September 27, 2004
Volume 6, Issue 4
IMW and RazorPop Join P2P PATROL
DCIA Members INTENT MediaWorks and RazorPop will expand their initiatives to combat child pornography by participating in the industry-wide enforcement, deterrence, and education initiative "P2P PATROL - Parents And Teens React On Line."
INTENT MediaWorks is now launching the P2P PATROL deterrence program through all of its online properties and RazorPop will launch it with the newest version of its flagship software offering, TrustyFiles, in early October. TrustyFiles 2.3 will be an enhanced version of RazorPop's leading peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing software program.
The P2P PATROL deterrence program, targeted at individuals on the threshold of becoming involved with child pornography, was conceived late last year by DCIA Charter Member Altnet and developed in close collaboration with federal law enforcement agencies and fellow DCIA Member Grokster. The program was approved for field testing in August.
"Eliminating child pornography is a priority for INTENT MediaWorks," said President Les Ottolenghi. "We take a zero tolerance stance on this issue and are backing it up in word and deed."
"RazorPop is dedicated to providing a safe and enjoyable experience for its users," added CEO Marc Freedman. "We must protect our children. Child pornography is a global threat that must be eliminated."
The P2P PATROL deterrence program features pop-up warning messages triggered by search terms associated with child pornography. The initial message reads in part, "WARNING – The search term you entered has been associated with child pornography. Any person who receives, reproduces, or redistributes a visual depiction of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct shall be subject to severe fines and imprisonment."
The initial keywords are being seeded by international law enforcement agencies, and ultimately will be updated by users themselves. "This real-time warning will be an effective weapon in INTENT MediaWorks' arsenal for combating this problem," noted Ottolenghi.
The next P2P PATROL program, focused on education, to be implemented in November 2004, will be aimed at empowering general P2P software users, who inadvertently encounter undesirable material online, with the tools they need to recognize, report, and remove (i.e., hard-drive wipe) any criminally obscene content.
INTENT MediaWorks and RazorPop's announcements come just four months after the first law enforcement actions against those trafficking in child pornography by means of P2P software were announced by Attorney General Ashcroft in May 2004. DCIA Charter Member Sharman Networks led by example in supporting the covert operations that led to the initial arrests.
Freedman concluded, "We applaud the law enforcement actions of the Cyber Division of the FBI and the Department of Justice and Homeland Security. We are committed to doing all that we can to combat child pornography."
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 We are especially grateful to the chief executives of DCIA Members Digital Containers, INTENT MediaWorks, RazorPop, and SVC Financial for meeting with federal law enforcement officials last week to discuss combating child pornography online.
To put this in its appropriate context, while P2P accounts for less than 1.5% of reported instances of Internet child pornography and is trending downward, and there has never been a report of commercial child pornography on P2P, DCIA Members have nevertheless made its elimination a priority.
Our session focused on updating attendees on the status of the industry-wide "P2P PATROL - Parents And Teens React On Line" initiative and obtaining their input on next steps, and was attended by more than 100 field agents and supervisors as well as headquarters personnel.
Marc Freedman and Les Ottolenghi announced that RazorPop and INTENT MediaWorks are launching the P2P PATROL deterrence program (see this week's lead article); Chip Venters offered to contribute for official use Digital Containers' patents for protecting "content in motion" as a secure way to transfer evidence; and Chris Haigh offered SVC Financial's services to manage consumer donations and matching corporate contributions to fund P2P PATROL.
Discussion centered on whether to focus more on the demand side or the supply side of illegal child pornography or to further develop strategies in both areas. Alternative approaches could be characterized as efforts to inhibit users, on the one hand, and/or efforts to impede producers, on the other.
Law enforcement representatives confirmed that their highest priority remains to efficiently identify and apprehend individuals transmitting criminally obscene content. Several very promising technology-based ideas were flagged as having ramifications that would need to be addressed in the areas of legal protocol and consumer privacy protection before pursuing them.
Marc Freedman suggested the idea of developing new custom integrated software with unique law-enforcement functionality as an advance over relying on consumer client software supplemented with separate computer applications. This would require careful consideration of many related issues including legal clearances for usage and access controls.
Les Ottolenghi suggested a certification program of priority action items that can be agreed upon with federal law enforcement, so that companies which voluntarily participate in P2P PATROL can be clearly identified and those that don't will be more easily identified as possibly harboring bad actors.
Chris Haigh and Chip Venters suggested additional ideas for proprietary tagging and tracking, reiterating that technological capabilities will probably not be the gating factor for improvements, but other issues such as necessary legal approvals and consumer privacy safeguards will be.
The challenges posed to law enforcement of new applications that break files into pieces for more efficient redistribution versus locating and downloading entire files were explored. The potential uses of fingerprinting and watermarking to support law enforcement were also discussed.
We invited attendees to help stack-rank suggested action items previously proposed at meetings with other agencies. Items which can directly improve the efficiency of identifying suspected child pornographers ranked the highest.
As commercial P2P software programs continue to evolve, with licensed content increasingly displacing unauthorized material as well as the continuing introduction of related technical advances, there is the possibility that those seeking to distribute criminally obscene content will migrate to "darknets." Attendees said they would not be adverse to that because it would ultimately make perpetrators easier to isolate and prosecute.
Of greatest importance to the P2P PATROL initiative was input for the in-development education program on track to launch this fall. Field agents said they receive "inactionable" material from consumers ranging from those who don't know the difference between offensive and illegal material to those who are self-styled online vigilantes. Part of the P2P PATROL education effort therefore will be to better qualify such leads and direct them to the appropriate body for processing and analysis before being sent to agents.
Next steps include already scheduled meetings with related agencies, and continuing work to finalize the education program for its November launch. If you are interested in supporting P2P PATROL, please contact sari@dcia.info or call 888-864-DCIA.
DCIA Supports Altnet Music Labels
The DCIA and industry-leading entertainment attorney Douglas Mark will sponsor a breakfast meeting for independent music labels affiliated with DCIA Charter Member Altnet at 8:30 AM on Wednesday September 29th at Loew's Santa Monica Beach Hotel in conjunction with Digital Hollywood.
Altnet President Lee Jaffe will attend. The focus of the meeting will be on how elements of the P2P Revenue Engine (P2PRE) project can be applied to the needs of entertainment content providers who have already embraced P2P for licensed digital distribution of their copyrighted works.
Altnet, which is now working with 80 independent music labels, has demonstrated that content entered into P2P file-sharing environments by rights holders can be protected using digital rights management (DRM) technologies and monetized using payment service solutions.
One of the best immediate uses of the P2PRE is to help these entities expand current revenue streams and develop new ones. The P2PRE project compliments Altnet's success by addressing content entered into P2P file-sharing environments by consumers.
Participating companies include Shared Media Licensing; eDonkey, INTENT MediaWorks, Digital Containers, Relatable, MediaGuide, AlmondNet, Clickshare, Peppercoin, and P2P Cash.
The P2PRE packages entertainment content in three representative ways: 1) with advertising, 2) in subscriptions, and 3) for a la carte sales, with all transactions generating revenue for rights holders.
Qualified parties please contact karen@dcia.info or call 888-890-4240.
Coming Events of Interest
NEW - Click HERE for Special DCIA Discount Rate for Micropayments '04
Fall Digital Hollywood. The DCIA is proud to support Digital Hollywood's "Digital Rights Management (DRM) & Anti-Piracy Day-Long Track, End-of-Day Reception and VIP Dinners" on September 28th and 29th at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in Los Angeles, CA.
DCIA Members Chip Venters, CEO of Digital Containers; Gabe Zichermann, VP of Trymedia Systems; and Les Ottolenghi, President of INTENT MediaWorks, will participate on a panel entitled "Next Generation P2P: DRM, Paid for Pass-Along, and Other Legal Distributed Computing Models and the Entertainment Industries" on Wednesday September 29th at 12:50 PM.
Joining them will be panelists Ted Cohen, SVP, D3 – Digital Development & Distribution, EMI Recorded Music; Jim Flynn, CEO Artio Systems; and Mark Ishikawa, CEO BayTSP. DCIA CEO Marty Lafferty will moderate this panel.
Micropayments '04. DCIA P2P Revenue Engine (P2PRE) participant Peppercoin is co-sponsoring Micropayments '04, an executive forum to educate content owners, merchants, payments and technology companies, banks and financial services institutions on the potential of small payments, and to facilitate discussion regarding present and future small payment solutions.
More than 200 senior executives representing the disciplines of payments, retail, financial services, and technology are scheduled to attend this event on Tuesday October 5th at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
The full-day program features keynotes, six panels, and luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria. Confirmed speakers comprise an impressive array of senior decision-makers from content, payment and technology firms, including keynoter Alex St. John, CEO of WildTangent. For more information, call 323-822-0936.
DRM Strategies Expo. Jupitermedia's Digital Rights Management Strategies Conference & Expo, October 25th through 27th at the Sheraton Universal, Los Angeles, CA will be the most comprehensive event on DRM business and technology issues ever held - a must-attend for those involved in content security in both consumer media distribution and information security for businesses.
DCIA P2P Revenue Engine (P2PRE) participant MediaGuide's Steve Lubin will be a featured speaker on the Fingerprinting Panel moderated by Digital Economics' Donald Jasko at 10:00 AM on October 26th.
DRM Strategies will provide the chance to compare important DRM technology solutions. The conference will focus on fundamentals of DRM, shed light on future DRM directions, and provide incendiary debate on today's controversial issues surrounding digital copyright.
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