14 DAY TRIAL // BitTorrent has succeeded to obtain $ 8.75 million from an investment fund and it plans to use that money to become legal. The file-sharing application, created in 2002 by Bram Cohen, initially designed for the fast distribution of Linux, has become one of the most well-known methods for swapping illegal files.
According to a CacheLogic statistic, BitTorrent was responsible last year for 30% of the entire Internet traffic. In 2004, Bram Cohen was joined by Ashwin Navin, an ex-Yahoo employee; now, both of them want to transform BitTorrent into a legal distribution platform.
BitTorrent's traffic recorded significant decreases after MPA succeeded to shutdown some of the most important tracker sites.
Anyway, BitTorrent has enough users to convince the companies to provide them with copyrighted files. The incomes will be generated by inserting ads or by employing a fee. BitTorrent hopes to attract in this way independent producers as well; for that purpose, the network is considering the possibility to include RSSs and podcasts.
The BitTorrent software is already used by large companies, like RedHat, Blizzard or Sun Microsystem.
It remains to be seen whether the important producers from the movie and music industry will have the courage to entrust their content to BitTorrent, whose decision to become legal might open the way to unexpected online distribution possibilities.
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