Cannes, France /DenounceNewswire/ -- 24 May 2004 -- In a stunning
move, controversial documentary filmmaker Michael Moore announced
today that his latest film, "Fahrenheit 9/11", will be released by
BitTorrent, the popular peer-to-peer file-sharing network.
"This film deserves the widest possible distribution," said Moore,
whose film won the Palme D‘Or award at the Cannes Film Festival this
past weekend. "I had hoped I could achieve that with Miramax and
Disney, but such was not to be the case. I‘m thrilled to announce
that I have an even better solution. BitTorrent!"
BitTorrent, written by programmer Bram Cohen, is a popular software
application for trading movies, music, and television episodes over
the Internet. BitTorrent differs from other peer-to-peer networks in
that the program connects users to many different fragments of a
digital file, only to be seamlessly pieced back together when the
transfer is complete. The result is a much faster download and less
clogging on the Internet.
"I‘m very happy to be working with Michael on the release of this
important documentary," said Cohen. "This is exactly the kind of
thing BitTorrent was created for. I‘m confident we‘re going to be
able to reach more people faster than any conventional Hollywood
distribution scheme. And it‘s going to cost a **** of a lot less than
printing four thousand some odd prints of the film!"
The documentary, which contends that the Bush family has ties going
back more than three decades with the Saudi royal family, leading to
a questions about the Saudi involvement with 9/11, was originally
bought by Miramax and Disney last year. Michael Eisner, head of
Disney, announced recently that the company would not distribute the
film due to is political content.
Cohen and Moore say that the film will be available through
BitTorrent beginning July 3rd worldwide over the Internet. The film
will be free.