Viral marketing. That's always tricky to get it started.

First thing is that you have to ensure that what you release on the P2P network is going to stay legal to transfer from user to user, even after the release. For example, trailers or scenes to which you have explicit rights to distribute (either by copyright, license, contract, etc). Granted, there's no guarantee that someone will *not* rip your movie and distribute it on P2P networks, however, that's a different aspect of what you are trying to accomplish.

When you want to encourage people to download a movie clip, you first need to entice them to download it. "Secretive" things work for one instance. Use filenames with "never released scenes", " 'stolen' outtakes", "bloopers they won't show you".

Sex,will "sell", especially in the age range you're looking at. Perhaps add a little "spice" to the filenames (and/or scenes). Like "movie star (almost) nude", "cut sex scene", "**** shown (blooper)".

They don't have to be 100% accurate in describing the content. Any person will exaggerate a bit to get his/her files to download. And once a person downloads it, and they share it, the cycle begins.

What kind of things should you show. Well, a theatrical trailer is indeed not a bad option. Cust scenes with some rave reviews are good too. Or perhaps, the first few minutes of the actual movie and then *bam*, it ends with "to see more, visit your local theatre coming August 2002!". Yeah, it'll get some annoyed. But when is someone not annoyed?

But you *do* have to keep in mind to keep it as honest as possible too. So you don't want to use descriptions for the movie clip that is *completely* false. People have a tendency to delete those from their system. And if they start seeing a pattern, they'll also start to figure which movie clips *not* to download in future.

You mentioned contest. Now, this is something you can add to entice P2P distribution. For example: "Find this movie clip on this P2P network, and get a chance to win $1,000!". Within that movie clip, it explains how you can enter to win. Since it is "easy" to find a movie clip on P2P networks, you'll know people will go for it. Obviously, by law, you are required to pay such prized ;-)

Just some ideas to run past you.