MPAA, BitTorrent Make Big Non-Announcement

from the aw-they-made-friends dept

There's been buzz on the Web this week that BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen had been working on some sort of deal with the MPAA, leading to speculation that its member studios were going to use BitTorrent to distribute their movies, and accusations that Cohen had "sold out" -- similar to those levelled at Napster creator Shawn Fanning after he tried to take it legit. The announcement was released today -- and it's a whole bunch of nothing. Basically, the torrent search on BitTorrent.com won't point to pirated movies -- with the AP saying it won't stop "determined" users from finding movies, but "it removes one of the most convenient methods" people have for finding movie torrents. Well, it's no less convenient than any of the other popular and well-known sites people use to locate torrents. It's a pointless agreement that won't do anything to stop piracy, but it is a pretty significant step that the MPAA is talking to Cohen and BitTorrent rather than simply just suing first. The announcement probably says more about Cohen's plans to work with the studios in the future than anything about stopping people from downloading movies.