BitTorrent, Hollywood Reach Piracy Deal

BitTorrent and the MPAA struck a deal on Tuesday that may prevent future legal action against the file sharing network, and will make it tougher for users to find feature films through the service.

In May, Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent, introduced technology that allowed users to search the Internet for Torrent files. A good deal of the content found was legal, the company claims, but searches also found copyrighted material, such as movies and television shows.

Under the terms of the deal, Cohen will add technology to the search engine used by bittorrent.com that would effectively remove content owned by the studios that make up the MPAA.

"BitTorrent Inc. discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a license to do so," Cohen said in a statement. "As such, we are pleased to work with the film industry to remove unauthorized content from bittorrent.com's search engine."

Cohen may have taken this step to make BitTorrent technology more attractive to the industry. His company recently raised nearly $9 million to develop ways to use BitTorrent legally and commercially.

While the agreement only covers Cohen's site and not other search engines that have been set up to perform a similar function, it removes one of the most popular ways to search for movie downloads on the network.

"We are glad that Bram Cohen and his company are working with us to limit access to infringing files on the BitTorrent.com Web site," MPAA CEO Dan Glickman said in prepared remarks. "They are leading the way for other companies by their example."