In an interview, Moore compared file-sharing of copyright movies to friends lending one another purchased DVDs.

“I don’t agree with copyright laws,” he said, “and I don’t have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it … as long as they’re not trying to make a profit off my labor.”

That was all his political enemies at MooreWatch.com needed to hear. In hopes of denting Moore’s box office profits, the Web site’s manager decided to help people download free copies.

But rather than simply posting one huge pirated version of the movie for everyone to fight over, MooreWatch.com’s backers used the power of BitTorrent to distribute tens of thousands of “Fahrenheits” in a faster, more efficient manner. All they had to do was link to a tiny torrent file.

BitTorrent is like the old Napster with one major twist. Napster and its peer-to-peer, or P2P, cousins connect users directly with each other to receive entire files. That makes downloading full-length, digitized movies a long, arduous task for both the downloader and the person offering the file, especially when a lot of people are trying to glom the same copy simultaneously.

BitTorrent breaks up large files into pieces, then allows users to “swarm” – exchanging small portions of files with one another – until everyone has a complete set.

Download speeds depend on two factors. First, like the computer bulletin board systems of the 1980s, the software keeps track of how much you contribute to hosting files for the group. The more you share, the faster your downloads.

Second, the more people trading a file, the more options for obtaining its pieces. So, unlike the old Napster, popularity doesn’t bog down the process – it gives it a shot of adrenaline.

But it’s not instantaneous. A “Sopranos” episode may take six hours or more to download, depending on network traffic. A crude “screener” copy of “Fahrenheit” last week required 36 hours on a moderately fast DSL connection.

BitTorrent was developed by Washington programmer Bram Cohen, 29, and presented to the world at hacker conventions more than three years ago. The program is only now gaining widespread attention as corporations and individuals – and those interested in trading large copyright works – warm to its speed and simplicity.

Fans of the open-source Linux operating system, for example, use BitTorrent to distribute perfect copies of the latest versions. A commercial Linux distribution, Linspire.com, formerly Lindows, does the same.

When Downhill Battle (downhill battle.org) disseminated an entire album as part of its February “Grey Tuesday” protest over music censorship, organizers used BitTorrent as part of an effort to move more than 1 million digital tracks to sympathizers in 24 hours.

“BitTorrent lets you have a file on a Web site that lets people click on a link and download in a peer-to-peer way,” says Nicholas Reville, Downhill Battle co-founder. “It’s an amazing tool for people or small organizations running their own Web sites. Most can’t just host the large files of video or bundled music files. They can’t afford the hosting costs that it would take.”

Cohen says that using his creation to exchange copyright files is not smart. It takes digging for the music industry and the Motion Picture Association of America to find who is offering illegal uploads within KaZaA, eDonkey and similar networks. With BitTorrent, the links to torrent files for each download must be posted for everyone to see on Web sites.

A spokesman for the MPAA declined to comment on BitTorrent, but Hollywood is clearly worried about the “Napsterizing” of its products. It recently commissioned a survey showing that about one in four Internet users had downloaded a feature-length film online at least once and that downloaders averaged about 11 films each.

By some measurements, the use of BitTorrent has eclipsed that of KaZaA, the most popular P2P program for music. The firm CacheLogic says its six-month analysis shows that BitTorrent accounts for 53 percent of all European network P2P traffic. In June, CacheLogic reports, an average of 8 million users were online at any given time sharing a petabyte (10 million gigabytes) of data.

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Mark Mulligan, senior analyst with Jupiter Research, says he doubts that the CacheLogic figures reflect a shift from music swapping toward movies. Rather, it may show that BitTorrent users spend more time online pulling down much larger files.

“Even among the most regular Internet users, music file-sharing is … more than twice as popular as movie/TV show file-sharing,” Mulligan says.

Meanwhile, inventive users of BitTorrent are finding legal ways to use it.

“I wouldn’t be surprised in the next six months to see bloggers start producing video narratives with it,” says Reville of Downhill Battle. “I mean, they’re writing about their lives, so why not put up a 600-megabyte BitTorrent file with video of the whole thing?

“With BitTorrent, that’s suddenly very feasible.”

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(c) 2004, The Dallas Morning News.

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ILLUSTRATION (from KRT Illustration Bank, 202-383-6064): CPT-BITTORRENT

AP-NY-08-25-04 0627EDT