Bittorent working to stay legal

Posted By on November 23, 2005

Bittorrent LogoBitTorrent and the MPAA have come to an agreement that may prevent future legal action against the file sharing network. Unfortunately it will make searching even more of a challenge but will cut the illegal use of the popular and growing peer to peer file sharing service. MPAA’s problem with bittorrent is that many users have been sharing feature films through the service and using bittorrent.com to find the torrents.

Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent, introduced his software in May of 2005 and it permits users to search the internet for ‘torrents’ – files that include music, software and video content, some of which are protected by copyrights. Bittorrent advocates contend that a good deal of the content is legal, but a quick search also finds copyrighted material including full length movies and television shows.

Cohen, under this new agreement with MPAA, will add technology to the search engine used by bittorrent.com that would effectively remove content owned by the studios that make up the MPAA. Bittorrent Inc. discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a license and will work with the film industry to remove unauthorized content from bittorrent.com’s search engine.”

Problems still abound for file sharing users though, as the agreement only covers Mr. Cohen’s search site (bittorrent.com) and not other search engines that locate ‘torrents.’

Both Bram Cohen and MPAA CEO Dan Glickman agree that the Bittorrent and MPAA are leading the way for other companies in protecting content and preserving file sharing distribution.

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