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Founded by Bram Cohen, BitTorrent enables files to be moved around the Internet at high-speed by taking different parts of the file from different users simultaneously.

It has come to prominence as an extremely popular method for the unauthorised sharing of movies, and many sites providing links

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to Torrents have been closed following legal action by the Motion Picture Association of America.

However Cohen has avoided legal action as he does not profit from the software.

'BitTorrent will become the ideal platform for both independent publishers and the world's leading media companies alike,' Cohen said of the financing deal with Doll Capital Management.

Doll's managing general partner said the aim is to 'provide content services that will be the next generation of content distribution'.

But venture capitalist George Zachary, a partner at Charles River Ventures, said that other means of distribution, such as RSS, may prove more appealing.

'I don't think the major media companies are ready to embrace P2P,' he told Ecommerce Times. 'I could have invested and I didn't.'