BitTorrent yesterday announced it’ll be releasing a brand new application in the near future. Called Now, the software will let users stream videos and music from independent artists and studios to their iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Apple TV.
Ad-supported streaming will give creators who use BitTorrent’s paygate another revenue option, said the company, without divulging a firm release date for the new app.
The application will allow you to easily discover music and video, largely from independent creators you’ve never heard of, follow the artists you love and support them directly.
According to the company, creators who participate in the pilot program for ad-streaming will keep 70 percent of all ad revenue. Some Now content will be free, but most of it will require payment or include ads. BitTorrent has plans to enable people to distribute VR content via the Now platform in the future.
About 30,000 creators currently use BitTorrent to legitimately publish their work, including recognizable names like the film distributor A24. Rather than use BitTorrent’s peer-to-peer delivery system, Now content will stream content from BitTorrent’s servers to your devices.
According to BitTorrent CEO Jerm Johnson in The Verge, the Now platform will eventually switch to peer-to-peer (P2P) content distribution. “We are actively developing the P2P components, which require varying levels of effort for each platform,” he said, adding that the system “will use distributed networking in the near future.”
BitTorrent Now for Android has already launched, while the iOS and Apple TV editions will be available “soon”, according to the company.
The service is also available on the web.
Source: BitTorrent