Quite possibly the lamest deal ever was made this week by the creator of the popular BitTorrent software and Hollywood. Bittorrent.com must remove any link to pirated films from it's search engine after an agreement with major film studios.

And that's it.

The movie industry knows there is nothing else they can do to stop the software and it's unique distribution system from spreading and users will continue to use sites such as mininova.org to download the latest music and movies for free.

The deal between the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and BitTorrent is the latest in a long line of moves to limit the illegal sharing of films via the net.

BitTorrent has become a widely used medium for many to get their hands on very large video files thanks to technology efficient at splitting up and sharing data.

Mr Cohen has reportedly raised $8.75m in financing to turn the BitTorrent technology and the associated website into a commercial download service. The deal is widely seen as giving that nascent service official approval.