Six Questions: BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker

29 Nov, 2010 By: Chris Tribbey

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Mention BitTorrent among content owners, and you may get a sneer in return. But BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker argues that his company simply works to facilitate the transfer of content, and it’s not the company’s fault that some use it to pirate material.

Just this month, the first half-hour of Warner Bros.’s latest installment in the “Harry Potter” franchise leaked online to a dozen or so torrent sites, giving fans of the films an extended sneak preview. The studio swore to prosecute those involved with the leak. In 2009 it was Fox that had to do damage control, after the entire Wolverine film was leaked online.

Klinker spoke with Home Media Magazine about what his company does, what it plans for the future, and how some artists consider it the best thing since sliced bread.

HM: BitTorrent is considered a bad word among many copyright owners, often accused of facilitating illegal file-sharing. You vigorously defend the company and its open-source client. How has BitTorrent managed to stay on the right side of the law and content copyright liability?

Klinker: BitTorrent fundamentally is a technology company, founded with the purpose to efficiently move large files across the Internet. Much like other open Internet services like eBay or Craigslist, in some cases these technologies are used for purposes that they were not designed for.

Before our recent App Studio launch, BitTorrent has never offered content from within the client. Illegal file-sharing has always taken place outside of our infrastructure, beyond our control, through third-party hosting and tracker sites. At the same time, there is a thriving community of open licensed media gaining traction, sites such as Clearbits, VODO, Jamendo, and Mininova, among others. All have large catalogs of Creative Commons licensed movies and music. Why? Because many artists are embracing open, mass distribution and building new relationships with fans. We partner with several of these sites.

This is also precisely what our new App Studio facilitates. Besides hosting apps with catalogs, we’re also going to be offering artists a way to create their own app and directly engage with our community of 80 million people.

It really goes back to Economics 101: users pay for things that are both valuable and scarce. Content is valuable, but not scarce on the Internet. Content providers need to transition to business models that have different drivers, understanding scarcity and value.

HM: Can you explain the BitTorrent protocol and some of the use cases for the technology?

Klinker: The BitTorrent protocol is about making it easy for large files to traverse the Internet. The incredible efficiency of the BitTorrent protocol has led companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Wikimedia to use it to move data around their own networks. There are many purposes and uses of BitTorrent technology.

Beyond solving technical challenges of data networking (for example, our mTP protocol is a significant innovation in global Internet traffic congestion control), our focus is on working with content creators to build business models to leverage all the strengths of the Internet. In recent iterations of the software we have integrated apps into the software, which gives consumers access to open licensed media from content creators who want to share their content on BitTorrent.

HM: In your opinion what have video content owners done right with the Internet and digital distribution and what have they done wrong?

Klinker: In recent time we have seen content owners looking to the Internet as an important distribution channel. They are beginning to realize that consumers want more options in where and how they can consume content. Choice is always positive for consumers.

That said, content owners continue to try to create artificial scarcity where access to content is being held under a lock and key. For example, some video sites are not allowed to stream films until 30-plus days after the DVD hits the market. Consumers are media hungry and want to be able to get content instantaneously. Content owners would be well served to find an approach where they create value by offering a better user experience and tapping into those large online communities.

HM: Specifically, how has BitTorrent helped individual artists promote and share their work by using BitTorrent?

Klinker: The Internet is allowing content creators and producers to share their content with huge numbers of people with essentially no distribution costs. With distributed networks like BitTorrent, artists can tap into online communities and reach millions of people who might otherwise be inaccessible.

Currently, we are most interested in working with creators who are willing to experiment with new media models that look at alternative means to distribute and monetize content. Primarily, this vision has led us to work with emerging artists who are looking outside the traditional content funnel where only a select few receive distribution. Early this summer we worked with the filmmakers behind Yes Men and Pioneer One, as well as musician PAZ.

Our first endeavor was with Pioneer One, which is employing a new model for donation-driven episodic content. Its pilot episode has been downloaded over one million times and the creators already have raised funding for its next episode, which will go live on BitTorrent next month.

The independent movie The Yes Men Fix the World - P2P Edition has been downloaded more than 2 million times, reaching more viewers through BitTorrent than it did on HBO.

Then L.A.-based musician, PAZ, dropped his debut mix tape on BitTorrent, which has now been downloaded by listeners over half a million times. In addition to celebrating ‘going gold’ PAZ is bolstering venue attendance and merchandise sales while also seeing explosive growth in his social media presence.

HM: Following the Comcast flap (with Comcast blocking BitTorrent use by its subscribers), how big of an issue is net neutrality to your company, and in what ways could BitTorrent and its users be affected should net neutrality be completely regulated or abandoned on the federal level?

Klinker: BitTorrent has always believed that innovation and collaboration with ISPs where all parties participated in the solution was a more ideal approach than heavy-handed policy. Even in the early days of the net neutrality debate we worked hard to find common ground with Comcast and to address issues associated with large content and network capacity management.

So, as good citizens of the Internet and a mostly technical company, we have continued to develop our protocol in hopes that it could potentially alleviate the need to heavily regulate the network or heavily manage our specific protocol. This began a nearly two year investment into a new transport protocol we call µTP or micro-transport protocol. It is an upgraded lightweight BitTorrent protocol that makes efficient use of bandwidth while reducing network problems. It is designed to be sensitive to network congestion and yield capacity to other applications when the network is congested. The result is faster downloads for users with lower network impact for both users and ISPs.

Net neutrality is important to the growth and innovation of the Internet. At the same time, our relationships with ISPs are generally positive when compared to two years ago. µTP mitigates a significant number of congestion concerns, and today BitTorrent traffic is more and more comprised of content and services (such as Blizzard distributing game updates to users) that is both legitimate and of major value to their subscribers. We’d always welcome — today and if net neutrality becomes reality — open and fruitful conversations regarding any issues with ISPs.

HM: Are live sporting, concert or other events in BitTorrent’s future, and where do you see the company going in the next few years?

Klinker: Our near to mid-term future is focused on building out the BitTorrent ecosystem with certified software, applications, devices and content. We are currently developing some exciting new P2P live streaming capabilities that will fundamentally redefine the way live streaming works on the Web, however we have not yet determined how or when we will deploy these technologies, and we’ll have more details in the future.

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