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BitTorrent says it will soon produce its own television shows.
Today, the San Francisco-based company, which offers tools for downloading and sharing movies, music, and other content via the peer-to-peer BitTorrent protocol, announced a partnership with Rapid Eye Studios to launch what it calls BitTorrent Originals. Together, the pair will create original video content and distribute it via BitTorrent Bundle, the company’s publishing platform.
With these originals, the company is following in the footsteps of other online companies, including Netflix, Amazon, and Yahoo. Original internet series are not only prevalent, they’re, well, pretty good. Amazon’s Transparent and Netflix’s Orange Is the New Black recently went head to head at the Golden Globes.
BitTorrent Bundle will have the exclusive on these series, but only for a while. After about 30 to 60 days, creators will be free to distribute their series any other way they like. Each series will receive marketing support across the BitTorrent ecosystem, and the creators will take a 90 percent cut of the profits, which will come from both ads and paid downloads.
“Expanding into the world of original content is a move that makes us a serious player in the media business, and takes us another step closer toward our goal: creating a sustainable digital future for creators of all kinds,” BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker, said in a statement.
BitTorrent says its Originals are aimed at 14- to 25-year-olds, or the audience that makes up most of its 170 million monthly active users. The first project to be produced on the platform, Children of the Machine, is set to launch in late 2015. The company will offer a free version of the series—alongside ads—as well as a $9.95 ad-free version.
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