This I suspect is in answer to Bit Torrents commercialisation.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080220-eu-broadcasters-give-thumbs-up-to-p2p-startup.htmlWhile ISPs in the US continue to work against the use of P2P apps and broadcasters continue to experiment with restrictive DRM schemes, Europe is making some major moves in the other direction. The EU is contributing €15 million towards the development of a next-gen BitTorrent client that will allow streaming in addition to P2P downloading, with another €4 million coming from 21 other partners. The partners—which include big names like the BBC, the European Broadcasting Union, and Pioneer Digital Design Centre Limited—describe the project as an effort to develop Europe's "next-generation Internet television distribution system."
The project is called P2P-Next, and the technology behind it is being developed by the folks behind open-source, decentralized P2P service Tribler. The P2P-Next project will use the next four years to determine how well a wide-scale launch of the technology will work among the masses. "If successful, this ambitious project could create a platform that would enable audiences to stream and interact with live content via a PC or set-top box," P2P-Next said in a statement. "In addition, it is our intention to allow audiences to build communities around their favourite content via a fully personalized system."
The Tribler team—made up of developers from the Delft University of Technology and the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam—says that it is excited to be a major partner in P2P-Next. The technology will be completely decentralized and have backwards compatibility with BitTorrent
Four years is too long in reality for this to come to fruit but what the heck
