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BitTorrent Fires CEOs, Closes Los Angeles Studio, Shutters BitTorrent Now (variety.com)
Things are not looking good at BitTorrent. Citing multiple sources, Variety reports today that the company has fired two former CEOs -- Robert Delamar and Jeremy Johnson -- and let go an unknown number of staffers. Company's CFO Dipak Joshi has stepped in as interim CEO. BitTorrent is also closing its Los Angeles-based production studio and shutting its BitTorrent Now streaming efforts. From the report: The company had officially announced the appointment of Delamar and Johnson as new co-CEOs in April. At the time, the duo laid out a renewed focus on media production and distribution, which involved the opening of a new Los Angeles-based production studio. These efforts culminated in BitTorrent Now, an ad-supported music and video streaming platform that launched in June. BitTorrent Now built on the company's efforts to strike media distribution deals with independent artists, but didn't actually use BitTorrent's P2P technology for streaming.
this is bittorrent the company, not bittorrent the protocol... Yeah... they don't make it easy like, mozilla (a company and a non-profit)
What happened to the Bram Stoker guy? I thought he was BitTorrent.
BitTorrent Now built on the company's efforts to strike media distribution deals with independent artists, but didn't actually use BitTorrent's P2P technology for streaming.
Face, meet palm.
I thought BitTorrent was a protocol to allow efficient distribution of large blobs of data. What do you need a studio for to be a BitTorrent?
If you make something popular then despite having no business model there are always some VCs willing to throw money after you on fame alone. Make some shit up, give yourself a nice salary as CEO and just milk it for as long as the money lasts. As far as I can tell the company's products don't really have any relation to its namesake.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
BitTorrent the protocol is healthy and happily exchanging pirated stuff all over the internet.
BitTorrent the legal studio-agreement streaming effort is dying.
Some stuff just can't be monetised, especially when the competition is both free and better.
As far as I can tell the company's products don't really have any relation to its namesake.
Somehow they're trying to pull a Napster while still doing P2P.
It might seem rational to you and me that we work (and play) together nicely, and that our computers could help us. Speaking in a broader sense, if there is some video or news item that a LOT of us want to see, then my computer could help nearby computers get that information, and they could help their neighbors, too.
Too bad no one makes a profit on being neighborly.
The way to maximum profits is CONTROL. You have to grab the customers by their balls and tits and squeeze until you get the last pennies out of them! Plural "You" in this case refers to inhuman corporations, fully sanctioned as human beings by the US Supreme Court.
Government ought to be a neutral referee, but governments tend to like control, too, and when you add in unlimited lobbying by those inhuman corporations, BitTorrent never had a chance. The rules of the game are written by the most cheaply bribed politicians working for the least ethical businessmen.
In conclusion, we now have "government of the corporations, by the lawyers, for the richest 0.1%" ruling the earth.
(Con Man Donald, one of the least ethical businessmen and a self-confessed master of bribing politicians, probably thinks that quote comes from Honest Abe.)
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
If Slashdot had a better economic model, one of the features that I would be most likely to support would be a recent-post editing feature for stupid typos, like the one in the original Subject: of this thread.
Gotta stop flogging that dead horse, but my next two targets would be (1) features to reduce the visibility of trolls and (2) improvements in the moderation. Actually, the recent-post editing doesn't matter that much to me, much as I hate the typos. It would probably be 3rd or lower on my list.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Five minutes ago, I could have told anyone the name of the guy who invented bittorrent protocol.
Now I am laughing and having to look it up. Worse, I know I won't remember it! I'll just remember "Bram Stoker" because you just permanently damaged my brain. For the rest of my fucking life, I am going to have to look up the name of the bittorrent guy.
AC, sometimes you're a genius. And sometimes you're a total bastard. And then there's times like this, when you're both. Fuck you, but also, fuck yeah!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Rumor has it they were found trying to use the software for legitimate purposes instead of just pirating media.
Well Duh! Everybody knows there is no money in that..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
"BitTorrent" was the name of a company as well as a protocol?
What next, DivX?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Funny enough tons of legit companies use BT every day, they just have no need for BT the company. You look at just about every open world or MMO or FTP game and they are using BT to distribute their updates and patches but there is no need for BT the company for that, just the protocol.
So I'd say its yet another case of trying to make money off a name when there really was no business model to go with it, like when they tried to turn napster into a DRMed up the ass music rental service. Nobody wants yet another rental service, companies aren't gonna license their DRM when they can just sell their wares on iTunes and Amazon, there is really no point in this company existing which I predict they won't by the end of the year. Oh well I'm sure the ex-CEOs made out nicely on that sweet VC money.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Its like "linux", which can refer to either the kernel or the complete operating system. :-)