Hollywood Buddies up with Bram Cohen

brajesh writes "According to an AP story at Yahoo News, Hollywood studios announced an agreement with Bram Cohen, the creator of the popular BitTorrent file-swapping technology, that will keep him from helping users find pirated copies of movies online. The agreement requires BitTorrent to remove Web links leading to illegal content owned by the seven studios that are members of the MPAA. The agreement is a major breakthrough in MPAA's anti-piracy efforts. BitTorrent has been one of the major targets[.doc] of MPAA's anti-piracy tirade. However, Cohen's engine is far from the only tool used to find pirated BitTorrent files online. A handful of other online engines can search BitTorrent-specific sites, and ordinary search engines can also be used to find BitTorrent files."

So what?

[Jordan Catalano]

His search engine was far from the first place people looked for illegal content anyway.

Yawn.

[theSpaceCow]

Wake me up when the MPAA has signed an agreement with each of the dozens of sites people actually use to find trackers. I've used bittorrent for about a year and a half now, and I didn't even know bittorrent.com had links to torrents. I guess I've been spoiled by Suprnova, IsoHunt, TorrentReactor, et al.

What was really said

[rueger]

Yikes, the post above is almost incoherent, so here's a clip from the press release. Cohen has agreed to remove links to copyrighted content from the Bitorrent search:

The agreement negotiated Tuesday requires 30-year-old software designer Bram Cohen to remove Web links to pirated versions of movies from his Web site, bittorrent.com, effectively frustrating people who search for illegal copies of films.

The agreement involves connections to content owned by the seven studios that are members of the Motion Picture Association of America.

"BitTorrent Inc. discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a license to do so," Cohen said in the statement. "As such, we are pleased to work with the film industry to remove unauthorized content from bittorrent.com's search engine."

The deal will not prevent all illegal copies from being swapped using the BitTorrent technology. Cohen said during a news conference that even after links to files are removed from his search engine, some files could still be found using other means such as google.com.

What a pathetic attempt

[Anonymous Coward]

They'll do anything for publicity. His engine is nothing compared to the search engine God.

www.google.com
harry potter filetype:torrent

Until they shut down google their attempts are futile.

You can produce content for bit torrent

[cryfreedomlove]

If you don't like the MPAA or the ideas of DRM and copyright, then you should act on those beliefs. You should finance and produce a great feature film that appeals to a large audience. Then, waive copyright and release the film without any DRM.

The current system of film distribution is voluntary. You, as a film producer, can choose to use it or not. The current situation is perfect.

Re:How about google?

[Lxy]

Try this as a Google search:

"Star Wars filetype:torrent"

They already have a torrent search. :-)

Re:How about google?

[4play]

they do offer a torrent search http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22star+tre k%22+filetype%3Atorrent&btnG=Search&meta= [google.co.uk]

Re:total perfection not always needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus bittorrent is released under an open source license so Cohen's no longer in control of the code.

You're confusing BitTorrent with the BitTorrent.com site; this article (and the agreement) only refers to the BitTorrent.com site, not the BitTorrent program or protocols.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[YA_Python_dev]

The highest profile 'choke points' are Pirate Bay, Torrentspy, and Mininova. Everyone I know uses these.

Don't forget isoHunt.

FYI the urls are:

• http://thepiratebay.org/ [thepiratebay.org]
• http://www.torrentspy.com/ [torrentspy.com]
• http://www.mininova.org/ [mininova.org]
• http://isohunt.com/ [isohunt.com]

You can find almost everything on those sites, including very fast legal torrents of Linux distros.

Re:Weak

[Al Dimond]

There was already an article about this quote on /.

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/01/13 55234&tid=123&tid=95&tid=155 [slashdot.org]

I think it's pretty widely accepted that it was on a page he made as a joke making fun of some similarly-worded actual manifesto whose name I can't recall.

Re:total perfection not always needed

[jamesgomez]

If not those...

http://oink.me.uk/ [oink.me.uk] - Best Torrent site on the net...hands down
http://www.scenetorrents.org/ [scenetorrents.org] - Only scene releases, Decent sharers.
http://www.kraytracker.com/ [kraytracker.com] - Best NON-RIAA Music site for Punk, Hardcore, Emo...