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RIAA calls on BitTorrent to help tackle piracy
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 5 August 2015
The Recording Industry Association Of America has written to BitTorrent Inc requesting that the firm, behind the technology used by many unlicensed file-sharers, do more to help combat online piracy.
BitTorrent technologies have legitimate uses, of course, and the company has always distanced itself from the widespread use of its software by illegal file-sharers, with recently departed Chief Content Officer Matt Mason once remarking: “If you’re using BitTorrent for piracy, then you’re doing it wrong”.
But the record industry has always doubted the sincerity of such statements, and the new letter from RIAA VP Anti-Piracy Brad Buckles calls on the tech firm to be much more proactive in combating the use of its technology to infringe copyright.
After listing various stats regarding the use of BitTorrent’s software to infringe online, the letter suggests the firm work more closely with the RIAA’s anti-piracy team, which, Buckles says, could provide the tech company with data that it could then use “to deter further infringement of files via its goods and services”.
So that’s nice. BitTorrent countered that it has been in talks with the RIAA for ten years now, and has been busy of late launching that super new Bundle product to help artists do this crazy thing called “direct to fan”. Read the RIAA full letter here.
