BitTorrent, Hollywood to Fight Piracy
The American movie industry has achieved a major break-through in its fight against Internet piracy, with the announcement of a collaboration between the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and BitTorrent - a P2P network.
So far BitTorrent's technology has been widely used for illegally copying movies and TV shows over the Internet. While downloading a movie, BitTorrent's technology takes parts of the file from different sources simultaneously, thereby facilitating a quicker download of the movie.
Under the terms of this agreement, Bram Cohen, founder and CEO, BitTorrent, has agreed to remove links which direct users to pirated content. It is said that the deal might also pave the way for eventual adoption of BitTorrent's technology by movie studios for new, legal services.
Dan Glickman, chairman and CEO, MPAA, and Bram Cohen said in a joint statement, that BitTorrent is an extremely efficient publishing tool and search engine, which allows creators and rights-holders to make their content available on the Internet securely. Cohen said that BitTorrent discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a license to do so, and that the company is pleased to work with the film industry to remove un-authorized content from BitTorrent.com's search engine.
The agreement symbolizes a joint initiative, to fight against the continued illegal use of technology.
MPAA vehemently opposes piracy in any form, since it hurts the very many individuals employed by the movie industry, including carpenters, lighting and sound technicians, etc. Until now MPAA has sued many Web sites which use BitTorrent technology for illegal movie distribution; and 90 percent of these have shut down.
MPAA estimates losses to the movie industry due to piracy at around $3.5 billion last year; analysts express the view that the figure might close at approximately $5.4 billion this year.
Gartner has meanwhile said that the BitTorrent-MPAA collaboration might actually give rise to legitimate online networks backed by the movie industry, as a viable alternative to the illegal movie-sharing networks of today.
So far BitTorrent's technology has been widely used for illegally copying movies and TV shows over the Internet. While downloading a movie, BitTorrent's technology takes parts of the file from different sources simultaneously, thereby facilitating a quicker download of the movie.
Under the terms of this agreement, Bram Cohen, founder and CEO, BitTorrent, has agreed to remove links which direct users to pirated content. It is said that the deal might also pave the way for eventual adoption of BitTorrent's technology by movie studios for new, legal services.
Dan Glickman, chairman and CEO, MPAA, and Bram Cohen said in a joint statement, that BitTorrent is an extremely efficient publishing tool and search engine, which allows creators and rights-holders to make their content available on the Internet securely. Cohen said that BitTorrent discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a license to do so, and that the company is pleased to work with the film industry to remove un-authorized content from BitTorrent.com's search engine.
The agreement symbolizes a joint initiative, to fight against the continued illegal use of technology.
MPAA vehemently opposes piracy in any form, since it hurts the very many individuals employed by the movie industry, including carpenters, lighting and sound technicians, etc. Until now MPAA has sued many Web sites which use BitTorrent technology for illegal movie distribution; and 90 percent of these have shut down.
MPAA estimates losses to the movie industry due to piracy at around $3.5 billion last year; analysts express the view that the figure might close at approximately $5.4 billion this year.
Gartner has meanwhile said that the BitTorrent-MPAA collaboration might actually give rise to legitimate online networks backed by the movie industry, as a viable alternative to the illegal movie-sharing networks of today.
Labels: Technology
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Wednesday, November 23, 2005 at 2:40 PM.
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