Chattanooga: BitTorrent ignites peer-to-peer controversy
Legal action against online pirates has driven music and movie fans to think twice about their downloading habits, but while many have given up free files for 99-cent songs on iTunes, a revolution in file sharing has swept the Web.
BitTorrent, a program that can pull pieces of songs, films and software together from across the Internet to create a single download, is the hottest file-sharing development, technology experts say.
“It just works better, which is why it has caught on so much,” said Lang Martin, a senior developer at Coptix, a Web development firm in Chattanooga. “It downloads faster. It is just designed better. It has avoided the culture of viruses. But you can get in trouble.”
BitTorrent technology, first released in 2001, has attracted millions of users in the past few years. The file sharing does not expose users to the viruses or spyware that plagued programs such as Kazaa and LimeWire.
The technology has become so popular that the primary cable provider here, Comcast, which also provides Internet service, ran afoul of the Federal Communications Commission when it tried to limit the high traffic BitTorrent created, which slowed Internet service.
Music and film copyright holders also are concerned that the deluge of BitTorrent downloads supports the theft of copyrighted materials.