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May 26, 2005
Has BitTorrent Made a Major PR Blunder by Adding Search?
Posted by Ernest Miller
Joe Gratz makes a couple of good points regarding BitTorrent's addition of search capability (BitTorrent Opens Search Engine). However, I think this point may be the more important one:
Until this point, Cohen [developer of BitTorrent technology] has been able to say — and has said, repeatedly — that BitTorrent is just a tool for distributing large files, and that he doesn’t really know or care about the uses to which it’s being put. Cohen as the maker of a general-purpose data distribution tool is much easier to defend, as a matter of politics and rhetoric, than Cohen as a direct facilitator of infringing downloads. This is entirely apart from any legal arguments about the Betamax doctrine; I believe that it is simply a dumb rhetorical move to have this search engine come from the same organization that developed the BitTorrent software and protocol. [emphasis in original]
If anything, Gratz may underestimate the importance of this point. The
MPAA is already talking about people infringing through BitTorrent in an effort to smear the technology in the minds of the public (as well as legislators and judges). This may only ensure they succeed in tainting people's opinion of the technology.
UPDATE 1135PT
Ed Felten is concerned about this move as well (BitTorrent Search).
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Ernest Miller pursues research and writing on cyberlaw, intellectual property, and First Amendment issues. Mr. Miller attended the U.S. Naval Academy before attending Yale Law School, where he was president and co-founder of the Law and Technology Society, and founded the technology law and policy news site LawMeme. He is a fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.
Ernest Miller's blog postings can also be found @
