Bram Cohen

And

Piracy

I'm Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent. As much of a geek as you'd

expect.

• Claims he learned the BASIC programming language at the young age of 5.

• Qualified for the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO) while attending high school.

• Hobbies: origami, juggling, recreational mathematics, puzzles.

College Dropout Project Start Off

• Dropped out of college to work for several dot com companies.

• One of them was Mojonation- concept important for BitTorrent.

• Protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing • Company founded in 2004, with the protocol

itself being designed and released in 2001.

• A user creates a torrent file and acts as a seed, other users download this file and become leechers.

• Why is it so great/useful?

VS

P2P Network Server- based network

• Bram Cohen received the following awards for this protocol: 2004 Wired Rave Award, 2005 Time’s 100 Most Influental People, etc.

• As of February 2013- 3.35% of all worldwide bandwidth (out of 6% dedicated to file sharing).

• As of 2009- reportedly had about the same number of active users online as viewers of YouTube and Facebook combined

Piracy

• In 2005, a deal was made with the MPAA to remove links to illegal content on the official BitTorrent website

• Cohen himself has claimed he has never violated copyright law using his software

Piracy

• Gray area- nature of BitTorrent/its concept VS its use

• “We do not endorse piracy. We do not encourage it. We don’t point to piracy sites. We don’t host any infringing content”- Eric Klinker, CEO

Effects/Problems

• Negative impact on record sales, although not definitively proven.

• Estimates of more than a billion dollars lost every year in the film industry, but again, these are doubtful.

• Easier exposure for new artists.

Sources

• Wikipedia.org• http://torrentfreak.com/oops-bittorrent-

forgets-to-strip-piracy-terminology-from-utorrent-131116/

• http://freakonomics.com/2012/01/12/how-much-do-music-and-movie-piracy-really-hurt-the-u-s-economy/

• http://bramcohen.com/

Thank You