November 24, 2003
Volume 2, Issue 8
Introducing P2P Journal for New Technology
Peer-to-peer (P2P) distribution is in its early stages. Related business solutions that the DCIA is exploring with content providers, P2P software companies, and broadband ISPs are likely to involve new technologies. In order to support their development, the DCIA has established a collaborative relationship with the P2P Journal, a new online bimonthly dedicated to providing comprehensive technical coverage of P2P computing topics.
The P2P Journal intends to be a gathering place for people interested in exchanging ideas, reading and writing articles, and discussing P2P technology. Areas of interest include instant messaging, collaborative computing, community information sharing, content dissemination tools and protocols, and other distributed, and parallel computing applications.
P2PJ was founded earlier this year by Raymond Gao , an enterprise architect who has spoken widely at leading technology conferences and contributed articles to top-rated journals and magazines. He has worked for Nokia, Sun Microsystems, EDS, Raytheon, Computer Associates, and MCI/WorldCom on many mission-critical projects involving multiple facets of the Internet.
The journal has a panel of editors, including experts in the field, who review material before publication, and welcomes the submission of articles and whitepapers.
New GAO Report - P2P Child Porn Down to 1.4%
The General Accounting Office (GAO) this week issued a supplemental report, following up on its September Senate Hearing testimony on P2P technologies and child pornography. This new GAO Report states that P2P is no more dangerous in this regard than are other areas of the Internet.
In responses to Judiciary Committee questions, GAO's Linda Koontz said: "With peer-to-peer networks, pornography is easily accessible to children, and the risk of inadvertent exposure to pornography is significant. However, pornography is also easily accessible through other electronic means, such as Web sites, and the risk of children's inadvertent exposure to pornography exists on these other mediums as well."
The 840 instances of child pornography on P2P were 1.4 percent of the 62,000 total this year, GAO said. Of those, 45,035 were on the Web, 12,043 were by e-mail, and 1,128 were on Usenet bulletin boards.
Koontz also said that P2P users who trade pre-released songs or movies still could make "fair use" of such copyrighted materials.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Congratulations to Charter Member Sharman Networks, Ltd. (SNL) on the successful launch last week of its bold JOIN THE REVOLUTION advertising campaign.
File-sharing clearly represents an enormous opportunity for "super-distribution" of digital media content.
The DCIA strongly supports SNL's call-to-action for involved parties to come together to work on constructive business solutions for commercializing P2P.
Our selection process for the second-of-three business models for P2P music distribution is nearing its conclusion. We have zeroed in on two leading alternatives and will make a final determination this week and announce this model next week.
Input, particularly from music industry participants, continues to be carefully reviewed, and additional comments are still welcome.
Certain of the consumer proposition and revenue sharing issues that have been the subject of recent private discussions about these models also deserve more public discussion to help arrive at a consensus view.
The first of these is the concept of downloading songs to a single device from P2P by consumers for a minimal per-play charge (perhaps with a multi-play minimum charge initially). This would also facilitate being able to share such songs via P2P with others who would also pay at the same rate. An important attribute of this aspect is that the transactional price be low enough to seem 'virtually free.'
The second related concept is for an upsell mechanism whereby consumers could then pay the remainder of the then-current established online retail price to copy or 'burn' selections from such 'P2P-previewed' songs to other devices with unlimited plays.
For example, given today's generally established $0.99 retail price for songs at online music stores, if a consumer, with the above concept implemented, paid a total of ten cents to play a song a certain number of times after downloading it through P2P, then (s)he would need to pay eighty-nine cents to 'own the song' and be able to make additional copies for other devices. If the consumer had paid twenty-nine cents for a greater number of 'P2P-preview plays,' then the price to fully acquire the song would be seventy cents. Etc.
On the revenue sharing side of this, the concept would be that music publishers (who would share their portion with composers as is their current practice) would be compensated out of the revenue generated via 'P2P-preview plays' as would the parties involved in facilitating the download, billing and collecting.
Above this level, the music labels and artists would be compensated, out of the purchasing of songs, as would the parties involved in facilitating the upsell, billing and collecting. At the end of initial contract terms, related deals required to implement these concepts could be renegotiated.
The basic idea here is obviously to exploit the popularity of P2P for sampling/previewing while also supporting the existing and continuing-to-be-launched online music stores. Your comments, either in favor of, or opposed to these concepts are welcome, as are other recommendations. Please call me at 888-864-3242 or e-mail marty@dcia.info.
DCIA Early December Activities
At the invitation of two major motion picture studios, the DCIA will be participating in the December 3 rd meeting of the Copyright Protection Technology Working Group (CPTWG). Topics will include open-ended digital rights management (DRM) solutions, search-results ordering techniques, and other recommended technologies for protecting encrypted content files in current P2P environments; and technological solutions for accounting for digital media files in coming P2P distribution environments for purposes of remunerating copyright holders based on universally tracking file downloads at the ISP level.
The DCIA will also be participating on December 4 th inThe Western Show Panel "Learning from KaZaA: Digital Rights and Wrongs," moderated by Kagan Media's COO Larry Gerbrandt. Other speakers include Robert Fransdonk, Entriq's CTO & Founder; Donovan Gordon , Showtime's SVP and Chairman, Broadband & Internet Security Task Force; and Dan Sheeran , Real Network's SVP Marketing. Topics will included prioritizing digital rights and wrongs in today's environment, key issues associated with DRM, and the prospective leadership role of cable multiple system operator (MSO) Internet service providers (ISPs) in developing and implementing business solutions.
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