Downloading Hollywood

Yet the BitTorrent universe may be a step ahead of the lawyers. For every tracker site that's legally challenged and goes dark, another pops up. As open-source software, BitTorrent does not reside on a central site that can be shut down, and it continually evolves as software writers tinker with the code. A recent upgrade, called Exeem, blends the swarming technology with the more robust search capabilities of earlier peer-to-peer software; instead of visiting tracker sites, users enter a title in a search box and Exeem scours the Web for the file--making it trickier for the piracy police to clamp down on scofflaws.

Cohen insists he didn't unleash BitTorrent to fuel movie piracy or get rich. He points out that the technology has an array of legitimate uses. A software firm like Red Hat uses it to send out updates of its Linux products, lowering its bandwidth costs, and nonprofit sites like etree.org use it to distribute live concerts, with the blessings of musicians. Cohen, who lives outside Seattle, supports his wife and two kids with donations from BitTorrent users and says he would be the last person to download content illegally. "People want to make an example of me," he says. Sure, he has a DESTROY CAPITALISM sticker on his PC. But he still gets his movies the old-fashioned way: with a mail-order subscription to NetFlix. --With reporting by Sandeep Kaushik/ Seattle and Jeffrey Ressner/ Los Angeles