October 25, 2004
Volume 6, Issue 8
Welcome New DCIA Member Jeftel
Please warmly welcome Jeftel, Ltd. to the Operations Group. We look forward to providing valuable services to this newest DCIA Member and supporting its contributions to commercial development of the distributed computing industry.
Jeftel, a UK based software firm, offers Jeftel Secure E-Mail, a peer-to-peer (P2P) software product, which provides a new format for safe, secure communications from within the familiar interface of most regular e-mail client programs.
Robert Barr, Jeftel's head of development, leads a team of 21 developers from a wide range of telephony and sound engineering backgrounds. An additional 25 in staff make up Jeftel's sales team and marketing staff.
Jeftel's technology utilizes the random nature of UDP packet flow to enhance security and versatility over the traditional TCP/IP transport employed by most e-mail systems. Jeftel is changing the face of online communications by creating a different transmission method from the rest of the world's SMTP system – one which can be protected by advanced encryption techniques.
The solution gives end-users full control of their e-mail server by placing it on their PCs. Jeftel Secure E-mail bases its framework on providing a 'soft' mail server with an encryption engine in its executable. Consequently there is no need to use either a corporate or an ISP based mail server for e-mail transmission.
The company's applications communicate with a transport server to receive location and routing instructions which then enable them to set up their own direct connection without any further involvement with Jeftel itself. A data server carries out authentication for both parties. In January 2005 this is being upgraded to a PKI authentication process.
Jeftel uses a bespoke three-tiered asymmetric and symmetric key Diffie-Hellman / 128 bit AES encryption scheme to prevent decryption by anyone other than the intended recipient.
Jeftel is hoping to generate significant sales through international re-seller agreements and is already experiencing significant demand from around the world, having sold into 54 countries after only three weeks since launch.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 We are grateful to the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce for the opportunity to participate in its "Pirates of the Silver Screen" event last week, featuring opening remarks from Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn and honorary Hollywood Mayor Johnny Grant, and closing remarks from Congressman Xavier Becerra (D-CA).
The event was sponsored by Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan (AGSK) and held in the historic Roosevelt Hotel ballroom that was the site of the first Academy Awards.
Our industry panel, moderated by Movielink's CEO Jim Ramo, included questions from Jim and comments from MPAA's anti-piracy SVP John Malcolm and Fox's content protection SVP Ron Wheeler that are deserving of a more complete response than time allowed.
Specifically, their questions and comments were based on the announcement of P2P PATROL's deterrence program, the culmination of nearly a year of collaborative development work with law enforcement, and recently commended by Senators Barbara Boxer, John Cornyn, Richard Durbin, and Gordon Smith. The work on P2P PATROL continues with ongoing efforts to develop and launch its third program next month.
For a young industry made-up primarily of small technology firms, many not yet at breakeven, the P2P PATROL anti-child-pornography initiative, as an example of self-regulatory action, stands head-and-shoulders above similar efforts of predecessor web-based communications technologies and most other content distribution channels. No industry has demonstrated greater responsiveness or responsibility.
Commercial search engines, whose usage accounts for accessing the vast majority of child-pornography online, have not yet developed a comparable deterrence program, despite their more than a decade longer history and far greater revenue base.
Web-sites and chat-rooms, which combined account for more than 98% of child-pornography complaints – with P2P less than 1.4% and declining, do not yet offer a comparable program. And this should be of greater concern, because, unlike P2P, web-sites are sources of commercial child pornography and chat-rooms facilitate dangerous predatory behavior. And again, each represents much larger enterprises and resources than our new industry.
A constructive response to P2P PATROL from responsible leaders of the even larger and richer entertainment industries would be, "This is terrific, how can we help?" "Can we contribute creative treatments for warning messages similar to the trailers we play in theaters about copyright infringement, for example?"
This would be especially appropriate to mend relations between our industries in the wake of ceaseless campaigns undertaken by the entertainment industries to alert governmental authorities and the media to the fact that pornography can be distributed by means of P2P software programs.
It would also offer the entertainment industries an opportunity to dispel criticism from those who assert that they systematically rob young people of their innocence by bombarding them with obscene materials, including offerings that overtly induce criminal behavior.
Our view of this issue is very simple. Reasonable adults should cooperate in combating the global scourge of child pornography. This is a cause that goes beyond commercial rivalries or competitive politics or positioning for leverage in negotiations.
We would welcome contributions from the entertainment industries to P2P PATROL, which will soon add an education program to the deterrence program about which they have asked questions and made comments. Going forward, we will request their support and report on their responsiveness.
But to date the response from entertainment industry leaders has not been an offer to help. It has literally been an attempt to hijack this initiative for their own benefit, "Can't you apply the P2P PATROL deterrence program to our copyrighted works like 'Shrek' or 'Ray' or 'Shark Tale' or 'Eminem' or 'U2' – or don't you want to?"
It would be easy to respond cynically, "Sure you can have exactly the same solution. We'll be glad to sign you up." And maybe one or more of our Members should do that to prove a point.
But it would be neither responsible nor constructive to the commercial development of our industry for the DCIA to take that position. As explained on the panel, while it would be theoretically possible to extend this program to apply to all copyrighted works; that would not work practically. Nor would it work just for all pop-culture-entertainment content with rights controlled by the majors.
Here is why. The P2P PATROL deterrence program generates warning messages to P2P software users, who may be on the threshold of involvement in child pornography, which are triggered by their entering search words known to be associated with such criminally obscene content.
Its objective is to deter users from trafficking in child pornography. From a technical operations perspective, it relies on technology used commercially for delivering contextual-search ads. A relatively small number of search terms are provided by law enforcement. Delivery of content is not affected in any way. The economics are that the P2P PATROL or law enforcement underwrites message-generation on a most-favored-nation CPM basis for participating software providers.
If this were literally applied to deter downloading unauthorized pop content, the number of search terms would have to be expanded to virtually all words in the language to cover every possible title, name of artist, and metadata. The warning message (changed to warn of copyright infringement instead of child pornography) would need to appear with every search rather than just those few where the search term is suspected of being associated with criminally obscene content. Therefore, its desired deterrent effect would be drastically diminished.
However, to demonstrate good intentions, we invite any major entertainment content rights aggregator that wants to explore adapting the P2P PATROL deterrence program – for a few selected words – to contact us. We pledge in good faith to facilitate discussions with appropriate Members to negotiate doing so on favorable terms. But we will also seek to engage seriously on what we believe to be four better ideas.
First, through the Consumer Disclosures Working Group (CDWG), made-up of leading P2P software developers and distributors, which has proposed a P2P Software Risks regime after working with federal regulatory officials (an online demo of which is now available for Congressional review), we believe a much more effective copyright deterrent warning system is now in development. We invite major entertainment industry participation.
Second, as previously proposed, another deterrent approach would be to license the patents and IP now being used illegally to conduct destructive P2P spoofing. This abusive activity could be replaced by constructive cross-promotional messages indicating, for example, that a licensed version of a sought-for work is not yet available in this medium, while directing users to an authorized source. We invite major entertainment industry participation.
Third and more important, DCIA Members such as Altnet, INTENT MediaWorks, Shared Media Licensing, and Trymedia Systems offer rights holders solutions to seed content to be securely monetized as it is redistributed through P2P software programs such as Kazaa, eDonkey, Grokster, and TrustyFiles. All twelve major game publishers are now licensing the P2P distribution channel as are hundreds of independent suppliers with more doing so every month. We invite major entertainment industry participation.
Fourth and most important to this constituency, we offer the P2P Revenue Engine (P2PRE), a solution developed by ten uniquely qualified companies for consumer-entered content, comprising works that have been mass-marketed on CDs or DVDs without copy protection. It provides an identification and conversion process so that such files will perform just as though rights holders had intentionally entered them into P2P distribution. We believe this is a commercial solution they will find attractive. And again, we invite major entertainment industry participation.
IGN Adds Ten Eidos Games
IGN Entertainment Signs Multi-Title Digital Distribution Agreement
IGN Entertainment, a leading Internet media company serving the video game and entertainment enthusiast markets, and Eidos, one of the world's leading publishers and developers of entertainment software, last week announced a multi-title digital rights distribution agreement. Under the agreement, IGN's Direct2Drive will offer 10 Eidos games from the popular Deus Ex, Hitman, Thief, Tomb Raider and Commandos franchises, including Thief: Deadly Shadows and Deus Ex: Invisible War.
Direct2Drive uses the proven ActiveMARK technology of DCIA Member Trymedia Systems, which helps to ensure a secure transaction for both the buyer and the game publisher.
50 Foot Wave Goes P2P
Weed Fills Digital Distribution Gap for 50 Foot Wave in Time for EU Tour
50 Foot Wave opened last Thursday night at the Garage in London, marking the return of Kristin Hersh back to the European rock stage with a blistering live act. Yet none of the online centralized digital music stores have the six tracks from 50 Foot Wave's self-titled mini-album available.
Instead, Throwing Music chose DCIA Member Shared Media Licensing's (SML) remarkable Weed technology that makes the songs available for sale anywhere in the world simultaneously via P2P.
Weed files can be listened to three times before they lock and must be purchased. After purchase, the Weed files can be freely copied and shared, turning every fan who buys a song into an authorized distributor.
INTENT MediaWorks and AlmondNet
AlmondNet Signs INTENT MediaWorks for Delivery of Targeted Ads
P2P Revenue Engine participant AlmondNet has signed an agreement with DCIA Member INTENT MediaWorks, for usage of AlmondNet's patent-pending behavioral targeting technology in conjunction with the INTENT MediaWorks platform.
This agreement enables INTENT MediaWorks to deliver relevant, targeted interactive ads to users of its platform for secure distribution of content (music, video, documents) via peer-to-peer (P2P) software programs.
INTENT offers technology that gives recording artists and music companies the ability to distribute their digital content securely via major P2P software programs, including Kazaa, Gnutella, and BitTorrent. INTENT now has 600 independent labels and artists signed up for music distribution.
ActiveMusic Chooses SVC Financial
SVC Financial and ActiveMusic Join Forces To Power Electronic Fundraising
DCIA Member SVC Financial Services, a provider of secure electronic payment and digital rights management (DRM) solutions, last week announced that its electronic contribution, DRM, and multimedia authoring capabilities will help power Internet fundraising and content for ActiveMusic.
ActiveMusic produces concerts, artist receptions, and outdoor events for a range of causes. The organization, founded by recognized leaders in concert production and event management, creates partnerships with artists and facilitates their impact on the issues they care most about. ActiveMusic events have featured artists including Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Bruce Hornsby and Alanis Morrissette.
"SVC and ActiveMusic are making an extremely positive impact on fundraising for a number of non-profits while simultaneously ensuring protection of the participating artists' work," said SVC CEO Chris Haigh. "This will also enable ActiveMusic to help even more non-profits and attract even more artists to their causes."
Coming Events of Interest
- DRM Strategies Expo - 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 at this JupiterMedia sponsored event.
The DRM Strategies Conference & Expo will be held October 25th through 27th at the Sheraton Universal in Los Angeles. Please call 203-662-2857 or e-mail registration@jupitermedia.com.
- Digital Entertainment Conference & Awards – The DCIA is proud to sponsor this first annual conference and awards show, focusing on innovation, entrepreneurship, and brand development in digital entertainment.
Co-produced by Billboard and Digital Media Wire, the "Billboard Digital Entertainment Conference & Awards (DECA)" will be held on November 4th and 5th at the UCLA Tom Bradley International Center. Seventy industry leaders will be speaking at the two-day conference on content and technology developments, including business, legal, and technology issues impacting the creative and business communities. To learn more about the conference and awards show, please call 323-822-0936.
The DCIA will hold its Fall General Meeting for Members only Thursday evening November 4th in conjunction with DECA. Please contact DCIA Member Services leader Karen Kaplowitz at karen@dcia.info or 888-890-4420 for Membership information.
P2P File-Sharing: Consumer Protection and Competition Issues – The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will host a public workshop December 15th-16th to explore consumer protection and competition issues associated with the distribution and use of P2P file-sharing software.
The workshop is intended to provide an opportunity to learn how P2P file-sharing works and to discuss current and future applications of the technology.
Interested parties are encouraged to submit comments electronically at FTC P2P Workshop Comments. A detailed agenda and additional information on the workshop will be posted on the FTC's web site at FTC P2P Workshop Agenda.
The workshop will focus on uses of P2P file-sharing technology, the role of P2P file-sharing technology in the economy, identification and disclosure of P2P file-sharing software program risks, technological solutions to protect consumers from risks associated with P2P file-sharing software programs, P2P file-sharing and music distribution, and P2P file-sharing and its impact on copyright holders.
|
