hollywood makes deal with bittorrent

November 23rd, 2005

Link.*

In a deal aimed at reducing illegal internet traffic in pirated films, Hollywood reached an agreement Tuesday with the creator of the popular file-sharing software BitTorrent.

The agreement requires 30-year-old software designer Bram Cohen to prevent his BitTorrent website from locating pirated versions of popular movies, effectively frustrating people who search for illegal copies of films.

BitTorrent must remove web links leading to illegal content owned by the seven studios that are members of the Motion Picture Association of America.

…this is nothing but PR fodder, as you can’t actually make a deal with a networking protocol. This is so Joe StripeTie will skim this article and say at the watercooler on Monday that “I heard Hollywood made a deal with BitTorrent and now you can’t download movies.” Nonetheless, I still look forward to Hollywood’s upcoming deals with FTP and IRC.

~jeff

* P.S. Wired — both the magazine and the website — **sucks**. It’s gone steadily downhill for so long that I can’t remember when or if it was ever good. This month’s issue is such a repulsive exaltation of capitalistic gizmolüsten that I could barely stomach reading it. I mean, I love gadgets too, but honestly, there’s a limit.


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  • http://joshua.swingpad.com/ Joshua

    I have the first, like, two years of Wired. The last couple of issues aren’t very good.

    If I recall, I missed the first one.

    If you’re interested, I’ve got a pile of Mondo2000 around somewhere, too. Those never got nongood, but that assumes that you like your cover girls to be boys and you like to mix drugs and computing.

  • http://joshua.swingpad.com/ Joshua

    … and, really, I’m even more amazed at the stupid of that quote than you are.

    “Sony BMG today made a deal with Talking Face To Face to buy advertising time.”

    “Microsoft has signed a contract with both Tooth-Sucking Sounds and Eye Rolling to not happen during their product announcements.”

  • Ben

    I look forward to Apple’s upcoming deals with the daap protocol. Maybe we should hire a lawyer, post-haste.

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