Interview with the creator of the protocol BitTorrent

Interview with Bram Cohen, American programmer, author of the Bit Torrent protocol, entrepreneur and father of three children. As expected, Cohen turned out to be a very outstanding man with a good sense of humor and an extravagant look at things.

In this post I give an interview in a somewhat abbreviated form, omitting the moments that in my opinion are not relevant on this site.

- How did you come up with the idea of ​​creating BitTorrent? Was it a smooth transition from working on MojoNation or insight?
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- No, definitely not insight.

- Not?

- I already had a great experience in network programming in MojoNation, and even before it. In general, I wanted to combine my knowledge of what could have worked and what was interesting, but, it seemed to me, it was not done correctly enough and had to be completely redone, from scratch. I used all this experience to create BitTorrent, and by itself it was not a one-step insight. There was no “Wow!” Idea in it. It was just a combination of fairly prosaic ideas, put together and carefully prepared, as a result, turned into something powerful.

- Were you surprised that BitTorrent “shot” like that? How did you react to the glory that has fallen?

- I don't know, I'm not a celebrity, it seems to me a little strange ...

- But you are definitely famous, you know very many.

- Well, at first it was very new to me, but now I’m used to the fact that I often meet people who already know me and they say - Oh, I adore BitTorrent. I always answer - thanks, glad to see you, nice to meet you. Actually, you need to listen to this and move on. But BitTorrent, as I imagined, can be a huge breakthrough, from the point of view of software implementation, it was clear that he had an incredible potential, but considering it as a theory, an abstract idea and then seeing how it is realized, these are two completely different things, something such that you do not expect in the usual course of things. Understand, I literally wrote BitTorrent sitting in the living room, unemployed, just sitting there in his underwear, digging around in a computer, working on it. These were all the resources available to me.

- You call yourself an entrepreneur, an engineer, but never a businessman. How did you manage to monetize BitTorrent? As far as I understand, initially you provided the users with this service on a voluntary basis.

- At first, I did not earn absolutely any money, I lived on credit cards and the like. Then they began to use it more and more, and for some time I lived on donations and am very grateful to everyone who sent me money. After that, I found venture capital and the company founded by me began to engage in several projects, although I think for a while none of them brought such income as donations, but, about a couple of years ago, we completely reorganized the company and started promoting tools ”, with its help we get most of the profits. We are also working on other earning opportunities in the future.

- You said that using your software, you never violated copyright law. But how do you yourself feel about pirates? Is illegal downloading of movies and music a crime? Do I have to judge for this?

- Legal issues related to this are difficult and it is difficult for me to discuss them from a strong legal position, but I can say that the implementation of existing laws is necessary, but at the moment it is extremely selective. If you are one of those unfortunate people who have been convicted, you will be condemned to the fullest extent. But for the most part, nothing happens. They simply do not have enough resources to pursue everyone. It seems to me stupid to equate copyright infringement with criminal liability, more logical from a legal point of view - transferring them into the field of “magistrates”. It seems to me wrong to equate such crimes with criminal ones, along with serious crimes.

- Do you worry about the torments of conscience because your brainchild is used to exchange pirated copies of movies and music?

- You know, I am expected to have some firm position on content issues, they expect that there is some position that I defend, but there is none. My goal is to transfer the bits from point A to point B. And this is what I do (laughs). This problem seems to me interesting. I understand that this may seem strange to someone, but this is what I want to do. And details like how to relate to society, the world, and culture are the problem of someone else.

- In this case, should torrent trackers be responsible for the activities of their users?

- You know, there are always some tricks here - who exactly does what. And what do you mean by “must” - is this a legal or moral obligation? The legal side of this question is generally not clear. You know, this is just not my battle.

- What are some positive ways to use BitTorrent, besides user exchange of information? It is known that Wikipedia intends to do with this technology streaming video, and many well-known Indian game developers sell content through their own trekkers. Can you name additional examples?

- We have a program to promote the content, which we do. Somewhere we scored a huge number of downloads. We promote our product, not only using technology, but also the customer’s network. We plan to develop this area. And we are looking for products that we could promote in this way.

- Why do other file-sharing networks more often capitulate to the right holders, and you and BitTorrent have not managed to squeeze?

- We are not involved in violation of copyright and related rights, we create technology. We create software, people are free to use it as they please. At the moment, BitTorrent for distribution is used by far fewer rightholders and content producers than I would like, despite the fact that we have popular solutions that are designed to help them with this.

- Tell me more, this is very interesting, this is what many people are now thinking about. In your opinion, can torrent users turn from pirates into buyers? This is generally possible, because I hardly believe in it.

- In fact, we are trying to do this, we have a huge potential distribution network, an incredible number of users and we are working to turn it into a channel through which content producers could find their consumers, promote their product. From my point of view, it is wrong to perceive it as a point exclusively focused on sales. When people are looking for something online, it’s because they are fans, you need fans, this is building a target audience. Thus, attempts to earn through direct sales through this network are erroneous, this is not the place where it should be done. It should be used as a promotional tool, and monetization should come from somewhere else.

- You say that pirates will never be buyers?

- You can earn in different ways. In the freemium pricing model, you give something for free, trying to make money through something else. The first rule of freemium is to never block a user. If you forbid him something - he becomes the former.

- That's right, if they want and can get something for free, why should they pay for it?

- Well, this is the same principle as with the movie that you watch in the cinema. You do not know in advance whether it is good or not. In my life there have been many cases when I went to watch a movie and very much later regretted it. It makes much more sense to lure the user with free content, if he is interested, he can continue to interact, go to a concert, buy merchandising, get an opportunity for interactive interaction in the future, which may also have some value. But, you should understand that when a person has Internet access, he can do anything, go to any site, watch any video and so on. Whoever produces the content, his task is to convince the person that no matter what you distribute - it is worth it that he spends his time on him.

- What are the trends in the development of the Internet you can mark? Will the Internet become a medium for free distribution of information?

- All the same ones that have existed for some time, but I am disappointed with how slowly they develop. The most important thing is that broadband Internet is becoming more and more common. With us in the USA, the level of spread of the Internet is incredibly low, you might think that we are leading in this matter, but this is by no means the case. I think now we are at about the same level with Bulgaria. With the spread of broadband access, we will see an increasing number of services for people, for example, we are now talking on Skype, and more and more people are using it in everyday life, people are starting to send all large files. For example, I myself am currently working on a live streaming program based on peer-2-peer technologies. That is, BitTorrent allows you to download a whole file, that is, something previously recorded, but it will be a live streaming broadcast: sports contest, news, something that a large number of people will want to see at the same time. This will allow millions of users to connect and watch live streaming, while they will transfer data to each other, which will allow the source to provide the broadcast, rather than “fill up” its server. At the moment there is no technology allowing to accomplish something like this, live, streaming air, without installation, with a “delay” of no more than 5 seconds.

“Sorry, but some strange things are connected to you.” First, you are eccentric; second, you hate computers. I heard you hate them. This is true?

- I do not set up computers, I believe that they just have to work. This is my approach to them. I want to spend zero time on setup, configuration, and so on. In this sense, I do not like them. I love to program. I do a rather annoying business, programming in Python, I do not create anything on my computer, I use only a text editor and a virtual control system. This is the only thing I touch. I give up everything that implies the use of the built-in API, I try to avoid real mechanics of working with data to the maximum, doing pure programming.

- You are in very close relationship with your computer, maybe you should develop your own operating system?

- No, no, no ... it just makes me do those things that I prefer not to climb.

- Go ahead. After eccentricity, hatred of computers, you still do not like modern gadgets. I have a question about whether you use modern gadgets: smartphones, tablets, iPad? Or is it all too simple and uninteresting for you?

“I should have bought a smartphone for a very long time, but this is one of those things in which I do not feel the need. But my computer is almost always with me.

- And what is your computer, I'm very interested. Apple?

“I have a Mac, precisely because it’s the least trouble with him.” Maybe they fixed it in Windows 7, but for a long time I couldn’t even think about working in Microsoft operating systems, because I use the Dvorak input system, not QWERTY, switching between them in Windows was very bad, therefore even typing plain text gave me a huge inconvenience.

- How did Steve Jobs manage to create such a high-quality product and make the whole world go crazy about it? I heard that in America it was simply impossible to buy it, some incredible stories. It's true?

- I honestly do not know, I do not aspire to buy all the latest news from the world of gadgets as soon as they go on sale. As I said, I do not even have a smartphone. If I buy something big and expensive, it necessarily burns or breaks. All these Hi-End gizmos, when they first appear on the market, are extremely unreliable in terms of physical impact. Therefore, as soon as I become the owner of something expensive and fashionable, in the end I break it. And if I get something ordinary, like all normal people, it works fine, you can rely on it. Here is my strategy for buying things.

- Why do companies not use BitTorrent for digital distribution? What prevents them from doing P2P channels themselves? This is due to technical reasons (you can not protect the materials from subsequent copying), or they are simply afraid of your technology?

- There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, there is the technical side of the issue. Companies already use BitTorrent and they have the appropriate software installed. These programs are convenient to use. And we strive to create even more user-friendly software for our customers. In one of the versions of our program, you can create an application yourself, and this application will work on the software of our clients. This program is very convenient to use. It is made in the form of a web page and within the framework of P2P-programs it displays the process of downloading various programs. The program also allows you to start playing directly from the application. As I said, there are certain technical difficulties. In addition, there are psychological barriers. Many major manufacturers claim that torrents are bad. According to its corporate policy, some companies never use BitTorrent. However, their servers require regular updates. And for this they are forced to use torrents, because at the moment it is the best of the existing technologies.

- Yes, I agree that this is very funny. Will you modify BitTorrent to the possibility of streaming video? What will it give to users?

- Now I am working on live P2P streaming technology. This can be compared to television - a large number of people watch events that occur in real time. At the moment there is no good technology in this area. I have been working on this for more than two years now, and we have just passed to test trials. So far, so good.

- Thank you very much.

- Goodbye.

The interview took Tina Kandelaki