Norwegian BitTorrent Broadcasting

Leaving behind archaic and outdated thinking for a smarter way of approaching broadcasting.

We've all heard of the evils of BitTorrent, the scourge of the televisual and auditory industries alike, and the bane of games developers - it's had many adverts already to tell us just how wrong it is (as well as funny spoofs that remind us just how silly it is).

But what if there was a legitimate reason for using BitTorrent as a distribution method? As a model, it's already the perfect setup. For the Norwegian State TV Station - it's now a reality.

There are no costs involved to the company moving to this distribution method. They're still broadcasting the content to their local viewers, but now they can expand to reach everyone from the businessmen on Wall St to the penguins in Antarctica (they code Linux).

Each person who downloads this will share the files around, spreading and multiplying like cane toads to eventually give great speeds to anyone interested in the shows, all for the cost of a single upload by the TV Station.

Also included in the broadcasted video files are subtitles that can be easily translated for anyone all over the world to enjoy the shows, but there are still some restrictions.

They can't upload all the shows that they broadcast thanks to the rights restrictions enforced by the content providers and film studios, so for the time being it's just their content that they are sharing.

They're using the OpenTracker software that The Pirate Bay uses to keep count of how many people download each show, where they are worldwide, and how popular the shows are. If all we have to deal with is an embedded ad or two in the videos for the convenience of getting shows instantly and when we want them - then that might just be worth it.

We'll see how this distribution method evolves in the future, but for now it makes a lot of sense to get the smaller players out there on the intertubes to be able to compete against the giants in the short-term.

Naturally this also brings into question what will happen if it is a success, and whether it will be enough to make those bigger corporations stand up and take notice and copy them - can the internet cope with hundreds of competing TV channels duking it out across the tubes?

Head over to TorrentFreak to read a little more about the rights of the station, and keep your eyes peeled for a few more companies trying this method in the future.

After all, once it's out there, you can't stop the signal.