we are checking into the rumor that they hired Michael Corleone to bring the enterprise legitimate next year

We just can't ignore it anymore. Lightning fast, peer-to-peer software is coming to broadband television. azureus recently launched an HD video download service, Veoh is coming out of beta soon, and Niklas Zennstrom's Venice Project "could threaten the viability of network television" according to USA today. But quietly working behind the scenes, BitTorrent is trying to become more palatable to the mainstream.

BitTorrent is the poster child for video piracy. Some say that over 1/3 of all Internet traffic worldwide is due to BitTorrent file sharing. And it is easy to do: install the BitComet client application and download a torrent pointing to some large file and presto: you can have a 4 Gigabyte DVD movie in hours. Actually, download times decrease (go faster) when more people want the same file simultaneously! As a result, BitTorrent has millions of users.

Recently, BitTorrent has received an additional $20 million in venture capital investment. I have read in other publications that it may be as high as $25 million. The latest round of funding was led by Accel Patners with participation from initial investor DCM. But look out, Jim Cramer at TheStreet.com says that a BitTorrent IPO is next and it will be huge (EBay huge I think they said).

And why is this so? Simple, Hollywood may embrace BitTorrent as a distribution mechanism if it has a digital rights management component added to it. Recently announced distribution deals include more than 20 film studios and television networks which are expected to publish thousands of movies and television shows.

The hope is that some portion of people that routinely use BitTorrent application to obtain pirated material can be converted to purchase movies and television shows. I remember that a manager at BitTorrent said that they believe that 30% of that audience will pay for content. And a the plan just might work.