CBC Wows by Offering TV Show Through BitTorrent

My, how the battle between music/video content producers and online download sites has taken a drastic turn. The CBC just announced that it will be offering TV show Canada's Next Great Prime Minister for free download via BitTorrent technology, which (to my knowledge) was once known as a fruitful method for downloading content illegally. There will be no DRM restrictions on the digital content, which means that downloaders can save the file to their PC, burn it to a CD, and even transfer it to a portable device for viewing on the go.

This is a far cry from a few years back when content producers were doing everything in their power to prevent the distribution of their programming and music online. This included, in many cases, lawsuits against Websites and technologies just like BitTorrent, or even YouTube. We then saw many producers take a lousy step forward with DRM-laden, pay-per-use content that virtually prevented downloaders from being able to fully enjoy what they just purchased. This move represents not so much defeat as it does the eventual understanding of the current state of the industry.

According to the CBC Website, it's an experimental move, prompted by the knowledge that the Norwegian Broadcasting Corp. is doing something similar. "Do you think this is a good/bad idea?" CBC asks its Website visitors. "Would you like to see more shows distributed this way?" (Sidenote: if you wanted a prime example of the interactive element of media that I was discussing in the previous post, this is a great one!)

If all goes well, I wouldn't be surprised to see more popular CBC programming distributed this way. Congratulations to CBC on making this move. Hopefully it will prompt others to follow suit, although it looks like the majority of content producers are finally "getting it".