Imagine if, back in the day, record labels had said to Napster, "Sure, take our stuff," instead of bringing down the big legal hammer and crushing the pioneering peer-to-peer service. Times have certainly changed.

Over the past week, the popular BitTorrent site has posted a short documentary from major-label band Death Cab for Cutie, as well as songs and videos from a bunch of current and former Sub Pop Records acts, including the Postal Service, Hot Hot Heat, the Shins, Iron & Wine and Band of Horses. And within the week, there's going to be content on the site from Fall Out Boy too.

The 5-year-old site — which distributes a piece of file-sharing software that makes it easier to distribute and download big files containing movies, games, software and music by breaking them into smaller, more manageable packets — is the world's most popular peer-to-peer service, according to spokesperson Lily Lin. With 90 million people downloading BitTorrent to date, its users account for 40 to 60 percent of all Internet traffic, Lin said, and soon they're going to be able to get a lot of that material legitimately.

While much of the trading that goes on now is illegal swapping of copywritten material, BitTorrent is working on changing that. The Death Cab material marks the first time a major label has voluntarily offered its artists to BitTorrent. Also, the site signed a deal in May with Warner Bros. to legally sell copies of such Warner hits as the "Harry Potter" movies in a BitTorrent store that is slated to launch later this year.

That means taking down all the infringing material, but Lin said that's a good thing. "Publishers realize and recognize the importance of BitTorrent," she said. "It wasn't intended, but BitTorrent ended up being used as a facilitator of Internet piracy, but we've partnered with the Motion Picture Association of America to make sure we're cracking down on it."

Those efforts also led to the deal with Atlantic Records to post the Death Cab documentary, as well as other deals that will bring content from Fall Out Boy and the Gym Class Heroes within the next week. Just this week, the new single from the Cardigans' upcoming album went on the site as a free download.

Lin said the plan is to keep adding more major- and indie-label material to the site and to start stocking those songs and videos in the BitTorrent store, alongside free content that will continue to be available on the site.

For complete digital music coverage, check out the Digital Music Reports.