BySunshine K. Mugrabi

Oscar madness is over, but peer-to-peer download service BitTorrent is just getting going. The company’s long-awaited video download service, launched Monday, comes just in time to promote itself as a place to get hold of some of the Academy winners, such as Little Miss Sunshine and An Inconvenient Truth.

The new BitTorrent site, dubbed the BitTorrent Entertainment Network, is the result of partnerships the company has forged with top Hollywood studios and media companies such as 20^th Century Fox, Lions Gate, MTV Networks, Paramount, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, and MGM.

The newly launched site will offer paid downloads of more than 5,000 feature films, TV shows, games, and music videos. Movie titles can be rented and then downloaded to any Windows user for $2.99 to $3.99 per file. TV shows and music can be purchased for $1.99 each. Free content is also available.

The launch is a major step for the San Francisco, California-based company, which has been working hard to shed its image as an illegal downloading tool.

“BitTorrent is [officially] a media company when we launch this,” said Ashwin Navin, co-founder and president of BitTorrent.

Of course, BitTorrent is hardly first to the party. Apple’s iTunes online store has been offering movie downloads since September, and Microsoft’s Xbox Live has had a similar service for use with its game console since November. Even discounter Wal-Mart is in the game now.

On the video side, the company must compete with YouTube and Joost. And meanwhile, there are lots of smaller movie-downloading services, such as MovieLink, CinemaNow, and Guba—not to mention the many illegal download sites.

But analysts say BitTorrent has a fighting chance against these formidable competitors, because of its technology. Developed by BitTorrent CEO Bram Cohen, BitTorrent’s peer-to-peer transmission speeds download times considerably—and it is something none of the industry heavyweights possess.

“Bottom line is, things tend to download faster” from BitTorrent, says Inside Digital Media analyst Phil Leigh.

The new BitTorrent site is aimed squarely at the demographic that’s already using its peer-to-peer technology for both legal and illegal downloads—males in the 15- to 35-year-old range. For instance, movie descriptions on the new site have a distinctly male-oriented tone. In other words, lots of talk about hot babes, cool games, and use of phrases like “things suck.” The real question, however, is how many of the estimated 135 million current BitTorrent users will be willing to pay to use the technology—especially after getting it for free for so long.

Mr. Leigh bets many of them will. The viruses, malware, and legal risks are making illegal downloading too much of a hassle, he says.

And of course, BitTorrent is hoping so too.