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BitTorrent's Creator Bram Cohen Interviewed

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the mega-props-to-this-guy dept.

Delta-9 writes "The New York Times has this interview (free reg. req.) with Bram Cohen, the author/creator of the widely popular BitTorrent p2p application." Talks a bit about BitTorrent, its implications, but also a lot about Bram himself. Interesting piece.

6 of 455 comments (clear)

  1. FIRST POST! by MadWicKdWire · · Score: -1, Troll

    First post!

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    Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)... oops
  2. fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    FP. GERRY ALAN IS A FOCKER.

  3. Some people try to rationalize this in a dumb way by Sheetrock · · Score: -1, Troll
    Hypothetical situation.

    I write a novel. It's not a particularly good novel, but I'm proud of it. I have a copyright on the novel which I do not relinquish or alter, and I publish and sell copies of the novel.

    A reader somewhere thinks it's the best novel he's ever read, or at least in his top 100. He scans the book to HTML and uploads it to a filesharing network. He has stolen my right to distribute my work on my terms.

    A user of the filesharing network downloads the scanned copy of my novel. He too has stolen my right to choose the means and scope of my distribution.

    My novel is still there, but I have lost something. See also the Merriam-Webster definition, transitive senses 1b-1d.

    Please put this "it's not stealing, it's infringement" argument to rest, folks. It's used as a particularly moronic crutch by some avid P2P fileswappers, and eclipses the better points that could be made (such as that we should reduce the copyright term in order to promote competition and innovation in content).

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    Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
    -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.




  4. A protocol better than BitTorrent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
    Is anyone else sick of BitTorrent downloading 4kB/s while uploading 40kB/s? Or your downloads getting stuck at 99%? Anyone sick of a lack of a good C implementation and the Python implementation chewing up all your CPU and memory?

    Check out PDTP, it looks quite promising. It serves file heirarchies just like an HTTP or FTP server and doesn't require you to pregenerate something like a .torrent file, is written completely in C, and supports a number of other features like XML metadata and directory listings.

  5. Obligatory Soviet Russia quote by carabela · · Score: -1, Troll

    Make the /. effect work for you, essentially.

    "In Soviet Russia, they make you work for the /. effect."

    ... the idea of that just gives me the creeps!

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    The more you know, the less you need. [Admin added: from me.]
  6. Re:Works for Valve now by irc.goatse.cx+troll · · Score: 0, Troll

    OR get a better bt client. azureus is decent. as is ABC. google is your friend, I am not.

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    Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx