Three years after the birth of BitTorrent, analysts at CacheLogic, an Internet-traffic analysis firm in Cambridge, England, reported that BitTorrent traffic accounts for more than one third of all data sent over the Internet. In China, BitTorrent has become the fourth most popular Internet application after Internet Explorer, e-mail and instant messenger.

The power and potential of BitTorrent has the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) quite worried. In 2004, the MPAA launched a campaign against BitTorrent sites in the United States and Britain. An MPAA spokesman said Cohen is under scrutiny for continuing to develop the software “and making it easy to steal copyrighted material.”

Since then, BitTorrent has caused controversy worldwide. In October 2005, 38-year-old Hong Kong resident Chan Naiming was sentenced to a three-year prison term after he had uploaded illegal copies of the films Daredevil, Miss Undercover and Red Planet onto the Internet and spread them via BitTorrent. In October this year, 23-year-old American Grant Stanley was sentenced to five months in prison, followed by five months of house arrest, and a $3,000 fine for his role as a leading participant in the BitTorrent tracker site Elitetorrents. This ruling is the first BitTorrent-related conviction in the United States.

In China so far there have been no prosecutions of BitTorrent downloading but the country’s IPR watchdogs said they would purge the Internet illegal content-sharing area, including BT websites, during the three-month campaign.

Officials from the IPR law enforcement bureau in Beijing declined to provide further information on the crackdown, saying they were too busy to do so and that no additional information was available currently.

Resolving the controversy

It is a puzzling paradox. The Internet is supposed to reflect a “sharing spirit” but IPR holders definitely don’t want their rights to be infringed. Technologically, BitTorrent is a great invention of the Internet world, but at the legal level it is deemed to be an accomplice of IPR violators.

Rumors have circulated from time to time that China’s communications operators will ban BitTorrent downloading but it is still in force since it receives strong support from the mass of Internet users. According to a survey by China’s Web portal sina.com, 93.25 percent of the 20,826 respondents opposed the prohibition of BitTorrent use.

“Any invention has good and bad points and we don’t snuff it out just because of its shortcomings. Why can’t we treat BitTorrent just like we treat nuclear power?” said one netizen using the Internet ID Isbaal.

His view is echoed by Ye Lante, an IT commentator, “On the deeper level of thinking, the BitTorrent controversy is all about how we look at the new technology. If we kill the new technology just because it has some negative effects, that would be a tragedy.”

Ye also believes the traditional IPR system needs to be changed to fit the Internet era. “By that time, IPR will not be quite an issue for the development of BitTorrent. At present, we’d better show more tolerance towards the creative technology,” he added.

Not long ago, the Internet Society of China set up an organization to promote the use of P2P technology while conforming to IPR laws and regulations.

“P2P applications will play a leading role in the era of Web 2.0, which is featured in wider audio and video data trading and deeper interaction,” said Lei Zidong, General Secretary of the union, adding that P2P technology developers should make profits by collaborating with legal content providers.

Regarding the IPR issue, Lei thinks the Digital Rights Management (DRM) system is an operative approach. The DRM system controls every link of the distribution of digital products, making the products available only to authorized users.

“Technical management can’t solve all the problems, and enhancing IPR law enforcement is also necessary,” Lei noted.