The MPAA has just sent out a press release in conjuction with this afternoon's announcement that BitTorrent's Bram Cohen is, indeed, in league with the MPAA devil. The release confirms the earlier rumor that Cohen has pleged "to remov[e] links that direct users to copies of pirated content owned by MPAA companies". Cohen went on to parrot his stance from the Newsweek interview: “BitTorrent, Inc. discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a license to do so. As such, we are pleased to work with the film industry to remove unauthorized content from BitTorrent.com’s search engine.”

So, it's not as much of a partnership as some predicted, and as anyone familiar with Open Source will point out, a "commitment" on behalf of Cohen doesn't mean much for anyone else. I found this to be the most interesting aspect of the release: "Over the last year, MPAA has brought lawsuits against several websites using the BitTorrent protocol for illegal distribution of movies. Since then, 90% of the sites sued have shut down." Is Cohen really doing anything here but covering his own ass?

Slyck has the full release.