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BitTorrent Founder Bram Cohen Has Left the Company (theverge.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the parting-of-the-ways dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Bram Cohen, a co-founder of BitTorrent, the company which oversees the development of eponymous P2P protocol, has left its board, he told TorrentFreak. The revelation comes weeks after the file-sharing service provider said it had been acquired by blockchain startup Tron. It remains unclear exactly when Cohen, who also served as a lead engineer at the firm for years, made the decision to part ways with the company. He hinted to TechCrunch last year that, as of August, he was no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of the company. The departure of Cohen underscores BitTorrent's long battle to find a lucrative business model. The company, the services of which are used by more than 100 million customers, has long struggled to find new applications of its platform and avenues to bring home some cash. In 2016, the company announced a mobile music and video streaming service [called] BitTorrent Now, which it abruptly shut down months later while also firing its co-CEOs. Last year, the company shut down its much hyped live streaming service BitTorrent Live, which Variety described as a brainchild of Cohen.

53 comments

  1. This is really exciting! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I think the combination of BitTorrent and blockchain is exactly what I need to power my new space elevator. I'm contacting Elon Musk right now over Twitter to get his thoughts on the matter but I think this could be the greatest technology since project Xanadu.

    1. Re: This is really exciting! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whatever you do, don't go public.

  2. Technology killed by the media industry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Of course P2P lives on, but the threats from the media industry have made it impossible for legitimate businesses to profit from it.

    1. Re: Technology killed by the media industry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Right, itâ(TM)s such a great way to share Linux distributions.

    2. Re:Technology killed by the media industry by lucasnate1 · · Score: 1

      If I remember correctly, both WoW and Microsoft used (still using?) P2P in order to reduce bandwidth on patches sent to users.

      --
      Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
    3. Re:Technology killed by the media industry by Killall+-9+Bash · · Score: 1

      Lots of companies are doing it. Intuit uses P2P when you download quickbooks.

      --
      "Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
    4. Re:Technology killed by the media industry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Blockchain completely kills bit-torrent, in other words it will all be traceable.

  3. What, exactly, is the "news"? by nadass · · Score: 2

    A co-founder of a quasi-influential silicon valley company left the company. Why is this written like an obituary? These days, everybody leaves their employers -- even Steve Jobs left Apple on a few occasions.

    1. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He'll be back any day now, after Tim Cook borked it.

      Still no amoled in 2018. Their screens look 8 years outdated smh.

    2. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      'Quasi-influential' might be overstating it.

      BitTorrent (the company) was not responsible for BitTorrent (the protocol). It was founded two years after the protocol was solid and most (if not all) further development of the protocol came from the community and third-party BT clients.

      The company was founded by Cohen and some guy with an Indian name, presumably to monetise the BitTorrent name. Apparently they succeeded, since they amassed enough money to buy uTorrent and launch a good handful of services. But they don't hold (and never have held) any influence in the BitTorrent community.

      (Bram Cohen wrote the original BitTorrent client in Python.)

    3. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Krakadoom · · Score: 4, Informative

      Incidentally all the good versions of uTorrent also pre-date it's acquisition by BitTorrent (Inc. or whatever).

    4. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apple Watch and iPhone X use AMOLED. Troll harder.

    5. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      does uTorrent have any users left now? Everyone I know moved to Qbittorrent over the last few years. The shitstorm of the embedded miner was the final straw for most.

    6. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by gitano_dbs · · Score: 1

      uTorrent version 2.2.6 its the last one usable whitout all the bloat the next ones started adding.

      I am still using it, just setup to never update and works like a charm. If something works dont touch it :P

    7. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Mashiki · · Score: 2

      Why are you using utorrent anyway? There's a bunch of clients far better like qbtorrent, transmission, deluge.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    8. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "its"

    9. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

      Monty Python's Flying Circus

    10. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      To make you butthurt. I even use the latest version with all the ads.

    11. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why still using utorrent? Because I've yet to find a client that easily handle RSS feeds on Windows.

    12. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > If something works dont touch it :P

      I wish somebody could get that message through to the idiots at Microsoft...

    13. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Desler · · Score: 1

      Still no amoled in 2018.

      The iPhone X says hi from 2017. Want to try again?

    14. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Krakadoom · · Score: 2

      Because it works. And none of the clients you listed seem better to me.

    15. Re: What, exactly, is the "news"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Bram Cohen is a white dude who invented BitTorrent. So, yeah, I imagine he was trying to make money from his work.

    16. Re: What, exactly, is the "news"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The benefit of the BitTorrent protocol has been enormous, and outweighs any monetary value to an individual. Not everything should be monetized, and it was foolish (and offensive) to even try with a communications protocol. It is ironic that it's creator wouldn't recognize this, or the ideals of those who value sharing and abhor the parasites profiting from centralized models. Where would the Internet be if someone tried to monetize TCP/IP? The core value is in enabling peers to communicate, and that accrues to its users. Trying to extract value there would harm everyone.

      Bram Cohen could have done very well for himself with just a donation-based non-profit foundation dedicated to developing and maintain the protocol. Perhaps expanding into other distributed services like p2p messaging and communications, including facebookless social networking, which are in a bad state today because of profit motives. He would have preserved more good will that way, and possibly focused efforts on achieving those other goals. Wikipedia.org is an example of the more admirable approach.

    17. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      To make you butthurt. I even use the latest version with all the ads.

      Wait, it makes me butthurt because you're making a bad decision? Okay. So when you make a smart decision then I guess that means I'm also responsible? Living rent free in your head too, I guess.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    18. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Because it works. And none of the clients you listed seem better to me.

      Really? Please explain how qbtorrent isn't better then utorrent, especially since even it's UI is based off of it.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    19. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Why still using utorrent? Because I've yet to find a client that easily handle RSS feeds on Windows.

      And qbtorrent handles RSS feeds with no problems and just in the same way as utorrent? So, how is it not the better option when it comes in at half the memory usage.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    20. Re:What, exactly, is the "news"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Problem is that just because you have a good idea or a useful algorithm it doesn't mean it can be successfully monetised. Such is the nature of bittorrent.

  4. TIL the torrent protcocol somehow needs a company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Question: Why does the company even need to exist?

    From an outsider's point of view: The protocol is already implemented, so what does the company do, and where does it get its income? BT users don't exactly seem like the paying type to me, nor the type to tolerate advertisements, so does the official bittorrent client contain a coin miner or something?

    How does this company get paid?

  5. Chia Network by mcelrath · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Bram founded a new company, https://chia.net/ which is making a new bitcoin-derived crypto-currency based on Proof of Space and Time. Basically it fills the unused space on your drive with entropy, and uses this like a set of lottery tickets instead of Proof of Work mining. They're also focusing on features of the crypto-currency that will enhance "Layer 2" (like http://lightning.network/) to enable scalability. In an economic sense this construction shifts the costs of mining toward capital expenditure (for storage) instead of electricity consumption.

    He and a collaborator recently won Best Paper at Eurocrypt 2018 for a Zero Knowledge Proof of Time https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/1... (presentation: https://cyber.stanford.edu/sit... )

    Interesting things are coming from Bram.

    --
    1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
    1. Re:Chia Network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With this the skyrocketed GPU prices gonna switch to already inflated hard disks prices. Gimme a break. Then will be proof of idle RAM.

    2. Re:Chia Network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      i agree. a smart guy.
      however "bit-torrent" and "blockchain" are still not implemented "at the right place".

      bit-torrent should be used for a decentralized name-addressing scheme:
      example: removing domain-dealers from the picture will make the whole house-of-online-advertisement come crashing down.

      block-chain should be used in the world of brokerage house: looking up (spying) on orders should leave a block-chain record.
      for example: spying on forward-orders, like stop-loss, trailing-stops, etc.

    3. Re:Chia Network by mcelrath · · Score: 1

      Give me another way to turn real-world assets into cryptographic form without "trusting" someone.

      --
      1^2=1; (-1)^2=1; 1^2=(-1)^2; 1=-1; 1=0.
    4. Re:Chia Network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Using unused space on your HD might have been a good idea before SSDs became the norm. Now it's just extra write amplification.

  6. Re:TIL the torrent protcocol somehow needs a compa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The company is unrelated to the protocol. It was created about 2 years after the protocol was stable and they capitalised on the name.

  7. Re:TIL the torrent protcocol somehow needs a compa by guyniraxn · · Score: 1

    It was created to give BitTorrent's creator a job for his efforts and its function is to legitimize the protocol as something other than just an illegal file sharing method.

  8. Re:TIL the torrent protcocol somehow needs a compa by Desler · · Score: 1

    Unrelated only if you ignore that it was co-founded by the creator of the protocol.

  9. Re:TIL the torrent protcocol somehow needs a compa by Catbeller · · Score: 1

    It is 2018. We now have to justify "illegitimate" protocols. "Illegitimate" because they work better, take so much less electricity, and are utterly democratic. Because the tiny book, movie, music, and TV industries didn't like it.
    We nuked the protocol because it worked too well and it couldn't be easily surveilled.
    We are idiots led by liars.

  10. Re: Trump committed treason essentially by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    makes you wonder who's the bot here

  11. Re:TIL the torrent protcocol somehow needs a compa by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    The lawyers who took down Napster would like to have a word with you about illegitimate protocols, defined as a protocol whose nontrivial uses, percentage-wise, are to avoid royalty payments for intellectual property.

    It is perhaps fitting the guy who invented the protocol struggled to find a way to profit from it given all the clones.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  12. Re: The real truth about APK Hosts File Engine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck off.

  13. Resilio by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wonder if him stepping down from day to day last year coincides with Sync quality and direction going to shit. For a while, it seemed like it was getting stable, but every new release has worse and worse bugs.

  14. FACTS vs. your LIES #1/2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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    APK

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  15. FACTS vs. your LIES #2/2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    8.) Part of my PERSONAL hosts file's created by me. I give users the method to do the same via my program.

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    APK

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  16. 100,000++ users of my work disagree... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

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  17. torrent is so 90s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    its 2018. torrent is so 90s. and provides absolutely no benefit. i can get anything i need, legally, without having to use such a shitty, stupid, useless, and pointless protocol.