Bram Cohen on BitTorrent's Future

Last week, BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen was rumored to be leaving the company he co-founded -- just as it landed big distribution deals with Hollywood. Can the rumors be true? What's in store for online file-sharing? According to the response, Cohen is not leaving; the piece goes on to talk in more detail about some of BT's recent announcements.

caching

[spectrokid]

This dude sits on some serious cash. If he for example makes cache software which ISP's can use to cut long-distance bills while keeping net neutrality...

Zero Cost

[jlebrech]

The main advantage that Holywood would have is a pratically absent distribution cost.
They can encrypt their movies with WMA then distribute that, people could preload their movie whilst at work then unloack the films they want to watch. And the price of the media should trickle down to the consumer. Otherwise paying £10 for a movie when i can get a hard copy on DVD is pretty useless.
Maybe some kind of log in system would work, where you can only watch one movie at a time, and you are charged per view. Maybe than would give Holywood and excuse to make movies you want to watch more than once.

Pirate tool, eh?

[Aladrin]

"WN: Do you think your plan will dispel some of the conceptions media execs have about BitTorrent -- that it's just a tool for piracy?

BC: Those preconceptions have already been mostly overcome."

Maybe in his little world, that's true... For the real world, no way. If you say 'bit torrent' to any teenager, they're going to think piracy. There's a few who know that some MMOs use it for updates, and that it could legally be used for data sharing... But hardly any of them USE it for that. (Or know how.)

No, I think to really take off, he'll need to rebrand his stuff. 'Windshare, built on Bit Torrent technology' or something like that. Just calling it Bit Torrent won't fly.

What's the upside

[emmp]

for consumers? We essentially pay to download the movie, and pay again (with bandwidth) to distribute it to other people, and on top of that it's DRM'd to hell. What have they (distributors) got to lose?

Then

[jlebrech]

We can then fire up the same bit torrent clients that the industry have used to corrupt packets of our illegal shares.

Re:Zero Cost

[teh_chrizzle]

no one in hollywood wants downloadable movies. you kids today with your ipods think that you do, but clearly you don't understand that there is a very large industry that we really can't jeopardize. the sooner you consumers figure that out, the sooner we can get past all of this "internet" nonsense. we here in hollywood have taken many measures to be certain that downloading is too expensive, too slow, and too inconvenient to compete with our firmly established business. if you want to watch a movie, go to the theater, if you want to watch something at home, buy the DVD (once the movie is no longer in theaters) or wait for it to come out on cable. those are your options. you get nothing! you lose! good day sir!

Re:Pirate tool, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't care what the teenagers think when they hear it, we care what the old men in Congress and the Courts think when they hear it.

Re:He's admitted...

[AlHunt]

>He's alrerady admitted that he created Bittorrent in order to trade files illegally.
> In my opinion,s it was all heade downhill from there.

I don't see why. Floppies, DAT tapes, CDs and DVDs have all been used to share illicit content and those media haven't died, except through obsolescence.

Al

Re:Pirate tool, eh?

[MikeBabcock]

We honestly care what teenagers think BitTorrent is for? I know what teenagers think of lots of things and I'm not so sure I'd take my life-lessons from those thoughts either (my appologies to the under-20 slashdot crowd).

In all seriousness though, I use BitTorrent to download things like Linux DVDs and OpenOffice installations. I've been experimenting with it as a way of managing repository updates as well. I'm sure it works well for other large files too.

Re:Pirate tool, eh?

[sumday]

Are you kidding? The only reason the content providers are giving Bram the time of day is because of the Bittorrent name. They intend to associate the word Bittorrent with a legal source of content to shift people over to paying for their media. The problem for them is that there is this uncontrollable protocol that makes mass distribution of large files easy. They cant make the protocol itself illegal, so they have to obfuscate it's function in the mind of your average joe.

It's essentially propaganda.

"Windshare" isn't propoganda. It's just another content distribution system that will probably be ignored by people who intend to download stuff with this BitTorrent thing their friends are talking about.

riddle me this?

[Connie_Lingus]

Why in the world would I use *my* upload bandwidth to help the bloated Hollywood junkies make $$$, AND PAY THEM FOR IT ON TOP OF IT?? Do they really think that...

1. I am going to download and seed files that I have to pay to view. (ok...maybe)

2. On top of that, I will then use my expensive connection to allow others to download from me so Hollywood can get a no cost distribution network. (uhhh..no way)

Perhaps if they allowed me free access to the movie if my share rate went over 200% or something, then I would consider it. But they have to be smoking some seriously dumb stuff if they think I am going to pay them for the right to waste my bandwidth.

Re:He's admitted...

[ZachPruckowski]

Actually, the reason it was likely banned was for traffic reasons. Most non-file-sharers users on a campus network average like 200MB or less a day, even if they visit YouTube or install stuff from online every once in a while. File-sharers, however, use 10x as much traffic. This can clog traffic in areas that are somewhat limited, like older buildings still wired with 10MB wired or wireless. Also, at 100KB+ a second, more than a few filesharers would seriously slow internet access to the campus. (I know this because I downloaded an Ubuntu .iso while on campus and got a mean email).

Re:What's the upside

[h4rm0ny]

When I'm getting a torrent of a Linux Distribution ISO, or whatever it is I'm after, I usually leave the torrent running for quite some time after I've got the download in order to give back somewhat to everyone else. If people are buying a DRM'd movie, then there's no motivation to have the same community spirit towards everyone else. Once you start paying for something, you get a sense of entitlement that undermines community goodwill. I always liked the way that the Bit Torrent protocol worked on co-operation and sharing.

Re:Bram Cohen

[Colz Grigor]

So what?!

Many inventors have had one big invention, early on, that they were never able to top. The one we all know: Alexander Graham Bell. And then there's Eli Whitney, George Eastman, Henry Ford, Igor Sikorsky, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Steve Wozniak, Elias Howe... and this list is hardly all-inclusive.

Bram Cohen create an ingenious and highly beneficial technology. He may not be a Thomas Edison, but how many people can you name who had multiple disparate inventions? And does the fact that most inventors don't become household names make the inventions or the inventors any less of a person?

Give the guy credit for what he's done and maybe some encouragement to do more, but don't call these people failures. They've done more than most people ever will...

::Colz Grigor

Re:riddle me this?

[hackstraw]

Why in the world would I use *my* upload bandwidth to help the bloated Hollywood junkies make $$$, AND PAY THEM FOR IT ON TOP OF IT?? Do they really think that...

The same reason people do it today.

Faster download speeds and lower cost.

However, I would imagine that the hollywood junkies cannot compete with the cost of zero.

Re:Pirate tool, eh?

[revlayle]

THEY only care because they tend to have more disposable income at their fingertips for making purchases and *generally* more disposable time to blow online - not so much how their opinion of BitTorrent influences people older than them.

(retired people have the extra time, but they certainly do not *necessarily* have the disposable income part and not as savvy (yet) on the intardwebs as most teenagers are)

Re:riddle me this?

[SlashDread]

Thats the future thou, granted, for me to buy into it, it would have two things: cheap, and drm free.
Then I have no issues sharing bandwith up, thats free anyway, the "cheap and drm-free" are more likely to be -my- showstoppers...

Re:riddle me this?

[Illserve]

Why in the world would I use *my* upload bandwidth to help the bloated Hollywood junkies make $$$, AND PAY THEM FOR IT ON TOP OF IT?? Do they really think that...

The average user won't know or care about seeding or upstream bandwidth. As long as the program is set up properly to avoid hammering the connection unnecessarily, it will work just fine, despite your screaming rants to the contrary.