Broadband Syndication Synergies and P2P

Today, there was a /. post about a new MythTV plug-in called Torrentocracy that extends the included MythNews RSS Aggregator to support RSS Enclosures and Bit Torrent.

Torrentocracy is not the first to mesh RSS Enclosures, Bit Torrent and PVRs.

In fact, NewsGator released NewsGator Media Center Edition back in April and two weeks ago, Ray Slakinski’s Nucleus application, which can be used in a similar way on just about any environment.

I’ll definitely give Torrentocracy a test on my STeVo. However, what I’ve been thinking about is the next iteration of these tools…

For example, given the integration with PVRs, it seems fairly logical that the next adaptation will enable the sharing of your recorded shows back out to the Bit Torrent and/or other P2P networks.

This greases the wheel, considerably, on sharing digital media en mass. Whereby the Cable TV networks become top node distribution points, seeding the P2P networks with current content and built-in redundancy.

Wow! Things could get interesting…

History however, with respect to the fear and customer loathing that runs amuck in the music industry, has told us that the big media companies will, no doubt, try to stop this “potentially” illegal activity at its inception.

The sad thing is that they are not seeing that these options are driven by customer demand (or IMHO customer innovation) and not by a couple of 15 year old kids looking for a quick way to get porn.

I surely hope I’m wrong. Perhaps the big media companies have seen the writing on the wall with the fanaticism around time-shifting media boxes such as the TiVo. But then again the legal bullying is already in-play against ReplyTV after they included a sharing feature back in 2001.

There has to be a common ground!