To avoid competing with established communities like Facebook, we will eventually let you invite your friends and import your contacts from other sites to Hexagon.

How did you get the idea for Hexagon? I think the only way forward for file-sharing is not to go against the content owners. When content owners sue their own customers, there is a whole lot of hatred from consumers. We are between the two parties, trying to figure out how we can be the intermediate solution, between outright suing of consumers, to having consumers downloading without paying a dime.

So, you're inviting Hollywood to use you as a marketing channel? Yes, and eventually a full retail store, like Apple's iTunes or Amazon's video-on-demand.

That's what the company BitTorrent Inc. unsuccessfully tried to do several years ago. All I can say is that was a case of exceptionally poor execution. BitTorrent offered exactly what people didn't want: $4 for movies protected by DRM (Digital Rights Management). You might as well go to Netflix and pay less and not have to worry about whether the DRM was going to keep you from watching that movie you downloaded on your PC on your TV. That's tedious.

Did BitTorrent Inc. feel like it had no leverage, and that this is what the content owners wanted? Yes. I think Hollywood knew that this model -- pricing it unreasonably, with DRM -- wouldn't work. They simply wanted to be able to tell the judge in court that they tried their best, and that this ( ) shows that working with filesharing doesn't work. It wasn't a sincere effort.