Monetizing BitTorrent helps Australian newspaper keep down video costs
“Sydney Morning Herald publisher Fairfax was spooked by the escalating cost of licensing video for its new TV site. So now it’s adding cheaper content by legalising BitTorrent videos on producers’ behalf.”
Another approach that has similar outcomes to Amazon’s: let the content first prove itself popular on BitTorrent, and then license it and give it legitimate distribution, at much lower cost than producing original content itself.
Using file-sharing networks to identify consumer appetite is smart but not entirely new in other media sectors. Music labels are believed to pay close to attention to what goes down well with freeloaders.
Then there’s the somewhat tongue-in-cheek response:
The Australian‘s diary writer jests: “One wonders what advertisers think of Fairfax tailoring content to the tastes of people who don’t want pay for anything.â€
What’s not mentioned is that study upon study has shown that those who “pirate” content are also those that pay best for content, suggesting once again, that “piracy” is a business model problem, and there are many ways to profit from it.