adopting the same model, it’s going to become too big to dismiss.”

Although the Pioneer One crew have left their mark on history already, there is one major downside to the BitTorrent model. Shooting a TV-show is a costly exercise, and since the main budget also comes from peers, the crew has to raise money after every release so they can finish the first season. Thus far this has worked out, but an extra push is needed to fund the remaining episodes.

“We’re starting production of the last two episodes of our first season in May, financed with whatever money we raise between now and then. Our main focus is finishing out the season of 6 episodes, which I think will be a huge achievement. Naysayers said it couldn’t be done, that we were foolish for even trying. But we’re closer than ever and we’re determined to finish this chapter of Pioneer One, come hell or high water,” Bernhard said.

The third episode of Pioneer One can be downloaded on VODO, and don’t forget to chip in if you support the project.

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Unreleased Bowie on BitTorrent: Pirate Sabotage Turned Cultural Blessing

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After a decade in the dark the unreleased David Bowie album ‘Toy’ has just hit BitTorrent. Bowie is reportedly “livid” at the leak but his fans, who have expressed themselves in hundreds of postings, appear to be universally delighted. We tracked down the leaker to discover his motivations and learned that this controversial release was made to deliberately sabotage commercial pirates.

Image is Laoding.....In mid-2001, a new David Bowie album was scheduled for release. Titled ‘Toy’, the LP contained some of Bowie’s earliest work but following some kind of dispute at record label Virgin, it remained unreleased.

Three days ago, however, Bowie fans worldwide began waking up to a dream. All 14 tracks of Toy, running for around 1 hour in 256 kbps quality MP3, had been uploaded to BitTorrent.

While these kinds of controversial uploads are often made to big sites like The Pirate Bay, ‘Toy’ was initially placed on a lesser-known tracker called Mind Warp Pavilion and as far as we can see is yet to have migrated further afield, aside from a couple of brave blogs hosting it for direct play.

So where did the release suddenly come from? We decided to try and find out. During the course of our investigations we were initially informed by someone who claimed to be close to the uploader but requested anonymity that the album had been obtained via eBay. The sale we were shown took place on March 14th and was apparently shipped from Australia.

Today, though, we managed to make contact with the original uploader. Brigstow, as he is known online, hails from Bristol in the UK and is clearly a big Bowie fan. Not only did he categorically deny that he had purchased a bootleg CD and uploaded it, he said that it was because people were trying to make a buck from ‘Toy’ on eBay that he decided to leak it himself and sabotage their game.

“Myself and a few friends were very angry that certain people only seem to want to profit from recordings like the Toy album, so when we saw the eBay auction and heard of someone else selling discs for $55, I decide to upload it and give it away,” Brigstow told us.

Brigstow went on to explain that this upload was “not a new concept” to him as he used to run Savage Jaw, a BitTorrent tracker from a few years back which listed only quality David Bowie bootlegs and rare recordings.

While Rolling Stone says that Bowie’s office has refused to comment on the ‘leak’, The Sun in the UK is reporting that the star is ‘livid’ that the album has become available.

If true, this reaction is in stark contrast to those coming from Bowie’s adoring fans. After reading through hundreds of comments, we only managed to find one which complained directly about the leak and even then it appeared to be focused on a desire for it to have remained secret for the exclusive enjoyment of the ‘real’ fans and not for the masses.

Indeed, many Bowie fans are describing the leak as “magical”, “heavenly” and “a dream” and there are already dozens of fan-inspired pieces of artwork circulating as potential album cover candidates. What cuts through in page after page of discussion though, is just how passionate these people are about David Bowie.

“Nearly all the comments I’ve read from fans about this album have been positive, and most of them would still quite happily purchase a copy if it were given an official release,” said Brigstow.

But of course it’s not officially available and, depending on the location of the consumer, in theory and in extreme circumstances sharing it could even have a prison sentence attached. However, since this album was destined to spend its life in some dark dusty corner of a record exec’s office, never to see the light of day, its release this week cannot mean (even by record company calculations) that a single sale has been lost – quite the rarity among pre-release uploads.

The end result though is that many tens of thousands of Bowie fans are in line for an absolute treat, a delicious forbidden fruit of an album which, if not for the Internet, may have been permanently deleted from our musical culture due to label politics.

So the question remains. What is the most important – the pure enjoyment of the fans and ultimately the preservation of culture by any means, or the wishes of a record label and the rule of law that, in many instances, they helped to create?

Whatever the conclusion, it’s impossible to wind back the clock. Toy is out of the box now, and it’s never going back.

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Paramount Pictures Partner With BitTorrent Release Movie

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In a little over two months time, the long-awaited horror movie The Tunnel will receive its world premiere. Rather than a traditional theatrical release, the movie – which is set in abandoned real-life tunnels under Sydney, Australia – will make its debut online for free with BitTorrent. Simultaneously it will be released on physical DVD, to be distributed by Hollywood giant Paramount Pictures.

Image is Loading....Distracted Media’s Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey first hit the BitTorrent conciousness in mid 2010 when trying to raise funding for their latest project by selling frames of their upcoming horror movie.

The Tunnel is a story based in the real-life networks of tunnels under Sydney, Australia. Created many decades ago, the tunnels were originally intended to house a rail network but construction was discontinued and they later became U.S. General Macarthur’s headquarters during the Second World War.

Although the tunnels were later abandoned, a film crew decided to go down there, and so the story begins. From the trailers available, it looks pretty eerie.

In a little over 2 months, The Tunnel will be released worldwide and, true to the plan from the beginning, that premiere won’t take place in bricks-and-mortar, admission-charging theaters but on BitTorrent – for free.

Simultaneously, The Tunnel will also be released on DVD which will include two hours of exclusive footage including an alternate ending and a behind the scenes documentary. Distracted Media have just secured a physical distribution deal for that product but considering the movie’s key BitTorrent model, one of the companies now partnering them will certainly raise an eyebrow or two.

Transmission Films and Paramount Home Entertainment Australia, who work together on film acquisitions, have just confirmed they will be backing what they describe as “the film that captured the imaginations of internet users globally.”

We caught up with producer and editor Enzo Tedeschi and asked about this interesting partnership, particularly since Paramount – like most Hollywood studios – have shown much hostility to BitTorrent over the years, particularly in the recent and ongoing AFACT v iiNet case in Australia.

“Our experience with Transmission Films and Paramount has been positive, and we’re impressed with how forward-thinking they’ve been on considering our specific project,” Enzo explained.

“From day one we’ve maintained that The Tunnel is not supporting or condoning piracy, but instead trying to incorporate a legitimate use of peer-to-peer in our distribution strategy internationally.”

While some might be suspicious of Paramount given their track record, the Internet community in particular constantly calls for change and for the studios to embrace – not fight – new ideas and distribution models. Being associated with The Tunnel project certainly seems like a step in the right direction.

“So much of the debate at the moment is caught up around what has been happening in the past, but that’s not what The Tunnel is about,” co-producer Julian Harvey told us. “We’re trying to look ahead. We have a film and we’re trying to find an audience.”

The Tunnel will do just that, May 19th on a BitTorrent tracker near you.

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BitTorrent Inc. Releases Dummy Proof Download Client

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To make BitTorrent appeal to an even wider audience, uTorrent parent company BitTorrent Inc. has released a brand new BitTorrent client today. Codenamed Chrysalis, the new piece of software is aimed at novice BitTorrent users who are generally overwhelmed by the traditional interface of uTorrent and the mainline client. In the months to come Chrysalis will replace BitTorrent’s mainline client.

Image is Loading....Over the years BitTorrent Inc. has acquired a dominant position with their two BitTorrent applications, uTorrent and the Mainline client. The two clients have over 100 million active users a month and this number continues to increase.

There is no doubt that BitTorrent’s user base is impressive, but there is still a lot of untapped potential. Both uTorrent and BitTorrent’s mainline client have a relatively large bounce rate. That is, a large number of new users try the software a few times, but don’t become regular users.

“During 2010 less than a third of new client downloads resulted in a new monthly active user,” BitTorrent’s Simon Morris told us. “Plenty of people download and install the client, but can’t figure out how to use it, and then uninstall it very quickly,” he added.

To change this, BitTorrent Inc. have been working on a new project with the aim of keeping those users on board. Today marks the release of the first Alpha version of this new client – codenamed project Chrysalis.

“The best products out there don’t have any significant educational hurdles – it is just obvious how they work. This is what we’re ultimately aiming for with this new project, although it will take time to get there. The client we’re releasing today is just a starting point,” Morris told us.

Chrysalis Interface

 

Image is Loading....Today’s release is a very early Alpha, but it should give a good indication of where BitTorrent Inc. is going with their new client. By default it is filled with several prominently placed ‘apps’, such as those from TED and VODO, which provide access to downloads. This means that users will see content right away when they start the client

One of the main reasons why some users don’t come back to the client is a perceived lack of content. New users sometimes don’t know where to find content so the current version of Chrysalis should address this issue to some degree. In addition, the simplified user interface should be more welcoming to people who are new to BitTorrent.

Overall the Chrysalis client behaves quite intuitively. Downloads are added by a single click and show only basic information. Once a download is finished media files can be launched in a media player directly from the app. Starting, stopping and removing files can be done with a single click as well.

The client is built on the uTorrent v3.0 codebase but in the future new and unique features will be added as well.

“The first project Chrysalis beta is aiming at cleaning up the overall user experience and transforming a technical and data-rich experience into a cleaner more media-rich experience. This in itself will not be sufficient to solve the attrition problem, but we hope it will establish a new platform on which to build,” Morris said.

Chrysalis Download Interface

 

Image is Loading....Another subtle change compared to the BitTorrent Mainline client is the more prominent placement of the search box. Users can type in search terms here and are, interestingly enough, redirected to a Google search for torrents. A surprising move, since Google just banned the words ‘uTorrent’ and ‘BitTorrent’ from some of its services.

Chrysalis is not intended for the more experienced BitTorrent user, but BitTorrent hopes it will appeal to a wider audience than their other clients do now. If all goes well, the dummy-proof client will completely replace the current Mainline client, which currently is a clone of uTorrent.

Time will tell whether this approach will be effective. Luckily, uTorrent users don’t have to panic as we are assured that their favorite client will always be available and developed separately. The Alpha release of Chrysalis is available for download starting today, currently limited to Windows operating systems.

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