New Media Age, the UK interactive marketing & business weekly, has an article about 'download problem' (read 'what to do with cheap and illegaly distributed content available online') and mentions Blowing Smoke in the context of internet's impact on 'content companies'. (Alas, the article, although available to read in full now, will disappear behind a subscription wall. However, I'll quote at length to provide as full a context as possible).

The emergence of peer-to-peer file-sharing has had a dramatic and well-reported effect on content companies, particularly the record industry.

P2P is the most efficient distribution system yet devised for content and, if record companies are right, its use for illegal file sharing means far more people consume a piece of content than would do if they were all forced to pay for it.

Last week I looked at online content and the options of making return on producing and distribution content online. There are roughly three routes.

There are few choices to make online pay for content - you can find a sponsor, you can stick ads to pay for it (provided you have enough 'eyeballs' to impress the admen) or you can charge for it.

The article takes similar approach:

Part of the problem is how to charge for these new ad opportunities. It's very difficult to put a price on ad space when you have no idea how many people will view it. So in order to take advantage of this reach, content owners would have to acknowledge that they had lost the battle against the file sharers. In fact, they'd have to embrace file sharing, to track the number of times their content is viewed. Needless to say, that's not going to happen any time soon. At least not in Hollywood.

And now for the BS finale:

But out in the independent sector, things are changing. This month saw the launch of a low-budget, privately financed film called Blowing Smoke. It was made using digital technology [and] to keep cost down is being launched online via a blog (blowingsmokethemovie.com) and is being made available as a download as well as being sold as a DVD on the site. Producer Kamal Aboukhater's prime aim is to challenge Hollywood's way of marketing and distributing a film, by investing time rather than money. Link this low-cost approach to different approaches to advertising and things start to get really interesting.

I'd say.