Before the current economic crisis landed with a thwack on our plate and ensured that few would escape the beast unscathed, I was really long on peer-to-peer. Totally bullish. And paid P2P - selling content on those peer-to-peer systems that content owners tried to sue out of existence - made sense. I thought, “eventually those Big Media dolts will come around and see the light.” I’m not so sure anymore.  At least not in the short term.  This week we saw half of the staff at BitTorrent Inc getting some serious pink slippage along with the planned termination of the BitTorrent Entertainment Network, an online storefront for copyrighted media. Which tells me that the legit, utopian vision of paid-for P2P downloads is headed for a depression.  Of course, the invention of P2P itself will live on, and mightily so. There’s no reason it wouldn’t, apart from any sudden disconnect of users that might result from a collective credit collapse. (Knock on wood.)  What’s more, content creators aren’t necessarily so adventurous when crises hit. At least not when they’re trying to secure the most money per viewer possible. That simply can’t be guaranteed through P2P delivery, as opposed to the closed systems of iTunes and Amazon and so forth.  The same goes for the consumer side of the equation. It’s true that BitTorrent rival Vuze recently upgraded its software to version 4.0, and if I’m honest, it’s none too shabby. But consumers tend to flock toward abundance. And I doubt much abundance will greet Vuze anytime soon.  Just look at iTunes today. It’s full of content from the major television networks. And if you’re to take a similar glance at the top 10-20 unofficial peer-to-peer-based television downloads, you’ll see plenty of names that populate the networks’ prime time schedule. That’s not business friendly to the studios, but you can imagine what Vuze users might want to see in the company’s catalogue, but aren’t available.  I’ll maintain that P2P as a platform is helpful in many ways and worthwhile for media companies to pursue. But given the current climate in the web media space, it’s hard to imagine a collection like Vuze, or the expired BitTorrent Entertainment Network, making great inroads into the mainstream in 2009 and beyond.
BitTorrent Inc's Entertainment Network is dead. Is Vuze Next? How is paid P2P going to live in the pressure cooker of a recession?