uTorrent and Azureus Go Corporate, Leave Users Wary
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Bram Cohen, creator of the bit torrent protocol and Ludvig Strigeus, writer of uTorrent recently posted a letter to their community forums detailing a merger between the two companies. uTorrent, known as an extremely well-coded, lightweight bit torrent client, has been a favorite among the most savvy file traders.
For many this news is troubling because of BitTorrent Inc’s recent partnership with many major entertainment companies including 20th Century Fox, G4, Kadokawa Pictures USA, Lionsgate, MTV Networks. While the partnership only mentions the digital distribution of media including movies and television shows, many are wary that it may mean more such as DRM inclusion in their bit torrent client. Now that uTorrent is under the BitTorrent Inc name, some users are going back to Azureus, a free java-based bit torrent client. However, even Azureus has an eye for commercial gains, with the launch of their HD-quality video distribution site Zudeo.
Zudeo, a video sharing site similar to you tube, plans to capture the user-generated content market with bit torrent and HD video. As with you tube, video sharing sites require a large amount of legal cooperation with regard to copyright holders and the companies that represent them.
Many current uTorrent users are planning on sticking with version 1.6 until they find out what changes are made in the next version. However, many are eager for a mac or linux version, as well as regular expressions for RSS.
With all of these mainstream bit torrent clients going commercial, who is a low-life underground torrent kid to trust? I’m sure something will pop up on sourceforge if there isn’t already a viable, open source alternative. (that supports RSS?)
Even though no concrete evidence exists showing either uTorrent or Azureus in cahoots with the motion picture industry there’s no reason not to be alarmed with the crackdown on file sharing increasing it’s pressure on regular users. Better safe than sorry.
Click more for the full letter from Bit Torrent Inc and uTorrent.
This is Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent protocol, and Ludvig (Ludde) Strigeus, the writer of µTorrent.
Together, we are pleased to announce that BitTorrent, Inc. and µTorrent AB have decided to join forces. BitTorrent has acquired µTorrent as it recognized the merits of µTorrent’s exceptionally well-written codebase and robust user community. Bringing together µTorrent’s efficient implementation and compelling UI with BitTorrent’s expertise in networking protocols will significantly benefit the community with what we envision will be the best BitTorrent client.
What does this mean for the µTorrent community? Not much, at least not at first. The intention is to maintain the website as it is, and keep the forums and community active. Moving forward behind the scenes, we will continue to develop µTorrent and will be using the codebase in other applications, especially ones where a fast, lightweight implementation is more suitable, such as embedded systems on TVs, cell phones, and other non-PC platforms.
The existent µTorrent and BitTorrent communities are immensely valuable to us, which is why we are announcing this here first to make sure you’re all the first to know about the news. The plan is to continue to foster the health and growth of the community that has been critical to the success of µTorrent. Thank you in advance for your support.
Bram and Ludde
