Now this is a classic picture. Dan Glickman, chairman of the MPAA, and Bram Cohen, creator of BitTorrent. One grey haired man looking suspiciously into the camera. One legendary programmer looking satisfied and thoughtful out of the picture.
The fact that Mr. Cohen’s technology is on its way into serious use in the media industry is good news. BitTorrent has already changed the industry. But, the real fun hasn’t even started. Software like Videora that lets you subscribe to media content and easily convert it to your portable devices will acellerate use of both illegal downloads and possibly also very interesting legal services and huge amounts of interesting indie- and long tail content. For the long tail content the DTV project is especially interesting. With their Broadcast Machine they make it easier for people to distribute as well as consume media.
A story on how a TV show originally was rejected and found its way back to production thanks to file sharing is also interesting. Channels like NerdTV and use of Creative Commons instead of copyright could also help bring interesting content back to the television screen. The BBC already use BitTorrent technology in their iMP application.
These are interesting times. Maybe Bob the Millionaire can download Lost in HD legally in the future? Dan Glickman and Bram Cohen: go-go-go!
[...] As a follow up to my previous post on P2P I have to mention this one. A movie made by students and distributed through the internet becomes (probably) the most viewed movie ever in Finland. Yepp. Interesting times. [...]
Bram got a trendy haircut and shaved. Shows what happens VC money arrives in your account. The older images have much more geek appeal.
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6159/797/1600/bram%20cohen.jpg
Fantastic! But as long as he keeps his Asperger’s syndrome that among other things gives him an amazing power of concentration and his keen interest in “recreational mathematics” I think he will be OK. Even with VC money.