This represents a shift from previous practices, in which the MPAA, the Recording Industry Association of America (news - web sites) and other groups have tried to have entire products -- for example, the first Diamond Rio MP3 player or the networked ReplayTV (news - web sites) video recorder -- taken off the market.One reason for this change of heart may be that in BitTorrent, unlike many other file-sharing programs, legitimate use doesn't amount to a token minority. It's central to this program's existence. Developers of versions of the Linux (news - web sites) operating system were some of the first to jump on BitTorrent as a way to ship out vast amounts of data. A Linux distribution can easily span four CD-ROMs; instead, companies such as Red Hat offer BitTorrent downloads of their work.


