BitTorrent filesharing company gets $8.75M infusion

BitTorrent, the file-sharing program that is the latest thorn in IP owners' collective side, just got an infusion of $8.75 Million from capital investors. They're trying to make BitTorrent more legit and create ties to music and movie companies.

BitTorrent has avoided being sued for copyright infringement like Grokster/Kazaa because they've said from the beginning that the program was not intended for infringement purposes, the program does not protect the identity of users, and BotTorrent itself doesn't know the identity of users or what they're trading. The BitTorrent program is particularly good for sharing large files such as movies because it breaks the large files into small packages (the bits) and sends them one at a time. It also works faster for people who share alike, so being a bandwidth hog and not sharing what you have on your computer doesn't work so well, as it did with Grokster/Kazaa.

Here's from the article:

“The piracy business is not something anyone can make money on,” says Ashwin Navin, who co-founded BitTorrent with Bram Cohen. “We want to distribute paid and ad-supported content, using this technology.”

BitTorrent is the second-most-popular file-sharing program, with 33% market share, according to research firm CacheLogic, after eDonkey's 50% share. BitTorrent specializes in helping users nab huge files quickly.

Navin concedes that some users download movies without paying for them but says BitTorrent isn't the only technology that can be used illegitimately.

...

He says the company is meeting with movie studios and other copyright holders to negotiate use of BitTorrent to distribute content.

Here's the rest -- BitTorrent gets $8.75M from venture-capital firm: File-sharing service hopes to distribute Hollywood content