Is BitTorrent Rebranding Itself to Gyre

Want that new Linux distribution? You're going to have to Gyre it.

Wait, what?

A report over at TorrentFreak suggests that BitTorrent Inc. — the company — might be looking to rebrand itself to "Gyre Inc." While it's doubtful that the change would have any effect on the name of the protocol that fuels the company's uTorrent software, the potential rebranding could be seen as a way for BitTorrent Inc. to pull itself away from the stigma attached to the words, "BitTorrent" or "Torrent."

TorrentFreak's Ernesto first caught wind of the potential corporate switch when he noticed a change in the alpha release of BitTorrent's uTorrent client. In the "About" menu for the software, the copyright typically attributed to BitTorrent Inc. had been replaced by a new entity: "Gyre Inc."

Representatives at BitTorrent didn't specifically deny that the switch was happening when contacted. Rather, they said that the new company had appeared as the result of a "coding error," and that BitTorrent often runs internal tests for new branding and product names.

Story's over, right?

Not quite. Prompted by BitTorrent's intriguing reply, TorrentFreak started to dig around for more evidence of the relationship between Gyre, BitTorrent, and BitTorrent's products. It's quite an extensive list: Gyre, the company, claims BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker as its service agent on the California Secretary of State's online database, and Gyre's address matches BitTorrent's San Francisco address.

Here are a few more: Gyre's trademarks are identical to BitTorrent's, mentions of Gyre appear within the Terms of Use for BitTorrent's file-sharing "Share" application (released in January of this year). And, most damning, a user on Zazzle called "Gyrecorp" is currently offering uTorrent-branded merchandise for sale.

"The ultimate question is of course why BitTorrent Inc. needs a new brand name to begin with," write TorrentFreak's Ernesto. "Could it be the pirate stigma? Are investors pushing for something new? Is there a sale on the horizon?"

We'll add one question to the list: Why "Gyre?" We suppose there's some metaphorical relationship between the word's definition in oceanography – a large system of rotating currents – and the circular relationship of data within a BitTorrent model. Leechers become seeders for other leechers, and all that.

Perhaps "Gyro" was already taken — those sweet, delicious BitTorrents.