After online retailer Amazon.com Inc, Wal-Mart Stores and iPod/iPhone maker Apple Inc., now BitTorrent Inc is launching a service on Monday that will sell downloads of films and TV shows licensed from the studios.

Headquartered in San Francisco, California, the developer of internet content distribution technology based on the BitTorrent protocol said it is launching a download website that will provide more than 5,000 titles from digital movies and TV shows licensed from several key studios.

The site, called BitTorrent Entertainment Network is set to launch today with films and TV shows from 20th Century Fox News Corp, Warner Bros., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Lionsgate and Paramount Pictures as well as Paramount's sister company, MTV Networks.

It will provide the legal downloads of episodes of TV shows like "24" and ``Prison Break'' from News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox, as well as "Punk'd" and ``Chappelle's Show'' from Viacom's MTV Networks and Comedy Central.

TV episodes will be available for US$1.99 each to download to own, while high-definition shows will cost US$2.99. BitTorrent Entertainment Network will rent movies for a 24-hour viewing period for $3.99 for new titles like Oscar nominees ``Little Miss Sunshine'' and ``An Inconvenient Truth,” and $2.99 for older films.

After downloading a TV show or a movie the customers will have up to one month of time to watch it, but once they started to view a title, they must finish it in the next 24 hours. The video content offered by the new site is protected by Windows Media DRM and will only play back using Windows Media Player.

The new site, however, has decided not to sell films for now because the prices demanded by the studios were too hefty.

Telling about the service which the company says is intended for young men and boys who use BitTorrent in routine to trade pirated versions of the same films and who more often watch such files on their computer, Ashwin Navin, president and co-founder of BitTorrent said, "The vast majority of our audience just loves digital content. Now we have to program for that audience and create a better experience for that content so the audience converts to the service that makes the studios money."

BitTorrent, the latest competitor in the online video market, will face the competition from Apple, Amazon and Wal-Mart who have either launched or are testing download sites.

Early this month, Amazon.com Inc has entered into a distribution partnership with digital video recording service TiVo to introduce “Amazon Unbox on TiVo,” a soon-to-be-launched service feature that would let users watch videos rented or bought over the Internet directly on televisions. The television episodes on this service are available for US$1.99, and most movies for between US$9.99 and US$14.99. Subscribers can rent movies, starting at US$1.99.

In the second week of this month, Apple has joined hands with a Canadian entertainment company, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., to offer movies for purchase and download via its universal online iTunes Music Store. Most movies are available to download and purchased from the iTunes Store at US$9.99, and can be viewed on Macs, PCs, fifth-generation iPods and, soon, Apple TV.

This month, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. also has entered into partnership with six major Hollywood studios to sell digital movies and television shows on its Web site. The world renowned retailer’s "beta" version of the online video store will sell digital versions of about 3,000 films and television shows from all the key studios and some TV networks.

Digital download at Wal-Mart will cost $12.88 to $19.88 on the day of the DVD release, while older movies will start at $7.50 and TV episodes at $1.96 per show.