BitTorrent Goes Hollywood
Wednesday, 23. November 2005, 14:28:39
Web Site Agrees to Help Curb Access to Movies
By SHARON WAXMAN New York Times
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 22 - The creator of software used by millions of computer owners to download movies agreed on Tuesday to prevent his Web site from linking to illegally available movies online, the latest result of a bid by Hollywood to gain control of a growing piracy problem.
Bram Cohen, right, the 30-year-old founder and chief executive of BitTorrent, held a news conference with Dan Glickman, left, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America and chief lobbyist for the movie industry, to announce the agreement, which is aimed at choking off illegal movie traffic exchanged on peer-to-peer networks. (AP photo)
Mr. Cohen created BitTorrent a year ago. So far it has a minimal revenue stream, but he is hoping to make deals with Hollywood studios to license their movies and television shows and allow users to download them legally, for a fee.
He said he was in negotiations with several studios; the company announced last month that it had raised $8.75 million in venture capital to create a business of online media distribution.
The BitTorrent protocol, available free online, makes large video files, including movies, available online by assembling them from data downloaded by users across the Internet. The software is popular with college students and other computer aficionados, who can use it to download movies without the agreement of the studios that own them.
By SHARON WAXMAN New York Times
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 22 - The creator of software used by millions of computer owners to download movies agreed on Tuesday to prevent his Web site from linking to illegally available movies online, the latest result of a bid by Hollywood to gain control of a growing piracy problem.
Bram Cohen, right, the 30-year-old founder and chief executive of BitTorrent, held a news conference with Dan Glickman, left, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America and chief lobbyist for the movie industry, to announce the agreement, which is aimed at choking off illegal movie traffic exchanged on peer-to-peer networks. (AP photo)
Mr. Cohen created BitTorrent a year ago. So far it has a minimal revenue stream, but he is hoping to make deals with Hollywood studios to license their movies and television shows and allow users to download them legally, for a fee.
He said he was in negotiations with several studios; the company announced last month that it had raised $8.75 million in venture capital to create a business of online media distribution.
The BitTorrent protocol, available free online, makes large video files, including movies, available online by assembling them from data downloaded by users across the Internet. The software is popular with college students and other computer aficionados, who can use it to download movies without the agreement of the studios that own them.
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