Dan Glickman, Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) Chairman and CEO and Bram Cohen, BitTorrent Founder and CEO, yesterday announced an agreement that will see links to infringing files removed from the BitTorrent.com search engine. BitTorrent was created by Cohen to help sites distribute large files without getting huge bandwidth bills and because of its reliability and speed, it has been adopted as one of the best ways to get pirated content.
"BitTorrent is an extremely efficient publishing tool and search engine that allows creators and rights holders to make their content available on the Internet securely," said Cohen. "BitTorrent, Inc. discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a license to do so. As such, we are pleased to work with the film industry to remove unauthorized content from BitTorrent.com’s search engine." Glickman now hopes that others will follow suit.
"We are glad that Bram Cohen and his company are working with us to limit access to infringing files on the BitTorrent.com website," said Glickman. "They are leading the way for other companies by their example." It has long been rumored that Hollywood has been interested in BitTorrent as a way to quickly and reliably distribute legitimate content to consumers all over the world.
The MPAA has brought lawsuits against sites that use BitTorrent to aid in the trade of illegal copies of movies since last December. Most sites that were sued have shut down. However, there are still many sites where BitTorrent users can download and share pirated movies and it would be very unlikely that those sites would remove any torrent files at the MPAA's request.
"We are glad that Bram Cohen and his company are working with us to limit access to infringing files on the BitTorrent.com website," said Glickman. "They are leading the way for other companies by their example." It has long been rumored that Hollywood has been interested in BitTorrent as a way to quickly and reliably distribute legitimate content to consumers all over the world.
The MPAA has brought lawsuits against sites that use BitTorrent to aid in the trade of illegal copies of movies since last December. Most sites that were sued have shut down. However, there are still many sites where BitTorrent users can download and share pirated movies and it would be very unlikely that those sites would remove any torrent files at the MPAA's request.
