Cohen had launched a service on his Web site last May that searched the Internet for file downloads that use his BitTorrent technology. While many of these are legal files, such as open-source software packages, inevitably the search engine also found feature films.
In an event held at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, Cohen and executives from the Motion Picture Association of America said they had made common cause.
"BitTorrent, Inc. discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a license to do so," Cohen said in a statement. "As such, we are pleased to work with the film industry to remove unauthorised content from BitTorrent.com's search engine."
Cohen has occupied a unique space in the peer-to-peer world for several years. Although he is the creator of a technology that is widely used for illegal distribution of films, software and music, he and his company have not maintained a network to help connect users in the way that Kazaa or eDonkey technologies do.
As a result, he has not been the target of lawsuits, although individual BitTorrent users have been sued for uploading movie files to others.
"We are glad that Bram Cohen and his company are working with us to limit access to infringing files on the BitTorrent.com website," said MPAA chief executive officer Dan Glickman, in a statement. "They are leading the way for other companies by their example."
Cohen's engine was far from the only tool used to find pirated BitTorrent files online, however. A handful of other online engines online can search BitTorrent-specific sites, and ordinary search engines can also be used to find BitTorrent files.
Whenever I read about BitTorrent from media sources, there's always a strong emphasis on how it is used for illegal activities. Yes, that is true. But what the media sources usually fail to acknowledge is that BitTorrent is used for legitimate things as well. (This particular article fails to say it explicity.)
For example, BitTorrent is commonly used for distributing Linux ISOs, and Blizzard Entertainment have customised their own BitTorrent client to download legal World of Warcraft patches/videos. The BitTorrent system operates in such a way that it takes the load/cost off the file servers whilst improving download speeds for users.
BitTorrent isn't evil, and it really needs to be emphasised otherwise less informed readers will begin to think that it is. It's like saying how public transport is obviously evil because X number of users have died in train crashes over the last 5 years... You really need to look at the positive side of public transport to get a more balanced story.