Another step

BarTor, the first Android based Torrent application was recently released and is available in the Android market for $2.99. While I am sure there are many potential positive uses for BarTor, this for-sale application enables copyright violators to misuse content much easier than ever.

The program allows a user to take pictures of DVD barcodes with their mobile phone, then the program finds the movie title associated with the barcode, and sends that information to a uTorrent P2P client running on the user's desktop computer. Your computer then searches, and downloads a most likely pirated copy of that movie, available from a Torrent enabled site.

Search and discovery are critical elements for content viewing and purchase. Now, with BarTor, a quick trip down the aisle of your favorite video store, with your Android camera at hand, enables you to add an element of physical discovery that heretofore was clumsy. I am not sure how great an impact this will ultimately have on the amount of content piracy suffered by the industry (I would bet not much for the BitTorrent audience), but I do know that continued advances in User Interfaces (Boxee), blending of the mobile and fixed worlds, and downward pressures on broadband, storage and computing prices will only dial-up the pressure on content owners and their virtual distributors. It seems as if they are now only a breath away from the morass newspapers and print magazines find themselves in.

For those who wold like a demo, here it is in action. Ironic to see this paid application being used to download content, via one of the most infamous pirate sites, Pirate Bay.

The product demo was posted two weeks ago and already has 121,000+ views.

Peer to peer pay to play paradigm

One of the greatest challenges for entrepreneurs and early stage investors is betting on an early paradigm shift; you never really know if it's a deep market, or a drip of water till you dive in. The venture business thrives on the turbulence and opportunities that paradigms offer entrepreneurs and their risk equity backers. But it's not a smooth line. Over the past 5 years we have seen a number of false paradigm waves that have consumed billions of dollars of capital and countless entrepreneurial cycles. Two of the largest faux paradigms that come to mind were RFID and WAP (mobile).

Moreover, despite great fanfare, it's still unclear whether stand-alone 'social' and 'video over the net transport/hosting' will prove to be faux or real self-sustaining markets too.

Another area that's received great attention is the great market disruption that can follow embracing peer to peer technology. BitTorrent was an incredible innovator that followed hard on the heals of Napster. Unfortunately, they also initially embraced the pirate aspect of Napster and, though attracting stalwart investors (Accel and DCM), they seem to have been unable to translate great download acceptance into a self-sustaining business.

Techcrunch posted a sad letter to shareholders from Bittorrent's CEO that details the terms of their most recent financing, which appears to be a rescission of their most recent $17mm financing round, replaced by a $7mm 'pay to play'...highlighting the desperation of the situation. The end of the post has the full term sheet.

The peer to peer paradigm has many niches (full disclosure that I am on the board of Pando ) that are performing well, though it's clear that eyeball aggregation, based on purloined content, though it worked at YouTube, is not working here.