What Does BitTorrent Think of Comcast Now?

I’m in San Jose, CA for Streaming Media West, an online media conference, which begins tomorrow. I’m very interested in hearing tomorrow’s keynote by Ashwin Navin, President & Co-Founder of BitTorrent, who is talking about how a commercial P2P network can be used to distribute legal audio and video content.

I hope he’ll address the recent revelation about Comcast interfering with its customers BitTorrent traffic and how that might be affecting his company’s business model. I can’t imagine he can ignore the issue — otherwise it’ll be the 900 pound gorilla in the room (and I’ll ask the question myself).

My experience in the online media industry is that network neutrality is the issue nobody wants to talk about too much, both because regulation is rarely a popular issue, and because there is the real hope that it isn’t needed. Unfortunately, Comcast’s interference with BitTorrent traffic–regardless of whether the shared content is permitted to be shared or not–is the single most clear example of a non-neutral network in action. So I’m very curious what BitTorrent thinks about Net Neutrality now.

I’ll be sure to blog this keynote the best I can (delayed a few moments due to the fact there’s no wifi in the presentation rooms themselves).

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  1. BitTorrent’s Plan for the Future Includes Open Source File Sharing, According to CTO » mediageek - February 17, 2008

    […] in November I posted about BitTorrent’s President Ashwin Navin’s appearance at Streaming Media West, hoping he’d address the Comcast blocking question. Being the semi-dedicated blogger I am, I […]

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