October 13, 2003
Volume 2, Issue 2
Altnet Signs eDonkey 2000 and Overnet
Altnet Adds MetaMachine
DCIA Charter Member Altnet has entered into a commercial agreement with MetaMachine, developer of eDonkey 2000 and Overnet, to distribute secure music, video, software, and games, on behalf of artists and rights holders, via MetaMachine's leading peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.
MetaMachine will integrate Altnet's TopSearch Gold Icon technology, placing licensed files aggregated by Altnet into preferential placement in the search results on MetaMachine programs. MetaMachine will also incorporate Altnet's payment gateway, which allows its users to simply and securely purchase TopSearch files they download.
"With TopSearch, Altnet ensures that artists, musicians, and copyright holders are paid when users share and play their files. Altnet also ensures that users who download Gold Icon files they find in TopSearch are guaranteed that each such file is high-quality and legal for them to download and share," said Derek Broes, Executive Vice President, Worldwide Operations of Altnet.
"We're thrilled to be working with MetaMachine. Our distribution agreement underscores our mutual commitment to commercializing peer-to-peer networks and making them a place where users and copyright owners can both win," stated Kevin Bermeister, CEO of Altnet.
Added Jed McCaleb, Founder and CTO of MetaMachine, Inc, "We are dedicated to making peer-to-peer a viable and profitable marketing channel for content owners. We hope more content owners will work with us to effectively reach this immense user base in a simple and secure way."
Eliminating Criminally Obscene Content
DCIA previously announced a two-prong attack on this important issue, which was raised in Senator Orrin Hatch's remarks at the National Press Club on 10/3 and again in his letter to our Quarterly General Meeting attendees. This initiative continues to be a priority, even though P2P represents less than 2% and a declining portion of child pornography being distributed on the Internet.
Our Member companies have made progress in proposing specific actions that will contribute to even further reducing criminally obscene content. One of these is a significant technical enhancement; another involves providing law enforcement agencies with added capabilities for mitigating the distribution of such undesirable and illegal content over P2P networks. We will be privately discussing a third Member proposal this week.
We also continue to explore alternatives and seek appropriate partners for our developing user assistance program, to help consumers help themselves in recognizing, removing, and reporting criminally obscene content. If you would like to help, please contact sari@dcia.info.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 To all who joined us last Wednesday in Arlington, thank you very much for investing your time and for generously sharing your ideas for constructive solutions to the greatest issue facing all of us today in our newly forming industry.
We are immensely grateful for the contributions to our Quarterly General Meeting from Senator Orrin Hatch, Charter Member CEO Nikki Hemming, entertainment industry statesman George Vradenburg, new media pundit Gary Arlen, and 'poster child' for success in P2P distribution of copyrighted works, Gabe Zichermann.
I could listen to our final session leader, visionary academician Charlie Nesson, for hours. Putting our current crisis into perspective - going all the way back to monks copying manuscripts. Postulating the kind of future we want when we emerge from what he described as an ongoing riot (or Corwinian Cornucopia): consumer adoption of music file sharing that has outpaced industry and the law - will it be more of the same, draconian enforcement, or some whole new system... Offering his personal hobby horse - a way to protect studio productions in their initial release window. It is this kind of discourse among DCIA participants that will lead to the development of positive business solutions.
It was in that spirit that we presented the first of three-to-five business models we plan to unveil in coming months. This first, 10/8 DCIA Business Model, clearly had it roots in our well established Operations Group, representing P2P software interests. Not surprisingly, press coverage has featured skeptical responses from prospective participants in our Platform Group, which aims to include broadband ISPs, and our Content Group, which aims to include music labels. We intend for alternative models to be more ISP-centric and label-centric, which in turn will undoubtedly cause skepticism among Members of our Operations Group.
Evaluating the relative merits and drawbacks of each such model will help us to arrive at one or more that has the greatest viability. In the end, whatever approaches our newly forming industry chooses to implement will gain credibility because they curtail copyright infringement sufficiently to satisfy the creative community. Absent this, Hollywood will continue in its attempts to control technology by legislation - an effort that Washington opposes.
Any winning model will lead to a commercial direction that, perhaps ironically, requires cooperation as opposed to competition to bring it to life. While competition generally benefits a free marketplace, the victims of this approach, given irreversible changes in Internet topology, will continue to be copyrighted works of art, which we now witness being deplorably decimated by competing market forces, especially in the case of music.
Our leaders in Congress may well need to play a role in ensuring that cooperation prevails. These are the people who must manage and craft capitalism to build community and order among corporate citizens. It isn't every day that they are called upon to do this, but there have been many times during the past two centuries that they have had to intervene to restore order to a marketplace, including the advent of copyright itself.
Our preference will always be to work through private sector interests first. But failing that, and given our charter to commercially develop the distributed computing industry, it would be our duty to seek the support of Congress to facilitate the necessary assistance to ensure successful marketplace construction.
While the challenges certainly seem enormous for now, never before have the conditions for forging the future of the digital media market been better. We urge all parties to come to the table, even absent the declaration of a truce among warring factions.
Protecting the Security of Consumer Data
Leading P2P software companies are to be commended for recent releases that include features preconfigured to ensure that consumers cannot inadvertently share their personal confidential data.
We would like to encourage additional industry feedback on this issue. What more needs to be done? Are further enhancements needed or has this become more of a communications issue now? Please respond at issues@dcia.info.
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