DJ Shadow Distributes Through BitTorrent

In an effort to “understand each other,” software developer company BitTorrent has partnered with DJ Shadow and his digital marketing team Fame House to create DJ Shadow’s Hidden Transmissions BitTorrent Bundle.

This is not the first time BitTorrent has collaborated directly with artists/bands but DJ Shadow is the first artist getting paid directly for BitTorrent distribution of his work.

The bundle comes with three tracks from Hidden Transmissions, archival footage from the MPC era, artist-curated photo vault and time capsule, and optional RealPlayer software. DJ Shadow fans can download that software, but if they do, the partner (in this case RealPlayer) pays BitTorrent, and DJ Shadow gets a cut.

BitTorrent’s executive director of marketing Matt Mason told Music Ally,

“This is the first time in history that anybody’s tried to monetize the BitTorrent ecosystem in a way that naturally plays into its value. The biggest problem with this technology has been that it lets people share things indefinitely at a cost of zero. That’s actually a real opportunity for the content industries if we can build business models on top of it.”