Excuse me if this is a dupe.
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 hell 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.
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