Bram Cohen on BitTorrent's Future

Last week, BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen was rumored to be leaving the company he co-founded -- just as it landed big distribution deals with Hollywood. Can the rumors be true? What's in store for online file-sharing? According to the response, Cohen is not leaving; the piece goes on to talk in more detail about some of BT's recent announcements.

Comments

can't wait

[erbbysam]

"just as it landed big distribution deals with Hollywood."
I can't wait until I want to buy a movie drm'ed so bad that I can only watch it on my computer screen after downloading it at 5 KB/s over a week because there are only a handful of seeders and a few thousand lechers, that's how I want to get my movies delivered to me!

Hidden Cost

[PopeRatzo]

Yes, BitTorrent could provide a way for the media companies to distribute their products at little cost, but everytime another user learns how to use BitTorrent, you've equipped one more person to readily download movies for free, as I do. Now, I don't think that's a bad thing, because as far as I'm concerned the current entertainment industry with their outdated model of "Intellectual Property" can all collapse tomorrow and I wouldn't shed a tear. But I'm guessing that Hollywood doesn't really want to teach everyone how to use TorrentSpy.

The movie execs got suckered

[silicon not in the v]

I've seen a couple of blog posts about it, and I think this is a good one that describes it well. The movie execs don't seem to understand what they just paid for. There is a Bittorrent protocol, which we are familiar with, and then there is the Bittorrent, Inc. company. They are not really very related to each other, except that Bram Cohen is kind of involved in both. The media deal was with the Bittorrent company and, specifically, their website: bittorrent.com. The execs don't seem to realize that it has no bearing at all on the continuing use of bittorrent clients by millions of people.