Untitled Document
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MPAA boss Dan Glickman (l)
and Bram Cohen anounce the deal |
The movie industry and the man behind BitTorrent have signed a deal
they hope will reduce the number of pirated films shared on the downloading
network.
The deal covers films found via the bittorrent.com website run by Bram Cohen -
creator of the download system.
It means bittorrent.com must remove any links to pirated films made by seven
Hollywood movie studios.
As it only covers the bittorrent.com website it is unclear what overall effect
it will have on net piracy.
Link list
What is not known is how many of the 45 million users of BitTorrent
search for files to download via the BitTorrent.com site. Many other websites
let people search for so-called "torrents" or simply list the most
popular ones for people to download and these sites could be unaffected by the
deal.
The deal between the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and BitTorrent
is the latest in a long line of moves to limit the illegal sharing of films
via the net.
BitTorrent has become a widely used way for many to get hold of very large
video files as the technology is very efficient at splitting up and sharing
data.
Use of the system has proved to be a thorn in the side of the MPAA as it can
make it hard to work out who is behind illegal movie sharing.
Under the deal Mr Cohen must stop people being able to find pirated films when
they search via the bittorrent.com website. He has also agreed to speed up the
issuing of notices telling people to stop illegal sharing.
"BitTorrent Inc. discourages the use of its technology for distributing
films without a license to do so," said Mr Cohen in a statement.
Mr Cohen has reportedly raised $8.75m in financing to turn the BitTorrent technology
and the associated website into a commercial download service. The deal is widely
seen as giving that nascent service official approval.
