AfterDawn: News

BitTorrent Inc. acquires uTorrent

Bram Cohen of BitTorrent Inc. has announced that the company has acquired the increasingly popular µTorrent client. The announcement was made on µTorrent's official site by Bram 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

No further details of the acquisition have been made public. As you can see by just visiting the announcement thread, the news immediately brought in some negative/worried comments from µTorrent users. BitTorrent technology is used heavily for copyright infringement but BitTorrent Inc. is on the road to establishing a legitimate multimedia distribution center built around the same technology that is vastly used for piracy.

The benefits of using BitTorrent to distribute data are obvious. Every day terabytes of data are exchanged between users, making up for a large portion of the overall Internet traffic and prompting ISPs to attempt to block its use. This reliable and quick way of distributing very large files is already used extensively for legitimate purposes also, and the MPAA is set to give it a go through its dealings with BitTorrent Inc.

Source:
µTorrent

Written by: James Delahunty @ 7 Dec 2006 10:11

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• 28 comments

• borhan9

  Well if bitorrent is going to aquire utorrent and wants to become legit does that mean its going to be like napster or itunes for that matter where its going to cost us. If so i prefer to go to the shop and get it myself.
  
  I just hope they become stronger united not the other way around. As they say watch this space. :)

  7.12.2006 10:56 #1

• GrayArea

  Buh By µTorrent... We'll miss yah.
  
  Azureus next?
  
  If you can't beat your competition, buy them and bury them. Simple. Legal. Unethical. Right up Hollwood's a..
  alley...
  

  7.12.2006 13:31 #2

• SGSeries2

  I'm not so sure what to think about this bit. I was never too keen on the original bittorrent client, especially considering what's been going on behind the scenes. Clearly, if they're going to be focusing more on other platforms while trying to maintain the original codebase with the same developers, productivity on the original codebase may start to slow, if hasn't shown slow-down already. Besides, it's already pretty useful for other platforms as it is with its remote access.
  
  Was there ever any word about µTorrent going open source? I guess that's not a possibility now,

  7.12.2006 13:40 #3

• silver95

  So.. I take it this means they'll be phasing out the tracker search bar and ripping out the encryption, since Bram has stated his opinions about both topics.
  
  Guess a new, lightweight torrent client with all those features will have to pop up soon. Too bad Azureus is such a memory hog and likes to trip systems with bad routers.

  7.12.2006 16:11 #4

• gogochar

  Sniff... sniff... I'll miss you µTorrent. You were good while you lasted.

  7.12.2006 16:59 #5

• The_Fiend

  So, first Azureus goes bonkers, now µtorrent gets bought by the MPAA's monkeyboy Cohen...
  Which one's next ?

  7.12.2006 17:18 #6

• ZippyDSM

  Wow thats a death nail to UT no wonder there have been no updates to it and here I was hoping for better bandwidth scheduler than by the hour...
  
  
  Oh well its not like they can kill the current version any chance a "clone" of UT will come out?
  
  When will the media mafia learn stop free shearing of information is pointless.
  

  7.12.2006 20:07 #7

• Pop_Smith

  What the heck? So much for uTorrent, oh well at least you can keep the awesome older versions for quite a while.
  Quote:If you can't beat your competition, buy them and bury them. Simple. Legal. Unethical. Right up Hollwood's a.. Actually, its in a legal gray area to buy out your competition. But I guess that might depend on who you are talking to.

  7.12.2006 21:07 #8

• ZippyDSM

  Pop_Smith
  hostile take over aside,giving up and selling out might be evil if you are NOT the person selling out but its clearly legal,hostile take overs and selling out over threats are another thing...mmmmm
  

  7.12.2006 21:13 #9

• plutonash

  utorrent has always sucked remember the scandal a couple months back, LOL to all the backers silly kikds tricks are for kids. Buy a better computer if your low on resources.

  7.12.2006 21:39 #10

• ZippyDSM

  plutonash
  *rollseyes*
  then buy all your media instead of downloading it....yeesh....Utorrent is a good BTC no better than worse than Azureus,they both are good programs with slight diffrances.
  

  7.12.2006 21:46 #11

• tnarulz

  Now that utorrent is going to (probably) go legit, which client will take it's place? Azureus has announced something to the effect a while ago that it will go at least partially legit.

  8.12.2006 02:14 #12

• ripfuel

  You can bet your sweet a$$ that the MPAA is behind this more than any of us will ever know. I never liked utorrent anyway.

  8.12.2006 05:23 #13

• tocool4u

  Maybe Azuerus will make a client similar to Utorrent since it know that most people will probubley switch now. Like maybe make a "Java-Less" client and not as much features that crush your resources. Id go for that.
  

  
  
  [bold]sig created by The_Fiend

  8.12.2006 12:26 #14

• ZippyG

  Quote: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.Aside from releasing the original BT client, basically a proof of concept which sucked, what "expertise" has the original developer really offered or contributed to the BT community?
  
  I still use utorrent 1.5 and probably will unless something better comes along. With most BT clients being written in "clunky" lanugages (java, python, etc), having a one that is well-written in a real language like C++ or delphi would serve us all much better...and I think that utorrent is a good example of a well-written BT client.

  8.12.2006 13:28 #15

• ZippyDSM

  ZippyG
  ""basically a proof of concept which sucked, ""
  ????
  The concept of BT has almsot revolutionized the net,the corperations even see its power and are trying haphazardly to jump in on it without understanding WTF they are ding.
  
  Bram whats to try and bing about legit shearing while a noble goal a pointless one,without the corperate hive being one mind they will never heavily effect the net you can not stop stop the free flow of information because if they do stop the free shareing of files speech will be next because it upsets the corperate way...

  8.12.2006 13:40 #16

• neurokasm

  weak sauce

  8.12.2006 14:09 #17

• ZippyG

  BT wasn't revolutionary, it was a twist on existing file sharing tech...more of an evolution than anything else. The original BT client release by bram was certainly not a piece of software I'd use to sell someone on BT. It was slow, has trouble with firewalls, not really user-friendly either. Proof of concept is what it was...it set the stage for more innovative developers to improve the tech, and now we have things like DHT which are bringing BT back to its roots by eliminating the need for a centralized tracker.
  
  BT didn't get popular by promoting "legit" usage anyway. Neither did Youtube or most of the other services out there.
  
  Think about it, what did Bram really do besides release the original and crappy BT client? Was he behind the most popular and function BT clients out there? Did he create DHT and implement it? Did he create magnet links so people could download without seeds? No, and in fact after releasing the original client he just got sued and finally started bittorrent.com as some lame attempt to make it seem like BT's popularity is something other than distribution of games, movies and software.
  
  Now I'm not saying anything against BT in general, I use it all the time, but let's be honest here. The only reason anyone even knows who Bram is, is due to sites like Mininova and Pirate Bay - end of story.

  8.12.2006 21:11 #18

• ZippyDSM

  ZippyG
  Started it and created it but he did not perfect it,others did that.
  the only thing is is doing is living off the name and the hopes the corperations have need of him.
  
  sh!t my printer finally died >> aaahhhhh sh!t <<
  
  Office jet G85 800$ bucks from 10ish years ago....damnit I do not want to spend 60$ in a new printer...

  8.12.2006 21:21 #19

• ashwin18

  [Post Deleted]
  

  9.12.2006 10:46 #20

• phaser1

  It's news articles like this that get the good software removed or banned. It clearly states that the use of it is for piracy. Heck, I use the software myself. But, it's the advertisement of such software via news articles like the one above that gets out to the hungry media, which brings in the big dogs to bury yet another good bone. "No news is good news" as they say.
  
  Phaser1

  9.12.2006 11:04 #21

• tkw1368

  well all you savy techs are quite amazing but what about all us non tech who quite dont really understand all the behind the tech stuff and just wanna get a cool program once and a while??????????any advice men!!!!!!!!!!

  11.12.2006 05:16 #22

• ZippyDSM

  ashwin18
  Btorrent will work
  Bitch torrent
  1.Your my bitch now dog(media mafia to suer)
  2.Users will bitch about the lack of features and and big brother groping them.
  
  tkw1368
  nothing wrogn with Utorrent its still currently the best of the the simple BTC's,Azuzerus has a ton more features but dose want a bit mroe CPU and ramm,if you jsut want siple and small and dont want to go Utorrent bit comment or ABC will do.

  11.12.2006 06:54 #23

• lbbz

  @plutonash
  "Buy a better computer if your low on resources"
  Asinine. Are you perchance a MS employee?
  
  @ZIppyDSM
  "Utorrent is a good BTC no better than worse than Azureus,they both are good programs with slight diffrances"
  "slight"? Azureus has more features than you could think of, but its resource needs can cripple its own performance on a fast (100Mbit for athlon 2800) network. µTorrent has everything neeed, everything wanted, and nothing else. When working on a seperate HDD, I can still play NWN while my cables are melting from the amount of data going through them.
  
  @ZippyG
  "The only reason anyone even knows who Bram is, is due to sites like Mininova and Pirate Bay - end of story."
  Yep. All he did was set a standard. If not for others (most notably, nicer clients) it would have died.
  
  
  (sigh) I loved µTorrent. Still do. One of the three reasons why I still cling to Wyndoze.
  I'll try Deluge now.

  11.12.2006 08:38 #24

• ZippyDSM

  lbbz
  yes Azus has more but in all UT is smaller and more easy to handle,thats why like more.

  11.12.2006 08:42 #25

• tkw1368

  im just a non skilled prgm lover who thinks the more you have the better off you are... i use limewire...but it seems like its not to affective for new prgms or seeking cool prgms ....i usethe zip and iso and rar prgms to download stuff took me a while to figure out how to get the prgms in the diffrnt formats and pull the prgms to an exicutable function to load....would like to PAL up with someone who is a good techr with patience.....

  11.12.2006 08:50 #26

• ZippyDSM

  tkw1368
  patience I have,but not when I post o-o
  sometimes the post button screams PRESS ME NOW >>
  
  plus my grammar suxs...LOL

  11.12.2006 09:03 #27

• qazwiz

  Originally posted by Pop_Smith: What the heck? So much for uTorrent, oh well at least you can keep the awesome older versions for quite a while.
  
  Quote:If you can't beat your competition, buy them and bury them. Simple. Legal. Unethical. Right up Hollywood's a.. Actually, its in a legal gray area to buy out your competition. But I guess that might depend on who you are talking to.
  only raises red flags if a monopoly is the result, like if Linux were to buy out Microsoft and apple LOL
  
  seriously, if either bought out Linux there might not be any real legal repercussions but if Apple bought out Microsoft or vice-versa then trouble is very likely despite the availability of Linux

  19.1.2009 01:09 #28