Hollywood Buddies up with Bram Cohen

brajesh writes "According to an AP story at Yahoo News, Hollywood studios announced an agreement with Bram Cohen, the creator of the popular BitTorrent file-swapping technology, that will keep him from helping users find pirated copies of movies online. The agreement requires BitTorrent to remove Web links leading to illegal content owned by the seven studios that are members of the MPAA. The agreement is a major breakthrough in MPAA's anti-piracy efforts. BitTorrent has been one of the major targets[.doc] of MPAA's anti-piracy tirade. However, Cohen's engine is far from the only tool used to find pirated BitTorrent files online. A handful of other online engines can search BitTorrent-specific sites, and ordinary search engines can also be used to find BitTorrent files."

Comments

total perfection not always needed

[ummit]

...Cohen's engine is far from the only tool used to find pirated BitTorrent files online. A handful of other online engines can search BitTorrent-specific sites, and ordinary search engines can also be used to find BitTorrent files.

There's an old saying, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". The big copyright holders will always go after the highest-profile "choke points" first, and in general (i.e. when solving problems of any kind, regardless of how you feel about the studios' motives ion solving this particular "problem"), it can be a perfectly appropriate, effective strategy.

Techies often have a bad habit of adopting a sort of slippery-slope, sky-is-falling, all-or-nothing approach to problem solving (especially if it's a problem they don't really want to solve). "This proposed solution has a hole in it and is not guaranteed to be 100% effective, therefore it is no solution at all and is foolish to pursue." Not necessarily true. You don't always need to find a perfect solution; sometimes a 90% solution is good enough, especially if the alternative is sitting on your hands doing nothing wishing you had a 100% perfect solution.

(Off-topic, but to rescue my karma before I'm accused of siding with the studios here: the same thought processcan act in all sorts of other situations, not just copy protection. For example, if you suggest that a great way of reducing the threat of e-mail vuruses would be to redesign mail clients so that they don't make it easy to click on executable attachments and run them, while still allowing users to click on data attachments and view them, you'll receive all sorts of "objections" from techies who think they know better, pointing out that your solution "won't work" because of the possibility of e.g. JPEG and Word viruses.)

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Liquorman]

Agree. In my business, we frequently have to rely on the 80-20 rule - solve 80% of the problem that you can with the least effort and then worry about the other 20%. This seems like what they are trying to do.

I also think the MPAA are becomming smarter. This quote FTA shows that they are learning from the mistakes of and bad publicity of the RIAA:

Glickman said his staff had been holding talks with Cohen even before that ruling to see "how we can work collaboratively and not be at each other's throats."

Re:total perfection not always needed

[radarjd]

Techies often have a bad habit of adopting a sort of slippery-slope, sky-is-falling, all-or-nothing approach to problem solving (especially if it's a problem they don't really want to solve).

So true, and if I could mod you up, I would. You can excuse people to some extent, because oftentimes techies are required to solve problems that have an exceptionally small chance of occurring. At the same time, for most human endeavors, 99% accuracy / quality / effectiveness is close enough.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Glickman said his staff had been holding talks with Cohen even before that ruling to see "how we can work collaboratively and not be at each other's throats."

How unamerican... :)

Re:total perfection not always needed

[bombshelter13]

The highest profile 'choke points' are Pirate Bay, Torrentspy, and Mininova. Everyone I know uses these. The www.bittorrent.com search engine was never very good and I've only heard of people using it after failing to find what they wanted at one of the aforementioned sites. They're going after it not because it's a high profile choke point but because it's the only one Bram can personally control.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[westyx]

The biggest "choke point" in this case is Google. I would just *love* to see the RIAA and MPAA go after google.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[max born]

sometimes a 90% solution is good enough ...

You maybe right but isn't this more like a 10% solution falling to a 0% solution after people realize the movies they want aren't listed on bittorrent.com?

Most people know to use google (movie title filetype:tor) to find torrents.

Plus bittorrent is released under an open source license so Cohen's no longer in control of the code.

Perhaps he's duping the studios -- gimme so money and I'll help you fight movie sharing, knowing full well removing links from his site won't do much in the long run but he can get some cash in the meantime.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're right - but I think Cohen is doing a clever thing here. He can see that people will get torrents elsewhere (when I read this I said, "there's an official torrent search site?"), so if he goes to the content providers and says, "what can I do to make my tool legit?", and then he does these things, it will make headlines. The movie companies are satisfied, and so is everyone who uses torrents. Those who care about copyright will go to Cohen's site, and those who don't will go elsewhere. When the movie companies come back wondering why there are still illegal torrents floating around, Cohen can say, "but I did everything you asked! Those torrents weren't found on _my site - go after them!". This way torrents live on, and pirates can stay three search engines ahead of those who are trying to sue.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Attachments are evil. If you want to transfer files, use FTP.

More seriously: We dislike "solutions" with obvious flaws because we work in an environment where everything is multiplied by a few millions. If a worm can infect one system, millions of systems can be infected. If a copy of one CD can be made, millions of copies can be made - easily. We recognize the need for stop-gap measures, but we hate to see stop-gap turned into permanent "solutions" with unwanted side effects, as is so often the case.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[ummit]

No, the childish thing was clambering up on the soapbox to make an off-topic rant at all. The throwaway line about "rescuing my karma" was just that. :-)

Re:total perfection not always needed

[IAmTheDave]

"at eachother's throats"

They say this is an agreement, but I'm failing to see what Cohen is getting, other than a promise to not be sued. I RTFA, but I didn't see where in exchange for blocking illegal downloads, Cohen was going to help develop video distribution software or anything.

Was this good for anyone other than the MPAA?

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Techies often have a bad habit of adopting a sort of slippery-slope, sky-is-falling, all-or-nothing approach to problem solving (especially if it's a problem they don't really want to solve). "This proposed solution has a hole in it and is not guaranteed to be 100% effective, therefore it is no solution at all and is foolish to pursue."

Yet I don't hear you complaining when this approach gives you stable and secure software.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Cocteaustin]

In the interview Bram made an oblique reference to some future deal his company is going to do with them, the theory is that they're going to be involved in content distribution. But I think he's being naive (if there's going to be a deal, why not announce it now? What's to keep the MPAA to get bored and wander off now that they've got what they want?). To paraphrase Homer Simpson, "the most important lesson I learned dealing with the entertainment industry is...don't trust the entertainment industry."

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's another spin on the same story. Interesting reading two stories from two different media outlets and leaving with two totally different impressions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/23/technology/23fil m.html

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Techies often have a bad habit of adopting a sort of slippery-slope, sky-is-falling, all-or-nothing approach to problem solving (especially if it's a problem they don't really want to solve). "This proposed solution has a hole in it and is not guaranteed to be 100% effective, therefore it is no solution at all and is foolish to pursue." Not necessarily true. You don't always need to find a perfect solution; sometimes a 90% solution is good enough, especially if the alternative is sitting on your hands doing nothing wishing you had a 100% perfect solution.

That's the difference between engineering and everything else. Do you want your bridges, your skyscrapers, your operating systems and your RDBMS to only be 90% effective?

Re:total perfection not always needed

[squiggleslash]

Off-topic, but to rescue my karma before I'm accused of siding with the studios here:

You know, there's nothing particularly wrong with siding with them when they're right. As the most obvious example, most of us side with any studio that comes out with a good movie on whether or not they should be able to create a good movie.

Even on the more controvertial issue of copyright infringement, and content producer's attempts to control it: the studios trying to stamp out piracy isn't a bad thing by itself, piracy reduces revenues which means either less movies get created and/or those of us who actually buy movies pay more. It only becomes wrong when the systems promoted are unacceptable. CSS encoding is evil. Hollywood asking Bram Cohen to do what he can reasonably do to prevent a portal under his control being used to redistribute their content without authorization most certainly isn't unacceptable.

I often get the feeling that many on Slashdot feel you must take one side or another in terms of the people, not the issues. The issues are what matter.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Nom du Keyboard]

The highest profile 'choke points' are Pirate Bay, Torrentspy, and Mininova. Everyone I know uses these.

Maybe their strategy is that if they can knock one or two of them off, the others will become overloaded when all BT users move to them and either become unusable, or uneconomic in bandwidth charges as traffic goes up.

Or perhaps even if they can get it down to a single choke point (e.g. Pirate Bay) that they can't close directly, they can still pressure major ISPs to block that site to their users.

How long before daily, or even hourly, tracker updates start being distributed via Usenet?

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Chandon Seldon]

He didn't fuck up the quote at all. The theory that he was mentioning takes your quote and further determines "If it's going to take 4 times as much time to solve 1/4th as much problem, we'd be better off ignoring the problem". This plan always gets shoddy results, but you can usually sell a shoddy product for more than 1/5th of the price of a quality product, hence saving 80% of the work can seem like a good business choice.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus bittorrent is released under an open source license so Cohen's no longer in control of the code.

You're confusing BitTorrent with the BitTorrent.com site; this article (and the agreement) only refers to the BitTorrent.com site, not the BitTorrent program or protocols.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[scatter_gather]

So sorry, coding and real life problems really go like this:

The first 80% of the problem takes 80% of the time. The final 20% of the problem takes the other 80% of the time.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Maxo-Texas]

I get the impression he really wants bit torrent to be used for legitimate uses and isn't saying that with a wink and a nod.

Many of us are corrupted (1) by fighting corrupt people(2) all the time but some people are incorruptible or havn't been corrupted yet.

(1) These days I say the ends justify the means a lot more frequently.
(2) Like, say, buying governments to extend copyrights indefinately.

(1)+(2) I feel no guilt downloading anything produced before 28 years ago. It should be public domain.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Shakrai]

I also think the MPAA are becomming smarter. This quote FTA shows that they are learning from the mistakes of and bad publicity of the RIAA:

Well, even most /.'ers would have to admit that there is a bit of a difference between MPAA and RIAA. RIAA's entire business model is based around enslaving artists into draconian contracts where they make the lions share of the money off CD sales and the only thing the artist gets out of it is publicity. One wonders why such a business model survives in the internet age.

The members of the MPAA actually make a product (of sorts) that's tangible. They aren't paying actors and writers 15 cents a movie and telling them to make it up with autograph sales and concerts. Who here can't understand why the MPAA would get pissed when the new Star Wars or Harry Potter movie is floating around the internet days before it's released? Granted, I still have issues with them (region codes come to mind), but nothing like the complete lack of respect that I have for RIAA.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[djdavetrouble]

Funnysightful !!!!

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Lord_Dweomer]

" The highest profile 'choke points' are Pirate Bay, Torrentspy, and Mininova. Everyone I know uses these."

Not for long now though you insensitive clod!

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Marillion]

Was this good for anyone other than the MPAA?

Yes, because in the eyes of non-techies (more importantly the legislature and judiciary) it emphasises the legitimicy of the non-infringing uses BitTorrent and distances the technology away from the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling regarding file-sharing.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[drsquare]

Most people know to use google (movie title filetype:tor) to find torrents.

No they don't. I'm not exactly technically improficient but I didn't know about the filetype thing.

Even a 1% solution is better than 0%, that's something people on this site don't (and refuse to) understand.

It's like when someone comes up with a security system based on obscurity, the whiners will crawl out of the woodwork to say it's worthless because it won't work 100% of the time against 100% of the attackers. Talk about missing the point by a mile...

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the point you stupid shit. It's appropriate with software and inappropriate elsewhere. What about using some of your brain?

Re:total perfection not always needed

[b4k3d b34nz]

In the interview Bram made an oblique reference to some future deal his company is going to do with them...

The future deal is that Bram gets to be the voice of Aslan in the next Narnia movie that comes out. *_*

Re:total perfection not always needed

[YA_Python_dev]

The highest profile 'choke points' are Pirate Bay, Torrentspy, and Mininova. Everyone I know uses these.

Don't forget isoHunt.

FYI the urls are:

• http://thepiratebay.org/
• http://www.torrentspy.com/
• http://www.mininova.org/
• http://isohunt.com/

You can find almost everything on those sites, including very fast legal torrents of Linux distros.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[ummit]

That's the difference between engineering and everything else.

Actually, no, it's not.

Your point is well-taken: when people shortsightedly accept something drastically short of perfection, that's a problem, anywhere, in engineering or any other field.

But engineering (any kind of engineering) is all about finding appropriate, cost-effective solutions. I hate to sound like I'm arguing against perfection (because I'm a dreadful perfectionist myself), but no engineer can afford to seek 100.00000% perfection.

Our bridges and our skyscrapers are not 100.00000% safe, either -- sometimes they do fall down. If we tried to make them 100.00000% effective we couldn't afford them, and if we held out waiting for perfection we'd still be sitting in the mud.

Yes, I agree, 90% solutions are often no good. Yes, I agree, solutions that are less perfect than the state-of-the-art would allow but that are nevertheless chosen out of laziness or ignorance or shortsighted penny-pinching, those are Evil and Wrong. But when the state-of-the-art doesn't exist yet, or when you simply can't afford it, sometimes, a 90% (or even a 50% or a 10%) solution is appropriate, because it's better than nothing. (And sometimes it's not; sometimes it is better to do without than to delude yourself.)

Trying to choose the appropriate solution, when real-world factors like cost begin to impinge on theoretical notions of achievability or perfectability, can be an extremely difficult problem. But it's the essence of engineering, and of many other tough decision-making processes as well.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[panth0r]

And the final 80% of the time is spent celebrating finishing 160% of the problem... or that's what you think by the time you're done celebrating

Re:total perfection not always needed

[ummit]

Yet I don't hear you complaining when this approach gives you stable and secure software.

Nope. You don't.

Trying to decide how "perfect" is perfect enough, or whether it's time to settle for merely "good enough", is a tough, tough question. And it's one you definitely can't take a slippery-slope, all-or-nothing approach to resolving, either way.

Sometimes the good is the enemy of the great, but sometimes the speculative great stands in the way of ever getting anything done.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[ummit]

Attachments are evil. If you want to transfer files, use FTP.

And of course FTP can be pretty evil, too. (Unless you restrict yourself to anonymous use of it, never typing a real password.)

Personally, I'm no great fan of attachments, either, but if Billy is going to send Aunt Mabel an email with a picture of his dog Spot, is Billy really supposed to set it up on an ftp server somewhere, and is Aunt Mabel really supposed to switch from her email client to her FTP client, download the image, then switch to her JPEG viewer to look at it? I know that's the way us techies used to have to do it and sometimes still choose to, but I'm not sure it'll fly in the real world...

We dislike "solutions" with obvious flaws...
We recognize the need for stop-gap measures, but we hate to see stop-gap turned into permanent "solutions"...

Absolutely agree. No argument there at all.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to go spoiling a good joke.

I bet at parties, you are the one who pipes up near the end of a conversation with a witticism that kills all converstation, and get's people staring at you like "WTF DUDE??"

Re:total perfection not always needed

[neildiamond]

I like sitting on my hands! That way it feels like someone else is solving the problem. Not a 100% solution, but a good 90% solution! ;)

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Elwood P Dowd]

Bram already has cash. Now he needs a revenue stream, which this is not. He's probably hoping that it's a line on a revenue stream, which will be movie distribution in the future.

I really hope that he's going to do ok. He's worked on a number of other projects that didn't work out because of fucked original constraints, so there's no guarantee that his future stuff is going to be as well conceived as bittorrent. And there's no guarantee that he's going to turn out to be good at business.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Woah, a slashdotter that knows what goes on at parties?

Re:total perfection not always needed

[jamesgomez]

If not those...

http://oink.me.uk/ - Best Torrent site on the net...hands down
http://www.scenetorrents.org/ - Only scene releases, Decent sharers.
http://www.kraytracker.com/ - Best NON-RIAA Music site for Punk, Hardcore, Emo...

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Anonymous Coward]

The movie companies are satisfied

Actually, I imagine that showing them you're willing to do what they say, will likely get more requests in future to do more...

Re:total perfection not always needed

[awing0]

Do you have an invite for kraytracker? Thanks.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[infolation]

The MPAA know that sending their legal threats would only reduce the Pirate Bay's 'Sanitation Budget'.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's like when someone comes up with a security system based on obscurity, the whiners will crawl out of the woodwork to say it's worthless because it won't work 100% of the time against 100% of the attackers. Talk about missing the point by a mile..."

Yeah, but would *you* want a security system that only works 1% of the time?

So, maybe they aren't missing the point after all...

So what?

[Jordan Catalano]

His search engine was far from the first place people looked for illegal content anyway.

Re:So what?

[PDXNerd]

No kidding.

More to the point, anyone who wants this type of content knows where to look for it, and I seriously doubt they went looking for it there.

Re:So what?

[slavemowgli]

So what? I'm not sure, but I don't think that he's doing this because he's personally worried about Holly wood movies being shared on BitTorrent - he's doing it to cover his own rear. He's quite obviously making money with BitTorrent, enough to be able to afford a life for himself and his family, and I think he wants to preserve that, which is perfectly understandable.

Adding a torrent search engine is a good first step to make BitTorrent even more widespread and ubiquitious as it already is. Striking a deal with the *AA is a logical next step, if only to prevent them from suing him. Nothing wrong with that, and everyone who wants to download a movie can still get it from the Pirate Bay.

Re:So what?

[newend]

Thanks for telling me of a place to find new torrent files =D http://www.torrentportal.com/ http://static.thepiratebay.org/ http://www.torrentbox.com/ http://www.fulldls.com/ http://www.metal-torrents.com/ http://bittorrent.bctel.org/ http://torrentz.ws/

Relevancy?

[jaymzter]

Considering that bittorrent.com is not the first site you'd think of when searching for torrents, and that bittorrent itself is Open Source, how is this relevant to anyone other than Cohen?
Call me when Vivid Videos start complaining about swapping their stuff, then I'll be worried!

Re:Relevancy?

[garcia]

Considering that bittorrent.com is not the first site you'd think of when searching for torrents, and that bittorrent itself is Open Source, how is this relevant to anyone other than Cohen?

That's *exactly* what I thought when I heard about this yesterday. Like, I haven't been to Cohen's site since BitTorrent first arrived on the scene and would never have thought that he would have been linking to copyrighted content anyway. Guess I was wrong?

But... What I do find interesting is that they are going about this the "right" way rather than suing him and making a big public spectacle about how they are a bunch of Social Security stealing assholes they are "coming to an agreement" with Cohen and putting a positive spin on it.

Better than trying to put a positive spin on suing the pants off of everyone and anyone including sending out subpeonas to ISPs.

Re:Relevancy?

[barcodez]

In fact his bittorrent.com search engine is merely a customisation of the Open Source Nutch search engine and so it wouldn't be hard for someone else to replicate the site and functionality.

Re:Relevancy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I've been using search.bittorrent.com since it came out. It had name recognition, speed, and simplicity going for it. I don't do bittorrent day in and day out and it was a very easy url to remember every week or two.

Re:Relevancy?

[Anonymous Coward]

You bring an interesting point mentioning Vivid.

How come the porn industry isn't the least bit worried about filesharing, and is in some cases encouraging it; i.e. many movies on empornium are put there by those who own the copyright to them.

Re:Relevancy?

[Kelson]

What I do find interesting is that they are going about this the "right" way rather than suing him and making a big public spectacle

It's about time they started attacking the use of a technology rather than the technology itself, and it's about time they started negotiating like civilized people instead of whipping out the legal guns at the start. The question is, is this the start of a shift in tactics, or is it just a stopped clock being correct twice a day?

Sadly, I'd bet on the latter.

Re:Relevancy?

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't relevant to anyone other than Cohen, he's just covering his ass under the grokster ruling. Probably the only thing he could do, otherwise he gets accused of profiting from piracy!

Re:Relevancy?

[jZnat]

Considering that bittorrent.com is not the first site you'd think of when searching for torrents, and that bittorrent itself is Open Source, how is this relevant to anyone other than Cohen?

Agreed. I was first introduced to BT through an old site, btsites.tk. Of course, this was during the Suprnova phase, so that's where people would go to find copyrighted materials. The bittorrent.com site was the developers' page kind of thing with source downloads, protocol details, etc., and it most certainly was not your typical massive torrent indexer like Mininova or Suprnova (in its prime).

As if this really makes a difference.....

[8127972]

..... for the MPAA. It's a great headline in a press release, but one has to wonder how many people haven't already moved on to something else...... It's sort of like closing the barn doors after all the horses have left.

Re:As if this really makes a difference.....

[Anonymous Coward]

It's sort of like closing the barn doors after all the horses have left.

This actually makes sense, if you hate horses as much as the MPAA hates good movies.

Re:As if this really makes a difference.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't say I hate horses, so much as I want to slaughter them and eat them.

Cows, on the other hand, are totally awesome creatures. Horses are just dicks.

Can't really blame him

[paranode]

If he were to be resistant to this kind of thing then it would come off as supportive of piracy and whether or not he really condoned it he would probably get shut down in court. One of the 'joys' of getting big is you have to worry about things like due diligence.

Re:Can't really blame him

[Sique]

Shut down for what? Developing yet another file transfer protocol? That's what BitTorrent is after all. And for the torrent links on BitTorrent.com, he probably sifts through them anyway and throws out those that look fishy to him. Basicly for BitTorrent the links are just a proof of concept: Here! That's what a torrent file looks like, and that's what happens if you click at it, and look, how many of them I can easily host on my rather small bandwith site. There is absolutely no point for him to have things there that could get him into trouble.

Re:Can't really blame him

[paranode]

Shut down for what? Developing yet another file transfer protocol?

No, as the article and you both point out it's for linking to illegal content on his own site.

Re:Can't really blame him

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

If he were to be resistant to this kind of thing then it would come off as supportive of piracy and whether or not he really condoned it he would probably get shut down in court. One of the 'joys' of getting big is you have to worry about things like due diligence.

Actually, my understanding is that just the opposite is true. Napster lost in court not because they were not trying to remove copyrighted works, or because they never looked for copyrighted works on their network, but because they did look, and found them, and demonstrated that they had the ability to remove them, but did not. So long as a network/website operator does not look for copyrighted works or try to control the content, they are pretty much in the clear. They still have to take down any copyrighted works when notified, but are not guilty of contributory copyright infringement themselves. In doing this Mr. Cohen may actually be opening himself up to lawsuits.

Re:Can't really blame him

[Artemis3]

Well Bram Cohen is not in any kind of danger. I think this is more of a PR move from Bram and the MPAA, and there might be some deal inside.

The only thing Bram Cohen has done is a very efficient p2p file transfer protocol. Lawyers can't sue the guy who made a protocol just because people can use it for illegal purposes. Its just a tool.

The "search" engine made by Bram is not particulary popular or widely used. In fact his own client is not so widely used anymore. Its not a big deal if he lets the MPAA filter search results in the obscure thing.

The MPAA can actually benefit very much of bittorrent, they could use the technology to distribute their content to their theathers worldwide, so they can sync a movie "world release".

For the rest of us who don't want to watch any MPAA content (they control 90% of the theaters, after all) the internet is the perfect alternative as well, because using a good protocol (such as bittorrent) we can download and then watch all the independent and foreign productions banned from MPAA theaters and their controlled distribution chains.

When the likes of RIAA try to destroy the very tools and the very technologies, obviusly the real reason behind it is their losing of iron grip control over the market. Rebel people actually DARING to listen to non RIAA owned content...

They know people are using the internet to go beyond what they supply. Copyright infringement is the least of their worries, but its such a good excuse...

Re:Can't really blame him

[Todd Knarr]

I don't think he's opening himself. As I understand it from the article, he's not going looking for such material. What he's doing is conforming to the DMCA takedown procedure. If someone notifies him of infringing material, he'll remove it pending an objection by the person who posted the material. The DMCA provides explicit protection for someone who follows that procedure which he can then use as a shield. And meanwhile he can use the fact that he entered into this agreement to remove demonstrated infringing content as a counter to anyone (like the RIAA) trying to argue that he's encouraging infringing uses.

Isn't this like...

[craznar]

... talking to the inventor of FTP and telling him to not let you download movies from his site ?

Re:Isn't this like...

[Flaming Foobar]

... talking to the inventor of FTP and telling him to not let you download movies from his site ?

I think asking the maintainer of Archie to remove popular films from searches would be closer.

Re:Isn't this like...

[dslauson]

"Isn't this like talking to the inventor of FTP and telling him to not let you download movies from his site?"

I don't think I get your point. Are you saying that the inventor of FTP should be allowed to host movies and other IP on his site for other people to freely download? Why, because he invented a protocol? I guess you're modded at +5 insightful, so who am I to say that it's faulty logic and a bad analogy?

Changing subjects, BitTorrent was not invented as a tool for piracy and illegal downloading, and we can all agree that there are plenty of completely great, legitimate uses for the technology, so I can completely understand the inventor wanting to safeguard his creation.

I don't mean that as a jab at pirates, by any means, just some sympathy from a programmer.

Re:Isn't this like...

[Dun Malg]

I don't think I get your point. Are you saying that the inventor of FTP should be allowed to host movies and other IP on his site for other people to freely download? Why, because he invented a protocol? I guess you're modded at +5 insightful, so who am I to say that it's faulty logic and a bad analogy?

His point was that (at this point) Bram Cohen has as much control over the use of bittorrent as the creator of FTP has of the use of FTP.

Re:Isn't this like...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Isn't this like talking to the inventor of FTP and telling him to not let you download movies from his site?"

I don't think I get your point. Are you saying that the inventor of FTP should be allowed to host movies and other IP on his site for other people to freely download? Why, because he invented a protocol? I guess you're modded at +5 insightful, so who am I to say that it's faulty logic and a bad analogy?

You're telling him that his logic is faulty?

IRONIC

OK, who else saw this...

[mustafap]

As

    BitTorrent: The Movie

Re:OK, who else saw this...

[djsmiley]

i got "Brad [The Internet] Cohlen"..... woah what a title, this guy IS "The Internet"

Re:OK, who else saw this...

[Gleng]

I've seen it. It starts off really slow, and the ending felt quite rushed.

Re:OK, who else saw this...

[roesti]

BitTorrent: The Movie

I got the BitTorrent movie from The Pirate Bay. Just a screener, though, and the scenes seemed to be in random order, but it made sense in the end.

Yawn.

[theSpaceCow]

Wake me up when the MPAA has signed an agreement with each of the dozens of sites people actually use to find trackers. I've used bittorrent for about a year and a half now, and I didn't even know bittorrent.com had links to torrents. I guess I've been spoiled by Suprnova, IsoHunt, TorrentReactor, et al.

About Time

[PacketScan]

Well i guess it's better than being shutdown

Re:About Time

[lixee]

Can't really see how you're gonna shutdown Bittorrent. It's in the peoples' hands now!

Re:About Time

[Nom du Keyboard]

Can't really see how you're gonna shutdown Bittorrent. It's in the peoples' hands now!

And open source!

Re:About Time

[IANAAC]

Can't really see how you're gonna shutdown Bittorrent.

Not bittorrent, per se, but maybe you missed the few really good torrent search sites that were shut down this last year.

Re:About Time

[lixee]

I concur; Suprnova and the others were wonderful. Yet, it didn't take long to get very decent engines. Check out http://thepiratebay.org/. I especially get a kick reading their answers to the letters they receive from lawyers of M$, MPAA and many others (read them, they're really fun!). They're located here in Sweden and I can't help but wonder what the US legal system can do about it? Now, imagine a Chinese good bittorent search and you'll get the untouchable nature of the thing.

What was really said

[rueger]

Yikes, the post above is almost incoherent, so here's a clip from the press release. Cohen has agreed to remove links to copyrighted content from the Bitorrent search:

The agreement negotiated Tuesday requires 30-year-old software designer Bram Cohen to remove Web links to pirated versions of movies from his Web site, bittorrent.com, effectively frustrating people who search for illegal copies of films.

The agreement involves connections to content owned by the seven studios that are members of the Motion Picture Association of America.

"BitTorrent Inc. discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a license to do so," Cohen said in the statement. "As such, we are pleased to work with the film industry to remove unauthorized content from bittorrent.com's search engine."

The deal will not prevent all illegal copies from being swapped using the BitTorrent technology. Cohen said during a news conference that even after links to files are removed from his search engine, some files could still be found using other means such as google.com.

Re:What was really said

[Lxy]

Cool, someone actually READ the article.

I see this as a good thing. All along the *AA has been after torrent for being a pircay tool. Now Bram has entered the good graces of the *AA, and has made it known as a legitimate protocol with the powers that be.

Now people can stop pissing and moaning about the protocol and start pointing fingers at the websites that post copyrighted torrents, such and piratebay and suprnova. Meanwhile, downloading linux and other legal software will hopefully continue unencumbered. This is a big win for users of torrent.

Re:What was really said

[Suppafly]

I hope Bram convinced the mpaa to pay him for his trouble. I seriously doubt anyone finds pirated movies via the search on bittorrent.com anyway.

Re:What was really said

[A beautiful mind]

"that post copyrighted torrents,"

The torrents are not copyrighted (at least not by RIAA or MPAA). The data they point to is (maybe) copyrighted.

Piratebay and Suprnova do nothing illegal. It is not even unethical.

Re:What was really said

[swissfondue]

This is a proof of concept. Next Google will be asked to "filter" searches based on "precedent".

Re:What was really said

[floodo1]

unethical perhaps. its kinda aiding and abetting.
what they are trading directly isnt illegal, but what they are trading POINTS to or allows people to do something illegal (copy the copyrighted data).

and their ability to pirate is DIRECTLY caused by having the signpost that is the torrent.

idk its pretty gray.

How about google?

[djsmiley]

I would just LOVE to see google offering a *.torrent search. Then i would love to see the MPAA or whatever they are called take them on...

Re:How about google?

[Lxy]

Try this as a Google search:

"Star Wars filetype:torrent"

They already have a torrent search. :-)

Re:How about google?

[4play]

they do offer a torrent search http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22star+tre k%22+filetype%3Atorrent&btnG=Search&meta=

Re:How about google?

[Anonymous Coward]

They do you noob. Where have you been?

Go to google and after your search terms put filetype:torrent

It will search for torrent files with your search terms in the name.

Re:How about google?

[Odin's Raven]

Try this as a Google search: "Star Wars filetype:torrent"

Darth MPAA: NOOOOOOOOOO!

Re:How about google?

[swiftstream]

Try http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=filetype% 3Atorrent+fish&btnG=Search.

Re:How about google?

[Baricom]

Yawn.

What a pathetic attempt

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll do anything for publicity. His engine is nothing compared to the search engine God.

www.google.com
harry potter filetype:torrent

Until they shut down google their attempts are futile.

He had a search engine?

[Licorice101]

Honestly, where was his search engine?

You can Google torrents more and more now, so any other search engine is rapidly losing significance.

How does this deal affect personal torrent sites? I doesn't. That's where most of the "good stuff" is anyways.

meaningless

[sumday]

cohen may have created bittorrent, but it's out in the open now. Everyone and their mother can create a torrnet search engine, or a large-scale database of torrent files. Whatever the MPAA gave him in return for taking his serach engine down, it was too much.

You could search for movies at bittorrent.com?

[angryflute]

Heck, I had no idea that there was even a torrent search engine at Bram's site until this news.

I figured the news was going to be a partnership where bittorrent technology would be used for a paid distribution system backed by the major studios. Instead, it's just Bram agreeing to prevent his site's search engine from looking up pirated movies -- something I would have figured he might have done on his own long ago, and without the encouragement (strongarming?) of the MPAA.

Re:You could search for movies at bittorrent.com?

[jred]

I wonder if he got paid for this (if so, good deal), or if his "payment" was an agreement not to sue him into bankruptcy....

Re:You could search for movies at bittorrent.com?

[xtracto]

Come on, lets see it at the good side.

You know the technology is called BitTorrent okey?, and the site is www.bittorrent.com,

Glickman said his efforts, including Tuesday's announcement, would not stop piracy, but would send a signal to other technology companies that studios are eager to work on legal downloading alternatives.

So, this could be a nice move from the movies industries to provide a *legal* way to download their content using bittorrent.

With the proper advertizing the bittorrent site could offer what allofmp3 is offering now for music (of course in the US). This way Bram Cohen could make a lot of money (IIRC he made some technology available for World of Warcraft ingame patches).

Of course, I could be dreaming.

Irrelevant. Mostly....

[AntiDragon]

Considering that Cohen is keen to keep clean as he has a company to maintain and that the MPAA is obviosly ill-informed about what bit-torrent is and does this really is a zero impact announcement.

Still, it keeps Cohen in their good books (I'm not against someone making money!) and if it means the studios think they've made headway and so back off a bit it's a good thing all round.

So everyone just smile an nod, kay? Whatever you do, don't tell them most people now just burn copies of movies... ...oh..shii...!

Re:Irrelevant. Mostly....

[Lxy]

I wouldn't call it zero impact. It shows that the MPAA is looking at bittorrent as a legitimate protocol. All too many times we've seen the *AA try to stop a particular piece of software because it COULD be used for piracy. Now we have the creator of bittorent basically given the blessing of the MPAA to continue his work on the protocol. This is a big accomplishment, and it shows that the MPAA may not be quite as draconian as the RIAA.

This is good news for all of us using torrent legitimately.

Re:Irrelevant. Mostly....

[reclusivemonkey]

Whilst I agree with the points you make, I just wonder what is going to happen to Cohen when the MPAA realises that basically they have been duped by him. Its going to totally ruin his chances of doing business with them. Not that I have much sympathy; outside Linux ISOs and game demos, what did he really think people were going to use bittorrent for? He may well distance himself from privacy and say that is not what he intended bittorrent to be used for, but this is by far its most used application; it is this application that has brought it to the attention of the MPAA. They are just too stupid/ill-informed to realise what goes on in the real world.

Re:Irrelevant. Mostly....

[arth1]

Considering that Cohen is keen to keep clean as he has a company to maintain and that the MPAA is obviosly ill-informed about what bit-torrent is and does this really is a zero impact announcement.

Zero impact? I foresee the following:

1) MPAA dumps a list of 78321 movies on Bram Cohen, telling him they want them taken out of the search immediately.
2) Bram Cohen works his ass of day and night for a week, scanning lists and running greps, in order to comply as he promised he would.
3) MPAA finds a movie he failed to delete, and sues him for breach of contract.

Regards,
--
*Art

Viva la difference!

[SlashAmpersand]

Sony, RIAA: Attack paying customers (Rootkit), sue single mothers and children with little (which was probably obtained illegally) or no evidence. MPAA: Gain cooperation of P2P network to block actual pirates. At least it's a step in the right direction.

Re:Viva la difference!

[StikyPad]

AFAIK, evidence from private entities is admissible even if it was obtained illegally (i.e., through tresspassing or the like). Only law enforcement agencies require warrants.

The MPAA is smarter

[sgent]

at least they were. I remember watching an interview of the MPAA president on MSNBC, where they were specifically asked about BitTorrent. Unlike Grokster and some of the other P2P technologies, the MPAA was quite excited about BitTorrent and its potential use as a tool in the future. He mentioned that a lot of legitimate things are shared by BitTorrent, and it could present a distribution technology for the studio's in the future. I'm not surprised by this partnership -- as MPAA gets the founder of the technology onboard, and gets a good platform to legitimize this.

In other news...

[NightDragon]

Brian Cohen was the latest in the long line of people bent over and took it in the butt from hollywood today....

Re:In other news...

[Arcanix]

"If those freaky-ass greeks on slashdot don't know the difference, or even if they do, their brains don't click to mention it, and the whole 'Intarwebnet' hyperfuckwads* go on and on about cliquey terms that in the end insight this kind of mental conditioning and ergo the downfall of society *breath*, then we also don't know the difference now shut the hell up"

*bloggers

So, there you go. If you pay money on slashdot, maybe read the comments I made at length how we would be to blame if something as stupid as this happened.

I told you so.

Anyone have an NLP that can parse this into English for me?

You can produce content for bit torrent

[cryfreedomlove]

If you don't like the MPAA or the ideas of DRM and copyright, then you should act on those beliefs. You should finance and produce a great feature film that appeals to a large audience. Then, waive copyright and release the film without any DRM.

The current system of film distribution is voluntary. You, as a film producer, can choose to use it or not. The current situation is perfect.

Re:You can produce content for bit torrent

[weierstrass]

>The current situation is perfect.

The current situation is /never/ perfect, dude.
If you think it is then you are excluded from the debate.

Re:You can produce content for bit torrent

[Quizo69]

Actually I plan to do something similar with my film once it's completed.

I won't be waiving copyright, but I will be releasing it online for free as a full featured DVD (single layer). Torrents are the only way I could ever do this as there's no way I could pay for that sort of bandwidth myself.

How will I make any money from my art? Well that part is up to everyone who downloads it. If you like the film and want to contribute something back so I can make more films, I will be selling signed copies of the DVD via my website. That way you get something personal and I get to make more films. It's win win, but only if people are willing to pay for entertainment in a fair way.

We'll see if it works shortly....

Re:You can produce content for bit torrent

[cryfreedomlove]

The perfection comes from the fact that all participation is voluntary. Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything. Producers can opt in or opt out. The same holds true for consumers.

Your little declaration that I am 'excluded from the debate' is like a child screaming 'SHUT UP'. It reveals your insecurity about the validity of your emotionally rooted beliefs.

Re:You can produce content for bit torrent

[weierstrass]

Oh, shut up.

Re:You can produce content for bit torrent

[Anonymous Coward]

By saying it is perfect, you are implying there is no room for improvement. Which is an sign of a closed mind. You can't have a meaningful debate with someone that has a closed mind.

Political Move

[trurl7]

I'm glad they didn't put him in jail - after all he developed bittorrent, so it would make sense to sue him, right? Right?

From what I recall, he never came out saying "here's a great tool to get your m0v13s on!". He just developed it and let it run. If all that the MPAA will do in terms of bothering him is to have him state officially "I won't tell people how to find movies", that's great.

(After all, it's not like people don't know where to find such things if they are the spawn of Satan and are looking to violate MPAA's valuable copyrighted material :-) )

Re:Political Move

[size1one]

It wouldnt be worth thier effort to try and sue him. Bittorrent is an opensource app, they sue bram cohen nothing changes. He can't take back the license for copies already distributed or stop derivitive works. He probably wouldn't even have the money to pay a settlement that covers the MPAA's lawyer fees.

If they sue him its for one reason: To destroy his life.

however, if they get him as a partner that opens the door for them to get a copy of the sourcecode with a different license. Under an opensource license they will never be able to produce a commercial DRM laden product based on Bittorrent.

Meh

[belgar]

....move along, move along...

Uh oh...

[Mr. Underbridge]

I would just LOVE to see google offering a *.torrent search. Then i would love to see the MPAA or whatever they are called take them on...

You mean like filetype:torrent? Crap, here come the feds!

Ok, I'm trying to see how this is a bad thing

[grasshoppa]

Really, I am. I hate the MPAA, RIAA and Sony as much as anybody here, but why is it a bad thing that they convinced him not to link to their content which they never agreed to put online?

It's their choice. Their content. Like them or hate them, it's up to them whether they want them shared or not.

I don't think I'm seeing the problem here.

Re:Ok, I'm trying to see how this is a bad thing

[Overzeetop]

And Cohen doesn't really have any financial interest in promoting or assisting infringing downloads. He's supposed to be running a business, based on lawful distribution of content of various types. I wouldn't be suprised if he contacted them first and offered a press-release opportunity for them, in hopes of getting better ties with the folks who could put more money in his pocket.

Re:Ok, I'm trying to see how this is a bad thing

[Anonymous Coward]

It's their choice. Their content. Like them or hate them, it's up to them whether they want them shared or not.

I have to disagree with the above statement. Once information is out, noone owns it and noone can choose who will have/share it and who wont. Once they published it, its out of their hands, they have no rights on it.
To own information is just the most perverse extreme of the idea of propery I ever heard.

Re:Ok, I'm trying to see how this is a bad thing

[Maxo-Texas]

I disagree that it is there content if it is over 28 years old.

There are also several other rationalizations and justifications I can rely on (Do I already have it recorded so I'm just getting a better copy)(Is it something that isn't for sale at all because they are choosing not to sell it)(Has the company acted like an asshat).

Re:Ok, I'm trying to see how this is a bad thing

[grasshoppa]

I have to disagree with the above statement. Once information is out, noone owns it and noone can choose who will have/share it and who wont. Once they published it, its out of their hands, they have no rights on it.
To own information is just the most perverse extreme of the idea of propery I ever heard.

Ah, you come from the "If it ain't nailed down.." school of thought, eh?

Re:Ok, I'm trying to see how this is a bad thing

[Anonymous Coward]

School dogmas luckly had nothing to do with my attitudes on property.

Simply, if the idea of property has any use at all, it shouldnt cover ideas. They are significanly different from for instance computer Im now using in that my use of an idea doesnt limit anothers.

I dont think that all physical things can be owned either.

Equating ideas and physical things as something that can be owned isnt simply a consequence of reality and power ideas have, that in the contemporary world equals that of physical things, but also the consequence of a belief that property rights are the best way to distribute things in a society. That belief is in my opinion false for certan types of the ownership of physical things, and also for all froms of ownership of ideas.

Re:Ok, I'm trying to see how this is a bad thing

[Mr2001]

It's their choice. Their content. Like them or hate them, it's up to them whether they want them shared or not.

Legally, that's true. Morally, no way. You don't get to suppress others' free speech (which is what copyright does) just because your business model fails when people are allowed to speak freely.

GNUnet, better than 'torrent anyway...

[ericcantona]

i'm sure he's laughing all the way to the bank

...and then going home and using GNUnet

Re:GNUnet, better than 'torrent anyway...

[seawall]

Not to be difficult (well maybe not) but care to add:

Why GNUnet is better?

Not saying it is or isn't, I'd just like to know why you think so. A GNUnet canononical website has a comparison chart with some other file-sharing apps but BitTorrent isn't on it.

Re:GNUnet, better than 'torrent anyway...

[ericcantona]

the key point w.r.t. this article is that anonimity is 'built in'
bit torrent can be anonymized but, IMHO the (various) way of doing this all involve rather ugly hacks.

Bittorrent is not a file swapping technology

[RAMMS EIN]

``the popular BitTorrent file-swapping technology''

What BitTorrent file-swapping technology? Last I checked, BitTorrent was still only for downloading files that someone has explicitly offered for download. It's very much like HTTP, except that you download from multiple sources at once, and become such a source yourself while you download.

You would think Slashdot would get it right...

[wolfemi1]

...but you'd be wrong.

...Cohen's engine is far from the only tool used to find pirated BitTorrent files online.

Yes, it's very far, seeing as it can't find anything without a tracker, and can't even find that by itself. He made the protocol and a client, not a web search engine!

Re:You would think Slashdot would get it right...

[sprouty76]

Except that he does have a torrent search engine on his website, which is what they're talking about.

Ssshhhh!

[i_should_be_working]

Don't give the mpaa any more ideas. I get all my warez from his site

Re:Ssshhhh!

[advocate_one]

I find 192.168.1.100 is fantastic... there's piles of stuff on that site...

Re:Ssshhhh!

[Bahumat]

Bah. 127.0.0.1 has MUCH better bandwidth. So much, in fact, that I've already downloaded everything the site has to offer! Awesome!

Re:Ssshhhh!

[Kjella]

Yeah, the ftp:// site is really cool, but man they got some security. First you need a dotted quad security code, then a username and then a password! And all of them seem to go to different sections of the site, it must be huge!

Sue the infringers, not the tool

[tbuskey]

It looks like Bittorrent the tool won't be attacked. They'll go after infringers instead of the protocol/tool (I hope).

I've used BT to get Linux distributions. It works well. I'd hate to lose that because something thinks BT is for illegal stuff only.

Kudos to all involved.

Re:Sue the infringers, not the tool

[DorkusMasterus]

While I do think this was the intention, I specifically remember Napster (the original, not the G-rated version out now) placing verbage (mind you, later in heated stages of the copyright debate going on at the time) on it's load-up screen to all members saying things like "We do not condone the distribution of copyrighted works"(or something like that). They got hella sued anyway and had their tool taken down, despite it being the infringer's crime.

Again, I don't think that BitTorrent will be a target of the War on Piracy(C), but I don't think that removing a few links in good faith necessarily removes Cohen and the BitTorrent app from the possibility of litigation in the future. The truth is that it is still an app that allows users to easily share copyrighted materials online quickly. I think it's an awesome tool with myriad purposes, as most PtP apps tend to be. Truth is, it's still a possible target if the MPAA needs headlines and a scapegoat for lackluster revenues.

Success!

[Licorice101]

Congrats Bram, you were successful at confusing the MPAA into thinking this was a solution!

This is proof that deep down he's still one of us.

Squeeze a Balloon.

[Phredd]

When will the Hollywood types figure out that you cant squeeze a balloon?

"Shutting off" Bram's site only creates 3 other more useful sites.

Good for Bram, he knows it wont slow down BT and he put five dollars in his pocket.

Stoopid Hollywood.

Weak

[austad]

I heard yesterday that the MPAA and Bram were going to announce something, and truthfully, I got a bit excited hoping that we would see some sort of Bittorrent related legal movie download service.

Gimme a break, this announcement it total BS. So Bram announces that he will censor his site, a site which is a search engine and doesn't even really have content of its own. The only reason that it's newsworthy is that it's because the little guy bowed to the big guy and gave in to their censorship requests. Bittorrent.com doesn't do anything illegal by offering search results, it's sites like thepiratebay that are doing the illegal stuff.

Wake me up when the MPAA and Bram actually have something interesting to announce.

Re:Weak

[Jetifi]

Its a just quid-pro-quo, which I imagine works a bit like this:

• The MPAA gets to show its member organisations that it's working, and is handed a propaganda victory in the copyfight.
• Bram Cohen's startup gets some much-needed press, which keeps the VC's happy and attracts traffic, and (bonus!) isn't sued by the MPAA.

I can't say I blame him. He's never condoned piracy, there's no reason for him to start now, and it's not as if he's talking about the protocol, just his search engine - which is a whole other subject.

Re:Weak

[chazwurth]

Bram Cohen has in fact condoned piracy, at least until mid-2003. Check out this little piece, now removed from his website, but still accessible via wayback: http://web.archive.org/web/20030602145959/bitconju rer.org/a_technological_activists_agenda.html

"I build systems to disseminate information, commit digital piracy, synthesize drugs, maintain untrusted contacts, purchase anonymously, and secure machines and homes...I refuse to work on technology to track users, analyze usage patterns, watermark information, censor, detect drug use, or eavesdrop. I am not naive enough to think any of those technologies could enable a 'compromise'."

He was the last person I'd have expected to deal with the MPAA, given what his rhetoric used to be.

Re:Weak

[Slowping]

oh c'mon... he needed "street cred" to get his tool off the ground and in popular use. It's like a million-dollar rapper robbing a 7-11. I'm guessing he chose that kind of rhetoric to get his tool off the ground with early adopters for downloading large files (surprise -- mostly illegal copies). Once its efficacy became apparent, legit uses started to pop up for it (like distributing distros). And now he cleans himself off. Like a good politician or businessman.

Re:Weak

[chazwurth]

That's assuming he ever intended bittorrent to be a massive commercial success. I'm not sure that's the case. He really used to come off as an uber-geek with an attitude. Of course that could have been an affected persona, but given the things he's written, the interviews people have done with him, and the fact that he was so obsessed with writing bittorrent that he went into debt past his ears, I'm doubtful.

Re:Weak

[Al Dimond]

There was already an article about this quote on /.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/01/13 55234&tid=123&tid=95&tid=155

I think it's pretty widely accepted that it was on a page he made as a joke making fun of some similarly-worded actual manifesto whose name I can't recall.

Re:Weak

[James McGuigan]

His "deal" doesn't seem to violate any of his "commitments" in that statement.

He hasn't created and forced the use of a bittorrent patch to track what is being shared or report it.

He isn't (as far as I am aware) giving the MPAA access to his server logs or allowing them to evesdrop on his servers.

He isn't adding DRM or watermarking files being shared via bittorrent.

Detecting drug use doesn't even enter the picture here.

The last item on the list is censorship. While you could argue the free speech vs copyright angle, the video files are not being removed from "the internet", just the links to them in his search engine, and its not like the MPAA are trying to hide these video from the public (they are just trying to maintain a monopoly in distrabution).

Bram Cohen's deal will have a negligable effect on people wanting to copy hollywood movies, but as a businessman he managed to earn himself a few brownie points with the MPAA and it looks like he is trying to sell Hollywood in using Bittorrent to distrabute "licenced" copies of their movies (No doubt in higly controlled DRM files that you can freely copy, but you will need to pay for the licence file to open it). I do not see this (everything apart from the DRM) as a bad thing.

Actually just heard this on the local news

[Jugalator]

They announced the news as a major blow to illegal file sharing by using BitTorrent (???), but that a problem for MPAA was that it would still be open source and anyone could make their own derivates of the program despite this (???). :-S

I think there was some misunderstandings both about what BT is and what MPAA is requiring him to modify. :-)

8.75 Million in Venture Capital?

[Anonymous Coward]

This guy's raised 8.75 million in venture capital, and my copy of BitTorrent STILL hassles me for donations with a message about BitTorrent being Bram's "sole source of income"? Yeah, he's hurtin'.

I can't believe I'm eating IMITATION Kraft Dinner because I gave to this guy.

Re:8.75 Million in Venture Capital?

[wild_berry]

I don't know who's drinking the Kool Aid to give him that cash in the first place: the idea of Torrents working effectively with large-sacle media suppliers and their DRM is stupid.

Either every file has the same encryption/obfuscating DRM and you end up distributing it to the biggest cracking network around (perhaps even with a plug in to the torrent software that does distributed key cracking while downloading), or that the DRM is keyed to a single computer by the media suppliers at the cost of being able to use Torrents at all (because Bram's software really can't cope with cloning non-unique files). To get around this, you wrap the file with DRM as part of its transit, but there will still be a point at which the information is unlocked and can be pulled out from the system.

Re:8.75 Million in Venture Capital?

[claussenvenable]

y'know, if you just click the "I've already donated" button, it'll stop bugging you ;)

Re:8.75 Million in Venture Capital?

[ttys00]

Well, you know what they say: 'A friend in need is a friend with Kraft Dinner' :)

He had a search engine?!?!?!

[farrellj]

I didn't know that! And it's the hub for the ENTIRE BitTorrent network?!?!?! WOW!

I guess that's the end of the BitTorrent network! Too bad!

MPAA is so clueless....Thank the Gods!

ttyl
          Farrell

Whaaat?

[rscoggin]

Ridiculous. Bittorrent.com's search was terrible and there's about a million other searches to get all your piratey goodness. Methinks the MPAA is barking up the wrong tree.

Hey at last I can make money

[WormholeFiend]

from my patent on a system to put toothpaste back into the tube...

Huh?

[kamapuaa]

Why should the MPAA have any problem with a search engine dedicated entirely to the distribution of Linux distributions?

Freenet overtaking BitTorrent

[Anonymous Coward]

BitTorrent is slow and does not provide much anonymity. There are other P2P systems which are MUCH better thought through such as Freenet: http://www.freenetproject.org/ which, with the new version coming up, has a good chance of becoming the successor of BitTorrent.

What is the nature of the "agreement"?

[yeremein]

Maybe I overlooked something in the article, but I don't see what Cohen got out of the deal. I saw that he raised a large pile of venture capital for commercial online distribution, but I didn't gather that he got anything out of this "agreement" with the MPAA other than "You will agree to censor your search engine lest something unfortunate happen to your kneecaps".

Re:What is the nature of the "agreement"?

[Nom du Keyboard]

Maybe I overlooked something in the article, but I don't see what Cohen got out of the deal.

He gets:

1: No lawsuits from the MPAA.
2: Good press to encourage his investors who don't like legal uncertainity.

Since neither of these things appear to have forced him to do things he didn't want to do otherwise, he did alright by this.

It's all about intent...

[PhoenixPath]

With this move, regardless of it's actual impact on pirating via BitTorrent, he is vastly increasing his chances of successfully slamming down any charge of intent. He is showing that his intended use of the network is not piracy, and that steps can be taken by tracker owners/aggregators to limit the use of this app to legitimate uses.

This is all to protect himself from future lawsuits. It will have no effect on other bittorrent search sites.

He done good....and did it without harming any users, legit or not.

Re:It's all about intent...

[TubeSteak]

On the ohter hand, next time the MPAA goes after a torrent search site (or tracker?) they'll be able to point at Brahm and say "See, he's filtering content."

Arguments like that, while not relevant to the debate on whether anyone has to filter, probably won't help any sites the MPAA goes after in the future.

I understand why he's doing this, but it still feels like a sell out. He doesn't have to and he holds no legal liability AFAIK if he told them to go piss into the wind.

Not like that's prevented the **AA from waving their big stick & shutting down various torrent sites and university LAN-search-setups that couldn't afford the threats.

Re:It's all about intent...

[PhoenixPath]

Dude...

He's not helping the other sites. He's protecting himself. I'm sure he probably couldn't care less about the 'other' sites.

If they want that same protection, they can go the same route and filter.

In other news...

[tod_miller]

Tim Berns Lee also signed an agreement not to help people find copyrighted content using http.

When questioned about the issue, why someone who writes a protocol, not a search provider like google, would have to sign an agreement, the RIAA/MPAA/PETA/ACLU (they are all the same!) said:

"If those freaky-ass greeks on slashdot don't know the difference, or even if they do, their brains don't click to mention it, and the whole 'Intarwebnet' hyperfuckwads* go on and on about cliquey terms that in the end insight this kind of mental conditioning and ergo the downfall of society *breath*, then we also don't know the difference now shut the hell up"

*bloggers

So, there you go. If you pay money on slashdot, maybe read the comments I made at length how we would be to blame if something as stupid as this happened.

I told you so.

Alternate article subject

[Anonymous Coward]

Title should have been "Post: Bram Flakes"

Reaction to Grokster decision?

[Todd Knarr]

I think Cohen's reacting in part to the Grokster decision. There and in Betamax it came down to two points: whether legal uses existed and whether the maker encouraged illegal uses or not. For a while, if the RIAA tried to come after the BitTorrent protocol itself on the first point they'd've had to overcome the use of BitTorrent to distribute things like Linux distributions (which is a perfectly legal use). Now if they try to use the same arguments against Cohen that they used against Grokster, arguing he's encouraging illegal uses himself, they're going to have to overcome this contract with the MPAA that binds him to doing exactly the opposite. I think he's being a very smart cookie, looking at the legal arguments people like the RIAA might use to attack him as creator of the protocol and reference implementation and making sure he's got as many legal obstacles in any attacker's way as possible.

How lame...

[doormat]

When I heard there was a press conference between Bram Cohen and the MPAA I thought it would be something neat, like some sort of agreement to explore distributing movies via BT. Instead its just some protection agreement to keep Bram out of court. How lame... the MPAA isnt learning anything. They're still fighting for their old distribution models.

Re:How lame...

[bmetzler]

When I heard there was a press conference between Bram Cohen and the MPAA I thought it would be something neat, like some sort of agreement to explore distributing movies via BT.

You mean you were expecting it might be something neat, like this?

-Brent

Censorship

[Nom du Keyboard]

This amounts to censorship of information. No matter how beloved Bram may have been, no one has yet prospered after becoming a sellout and agreeing to censorship. I predict that his star will start falling after this is actually implemented, while other, less-encumbered, versions of the BT client will ascend to its place.

Great I wanted to know how to do that.

[Anonymous Coward]

So do you think "simpsons halloween filetype:tor" would allow me to collect all halloween episodes? Even the ones not out on DVD yet?

I want the Halloween episodes, and I might even pay $30 for a boxed set of them. However I will not pay over $1000 for all the seasons of the simpsons just to get the best episode of each season.

This is where iTunes like sales make since. Give the customer what they want, and don't try to force them to buy crap they don't want. Its kinda like the entertainment industry equivalent of MS's bundling practice!

This is interesting....

[commo1]

Bram is brilliant. BY not officially supporting (and indeed suppressing) the searching of "illegal" content from the official site, he maintains his common-carrier status, and simply tows the line for the rest of us. This is no different than alcohol companies urging you to drink in moderation, big tobacco supporting quit-smoking programs or major manufacturers of recording equipment mentioning in the manual that the hardware and software is "no intended for the duplication or dissemination of copy-protected matter". He supplies the software......... what people do with it is not his problem, and it has legitimated legal uses, perhaps overwhelmingly so.

Juran's Assumption

[spoonyfork]

Agree. In my business, we frequently have to rely on the 80-20 rule - solve 80% of the problem that you can with the least effort and then worry about the other 20%. This seems like what they are trying to do.

How is your business doing? I ask because either you're not using the 80/20 rule most business apply or you're doing it incorrectly. The 80/20 rule is defined as for many phenomena 80% of consequences stem from 20% of the causes. Most management apply this by focusing on the 20% of their business that drive 80% of their profits. It says nothing of effort, only value. Also, the principle does not infer 80 + 20 = 100. It could very well be the 80/10 rule and have the same meaning. Check out the slashdot research project for more information.

Re:Juran's Assumption

[timeOday]

How ironic, you're getting lost in the weeds talking about a rule of thumb that's about not getting lost in the weeds.

To propse that somebody's busiess will fail because they don't adhere to the intricate technicalities of a rule of thumb is preposterous.

Re:Juran's Assumption

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir are a jackass.

Re:Juran's Assumption

[shmlco]

If you're going to jump all over someone over what they wrote then you need to learn to read what they actually wrote. He said, "...solve 80% of the problem that you can with the least effort..." With "least effort" implying that solving the right 20% will gain you 80% of the results. Secondly, he also fully qualified the sentence with the word "frequently", meaning often, but not always.

Re:Juran's Assumption

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention hippopotomus.

Stuff that slips through the cracks

[rteunissen]

So how exactly do they intend to keep unauthorized content out of the search engine on the site? He just made a deal to keep everything copyrighted by members of the MPAA off the engine, but what happens when say for instance the new Harry Potter movie can still be found through his engine?

It would be a huge task to check everything by hand (nearly impossible with all the stuff floating around out there). Or is this just a simple move to show `due diligence', as commented by someone else.

Awfully off-topic

[Anonymous Coward]

But I think the caption for this picture should be "Cohen meets future self" http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/11/23/bus iness/film.span.jpg

ISPs blocking or retarding BT traffic

[tomcres]

I have had a real hard time with Optimum Online interfering with BT traffic. The default 6881 port is almost unusable, and I notice that lately even if I switch to another port, it has been slow. It took me three DAYS to get an OpenSUSE DVD image last week via BitTorrent. This is nothing short of ridiculous, and is why I'm switching to Speakeasy DSL. I'm probably going to have to get IDSL just because I'm so far from the CO, which is going to cost me even more money, but screw Cablevision. As soon as my DSL gets hooked up, I'm dropping their internet and television. I'll get a satellite hookup for TV. It costs the same amount and they're not an evil monopoly like Cablevision. I can choose DirecTV or Dish network, whoever offers me a better deal. I had DirecTV in the past and liked it. I just wasn't going to pay someone $100 to re-install the dish after it fell off the side of my house.

Waitasec...

[Anonymous Coward]

Cohen had a website?

Dog that didn't bark

[Boom11]

The most interesting question is:

Everyone else (and his brother) involved into P2P has been sued into oblivion by Hollywood, regardless of whether they were willing to cooperate or not.

So, why is Hollywood treating Cohen differently?

The press conference

[griffjon]

Uh ... does anybody have a torrent of it?

Good, post

[Anonymous Coward]

That, was, a good, post.

stupid move

[hasrat]

So they have a problem with BitTorrent being used to distribute illegal content, and what do they do? Help legitimize it's use by buddying up with it!! This is actually opposite to what they did with Grokster and will not work. Any move to increase BT's popularity will also lead to greater illegal sharing of files too.

Even better: register's google new summary

[IceAgeComing]

Right now, Google News has the Register's article on this story as the top hit. Here's how the summary sentence reads:

BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen has agreed to strip links to pirate movies out of his bittorrent.com search engine - the outcome of talks between his company and the Motion Picture Ass. of America (MPAA).

Nice one, Register.

Disappointment

[skidz7]

I was hoping to see the studios start using his technology somehow, but I guess that would require them to embrace technology, something they don't exactly have a track record for doing (Betamax, anyone?)

Sounds great to me

[inverselimit]

A critical tool like bittorrent shouldn't be caught up in all the lawsuit nonsense. It was never intended to, and should not be used to make illegal copies. This just helps protect p2p technologies for legitimate uses, and slow the chilling effect on developing them that Grokster had.

A wholly kosher affair

[Anonymous Coward]

Jews don't hit Jews - have you never noticed? The fact that Cohen is from the same ethnic minority as most of Hollywood has probably helped him. Honestly: How likely was this solution? Ususally they sue the pants off people.

Applying the logic

[Kelson]

OK. Let's see if I've got this right.

It's perfectly legal and ethical to sell spammers access to a list of known working zombie PCs. After all, you're not the one who infected them, and you're not the one who'll be abusing them.

It's perfectly legal and ethical to drive the getaway car for a group of people robbing a bank. You didn't take the money, threaten anyone, or destroy any property.

These are obviously more serious crimes than copyright infringement, but you should get the point about passive participation.

I suppose it comes down to what you consider a torrent file to be. Is it more like a reference, or is it more like a ticket? If it's just a reference, as in "Yeah, so-and-so sells bootleg DVDs, and I think he has the movie you're looking for" then it's on less shaky ground. But if it's a ticket, as in "Here, give this to so-and-so and he'll give you a bootleg DVD" then it's a bit harder to justify.

Torrent files are a bit more involved than HTML links.

Re:Applying the logic

[Anonymous Coward]

The getaway car example is a bad one because that most certainly *is* illegal (accessory).

Torrent files are a bit more involved than HTML links.

I don't see how you can draw that conclusion. A torrent file points your computer to a file for downloading. An HTML link can also point your computer to a file for downloading. The torrent file is usually served by multiple machines, while the HTML link is usually served by one. That doesn't change the fact that both the torrent file and the HTML link are references, not the actual content.

Re:Applying the logic

[Anonymous Coward]

Torrents are pointers. People who actually seed (or at least send packets of copyrighted data as peers) are responsible for what they do, not one who wrote hashes and ip addresses to a file (anyhow, you could in theory have a protocol where you type tracker ipaddress manually, so without any kind of torrent files).
It may even be true that having unfinished download isn't against the law because what you have mostly isn't usable.
Maybe some kind of encryption could help with clarifying that (in the future): being able to decrypt file only if you have complete set of downloaded data.

Re:Applying the logic

[Perky_Goth]

the ethicalness of the issue has nothing to do with that. it involves the ethicness of starving public domain and the issues of the DMCA and DRM.
not that i'm going into an argument about this, but it isn't about freeloading.

As always...

[andreyw]

Meet in #fuck_the_mpaa on ${IRC_SERVER}.

/IRC ain't going anywhere.

advanced google search

[Anonymous Coward]

just do a query for "harry potter filetype:torrent" on google. you don't need the bittorrent.com searchengine.

Eh?...

[jZnat]

What the fuck is a "scene release"? Are these movie clips that contain only a single scene?

Re:Eh?...

[jamesgomez]

What the fuck is a "scene release"?

The Scene is a term used to refer to a collection of pirate networks that obtain and copy new movies, music, and games, usually before they are even released, and illegally distribute them throughout the Internet (and previously through BBSes).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scene

Re:Eh?...

[jZnat]

Oh, I almost thought you were talking about emoness and stuff. Carry on.

seems somewhat pointless

[drkstrm]

Considering that according to http://www.bittorrent.com/trackerless.html they don't need a tracker per se, just a link on a site/blog. So...I'm fairly certain that this can be simply seen as a token gesture towards "what was" instead of "what is" or "what will be" in the torrent world.

Actually quite a smart guy

[taskforce]

Cohen is a very smart guy... you only have to read his blog or even just take a look at Bittorrent to see this. It could be possible that he built the Bittorrent Search Engine (which was certainly an unexpected development) as a straw man for the xxAA to knock down.

This is really a good thing. Now it can be claimed that Bittorrent has introduced legitimising technologies at it's core the media will probably report it as such. To the average P2Per, there is no difference and people can continue to get what they want from their original sources. This hopefully will boost BT's image as a legitimate content delivery system whilst not touching P2P. Infact, the clueless xxAA might even step down their assault on Bittorrent now that they have got controls in. (Although admittedly they would have to be very stupid to do that.)

.doc?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is retarded enough to put .doc files on the web?

(... *looks at url* ...) ...oh, nevermind... /Jeol

I don't get the pirate movie thing

[ShahJehan]

I just don't get the pirate movie thing. Here's why: 1) Why would I watch some camcorder piece of garbage when I can wait for something more fitting my big screen tv? 2)As a developer, I find intellectual property theft too be distasteful and disgusting. 3)In Toronto, there are fools who are selling this bootleg crap on Spadina (Chinatown) and I can't wait till the authorities enforce the laws on these scum (now that's a movie I would download). 4) Piracy hurts the other connected industries (lots of people make their living on secondary industries). 5) Theft is theft. It's a poor way to live life if you steal. What will you teach your children? That sampling food in the grocery store is ok because they make money on you?! 6) Don't you want all the extras on the dvd? I just don't understand this crime.

They can still sue....can't they?

[Anonymous Coward]

This could still be a leveraging move legally. If the MPAA approached him and said we're going to sue you for endorsing illegal piracy, his response would be... "prove it". A court case would follow and lots of money would be spent. They'd be at the mercy of a jury. By offering money up front and getting him to accept it he is 1) admitting that protection can be written into the software 2) admitting that he was in defiance of the law by not writing it into the code. It seems quite clear that they can still sue him at the drop of a hat if he proves for them that copyright controls can be implemented.

This is not that different with the legal tactic lawyers have been using to win cyberaquatting cases. For example, the mikerowesoft.com lawsuit...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/internet/01/26/mikero wesoft.settle.ap/

MOTAR the imperious

I'll do it for only a billion.

[rice_burners_suck]

Dear Hollywood Studios,

For the special low price of only $1,000,000,000.00, payable in 1000 easy monthly installments of only $1,000,000.00 each, I will sign an agreement stating that I won't develop products specifically designed for finding links to pirated materials. I don't have time for that kind of activity anyway, and in fact, I don't know how to develop such products even if I did have the time to do so, but maybe having such an agreement with me will make you feel better about the piracy that does, unfortunately, take place elsewhere. And it will only cost you $1,000,000,000.00, a discount of over 60% over the regular price! So what are you waiting for?

Sincerely,

Rice Burners Suck.

oh yeah?

[AmbyVoc]

Something like Star Wreck?