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Ashwin Navin

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Ashwin Navin

Ashwin Navin is the President and Co-Founder of BitTorrent, Inc. He joined Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent, in 2004 and reportedly handles strategy, business and company-related matters while Cohen focuses on engineering and product development.

Before BitTorrent, Navin worked at Yahoo! from 2002 to 2004 in its Corporate Development group which handled corporate strategy and acquisitions. Before Yahoo!, Navin worked on Wall Street with Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch both as an investment banker and research analyst. Navin is a 1999 graduate of Claremont McKenna College.

In 2000, Navin helped start a technology-based financial services company called Epoch Partners. Epoch was essentially the investment banking arm of several online stock brokerages including Charles Schwab, Ameritrade, and TD Waterhouse. Epoch Partners was eventually acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2001.

Navin reportedly evaluated Cohen's invention for Yahoo! in 2004. Although it was an important development for the Internet, BitTorrent was widely considered to be the bane of the film industry, because it made the Internet cost effective for large file distribution. In many cases BitTorrent was used for distribution of pirated movies and TV.

Cohen entrusted Navin with the responsibility of bringing BitTorrent out of the fringes and into the mainstream. Navin began by engaging movie industry executives directly. His strategy is apparently paying off, as the company recently announced a relationship with Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, MTV, Lionsgate, Kadokawa Pictures, and others. [1] [2]

The company has released the BitTorrent Entertainment Network, featuring mainstream movies and TV shows licensed from major media companies delivered with the BitTorrent protocol. It has also announced the availability of a P2P content delivery network called BitTorrent DNA. According to the company's website, "BitTorrent DNA enables websites to seamlessly add the speed and efficiency of patented BitTorrent technology to their current content delivery infrastructure, requiring no changes to their current Content Delivery Network (CDN) or hardware in the origin infrastructure. Businesses can benefit from the efficiencies of peer-assisted content delivery while improving the end-user experience."

Although the deals BitTorrent has struck with Hollywood involve the use of Digital Rights Management (DRM), Navin has become an ardent opponent of the technology. The Guardian published his views. [1]

"TG: So how do you convince the Warner Bros of the world that you can protect their programmes?

"AN: There will never be a digital rights management (DRM) system that works [universally]. It's sort of like expecting a $75 door lock to protect all your valuables. Fundamentally you've got to get to a speed bump that works for 90% of the users. Ten per cent of the users may have the interest and time to break something that is available for sale for $1, but most people aren't going to bother with that. At our launch we are using Windows DRM, which is the accepted standard today. We're always looking for a standard that is independently created, cross-platform, and the studios are as well, especially when they see that Apple and Microsoft are starting to exert their control and lock in users.

"TG: So what's the solution to having Apple or Microsoft dictate terms?

"AN: I think the next phase is about DRM-free. It will be like the watermarked approach, so that content is labelled as mine and the process of putting it up on a P2P network is not attractive because I paid for it and so others should probably pay for it, too. Do I want something with my name on it all over the web? No. So that can be a pretty effective form of copy protection."

Newsweek, in an article related to movie downloads, quotes Navin further. [2]

"Eventually, predicts Ashwin Navin, cofounder of BitTorrent (the peer-to-peer technology company that is expected to announce its own legal download service this month), 'You'll be able to purchase movies without DRM at a much more reasonable price. And a lot of downloaded movies will be free, supported by ads just like movies on television.' This bright future will come if and only if the studios embrace it—and fear of Wal-Mart doesn't stop them."

References

  1. ^ The Guardian interview with Ashwin Navin.
  2. ^ Wal-Mart's Online Movie Premiere.
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