February 27, 2006
Volume 12, Issue 6
Welcome arvato mobile
Please warmly welcome arvato mobile GmbH, a Bertelsmann company, 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.
Arvato mobile is Europe's leading mobile entertainment provider. It enables network operators, media companies, and Internet portals to offer their customers first-rate mobile content and innovative applications. The company works closely with rights holders from the music, motion picture, television, and videogames industries.
Arvato mobile has developed GNAB, an innovative technology that combines a centralized Internet download platform with a decentralized peer-to-peer (P2P) network, guaranteeing fast, efficient, high-quality downloads of any sort of digital content (e.g., movies, music, TV programs, videos, games, etc.).
The centralized component of GNAB ensures the protection of copyrights and supports the rules and requirements of individual licensors. The decentralized component of GNAB makes it possible for the first time to distribute larger files like movies with the efficiency and economies of a distributed P2P network.
GNAB is a white-label platform, meaning that it is offered in the respective look-and-feel of arvato mobile's customers. By integrating a P2P network, GNAB appeals to the concept of community. Arvato mobile encourages its GNAB customers to reward users who make downloads available to other users within the P2P network.
In early January, EMI Music and arvato mobile signed the first ever pan-European download agreement for a P2P music service, after reaching a pioneering deal for the GNAB service.
In late January, Warner Bros. announced the formation of a joint venture with arvato mobile, In2Movies, which will use GNAB to create a revolutionary new digital download platform for the electronic sell-through of motion picture and television content in Germany, Austria, and German-speaking Switzerland.
In2Movies will be the first P2P-based download-to-own service to offer consumers licensed content day-and-date with the German language DVD release. With the initial rollout, consumers will be able to download movies and television shows to their personal computers. The second version of the service will expand on consumers' download options and enable them to download programs to DVD recorders and other portable devices.
"Through this partnership with arvato mobile, Warner Bros. continues its role as an industry leader by expanding the reach of its digital content through this extremely innovative platform. Our initial efforts will focus on the German market but in the months ahead we will leverage this technology to better serve markets around the world," said Kevin Tsujihara, President, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.
"In2Movies is built on our pioneering GNAB technology that brings together the controlled security that copyright holders demand of a digital distribution channel, with the convenience, community interaction, and speed of a decentralized network that consumers desire," said Kurt Smit, Managing Director of GNAB.
Trymedia Games & Playlogic Affiliation
DCIA Member Trymedia Games, a division of Macrovision, and Playlogic Entertainment signed an affiliate agreement for the digital distribution of Playlogic's entertainment products. Macrovision will distribute selected Playlogic products on its network.
Playlogic will also incorporate the Trymedia technology into its website, offering customers easy and secure access to some of its latest game releases, as well as the option to try-before-you-buy selected titles.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 It is critical that participants at all levels of the distributed computing industry raise their voices on the issue of "Net Neutrality."
For those who have not been following this important debate, the basic question is whether major Internet service providers (ISPs) should be allowed to discriminate in the level of service provided to various websites and other users of bandwidth, for example by offering faster or slower access rates based on a new to-be-determined regime of payments to ISPs from such parties.
Since a number of large companies that own major ISPs also sell their own content online, these entities could unfairly advantage themselves against competing content providers, especially small independents, if network neutrality were abandoned and ISPs became content gatekeepers.
From a consumer perspective, this would cause drastic changes in the way the Internet performs. Currently, each online destination can be reached as easily as every other one on a global basis, and no preference in terms of "tiered access" is given, whether based on payments made to ISPs from site operators, content providers being jointly owned by ISPs, or some other set of ISP-controlled criteria.
If tiered access were in practice, ISPs rather than innovators and end-users would be empowered to direct the course of the Internet's development. The decisions of large utility companies, essentially, rather than consumers' choices, would determine which content sources and what delivery technologies could become successful.
Currently, most users have limited or no choice among broadband service providers – typically just their phone and/or cable company – and promising developments such as BPL (delivering broadband over power lines) and independent satellite/wireless alternatives would be severely curtailed without network neutrality.
Exciting beneficial implementations of P2P technologies, including VoIP and IPTV, which compete with traditional ISP telephony and subscription video service offerings, would also be in danger of being blocked or stifled.
The DCIA has previously proposed that owners and operators of broadband ISP services, as a requirement for being permitted to offer such highly profitable services to US residents, share in the responsibility for tracking delivery of files of registered copyrighted works to individual consumers. This would include supporting systems to ensure timely billing for content distributed via transport protocols designed to discover and deliver digital assets.
Under this proposal, copyright holders and ISP providers would be entitled to establish pricing and revenue-sharing through private negotiations, to recover their costs for registering, tracking, billing, collecting, etc. and to earn a profit, provided that prices charged to consumers for copyrighted works distributed via transport protocols were competitive with alternative distribution channels for such works.
It seems clear that if the Internet is to remain free and to continue providing a favorable environment for content delivery and technology innovation, then not only should this type of development be pursued, but also network neutrality should be maintained.
The US Senate and House of Representatives are now actively involved in exploring this historic issue, and we believe that, in this case, public interest should win out over the special interests of large ISPs. In addition, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is studying the issue. Voluntary guidelines seem insufficient in this instance.
Indeed, network neutrality has been at the center of a sweeping draft telecommunications bill developed over several months and now pending before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has signaled his intentions to introduce a measure in the Senate designed to ensure network neutrality.
The DCIA encourages Congress and the FCC to continue their important work in seeking a consensus that will permit the enactment of laws and regulatory processes to safeguard network neutrality and ensure fair-and-open competition in the continuing evolution of the Internet. A key goal should be to benefit all consumers, and not give-in to pressure from major ISPs or other special interests to abandon these preservation-and-protection efforts. Share wisely, and take care.
DRA Denounces Sprint's Indie Exclusion
Digital Rights Agency (DRA), the leading worldwide digital music distributor, has sent a letter to Sprint Nextel Corporation condemning the company's failure to include independent record label catalogs in its recently launched full-track download service.
DRA represents more than 250 leading independent labels and has over 185,000 tracks available for digital distribution from the US, Canada, Mexico, Spain, France, UK, Italy, Germany, Korea, India, and Russia. DRA's catalog is available on more than 200 digital music services worldwide.
"More than three months after launching the service, and after advertising on the Super Bowl and Grammy Awards, it's unacceptable that Sprint continues to exclude independent labels from its full-track download service," said DRA Managing Director Tuhin Roy. "It's difficult to understand how Sprint will compete if 25% of the time it will be unable to deliver the music that its subscribers are looking for."
DRA and several large independent content owners including DCIA Member V2 Records have licensed their catalogs and delivered content to Groove Mobile, which back-ends the Sprint service. As a result, according to DRA, the inclusion of thousands of independent label catalogs in the Sprint service would be as simple as Groove Mobile "flipping a switch."
Big Three ISPs Say P2P OK
Excerpted from News.com Report by Andrew Colley
Broadband customers of Australia's largest ISPs can use P2P file-sharing software such as BitTorrent and Kazaa without being throttled by their ISP.
Australia's largest ISPs say they are not limiting P2P file-sharing traffic on their networks and have no immediate plans to impose restrictions on the activity. However, some say they have the means to apply limits if that is required in the future.
Internet suppliers recently revealed that file-sharing traffic is restricted on two of Australia's best-known dedicated wireless data networks. This prompted fears of the practice being adopted more widely.
Australia's top three broadband providers, Telstra, Optus, and iiNet, say they don't differentiate between P2P and other forms of Internet traffic.
IiNet managing director Michael Malone said ISPs need to ensure their networks are free of congestion, rather than differentiate between types of traffic.
Some ISPs are skeptical that limiting P2P file-sharing traffic is feasible from a technical standpoint. "It's technically very dodgy to do," Mr. Malone said.
P2P Traders Shift to DVD Releases
Excerpted from CIO Today Report
File traders are generating more P2P traffic by offering high-quality copies of movies released on DVD rather than illicitly-filmed cinema releases, according to Internet security company BayTSP.
"Sin City," starring Bruce Willis, was released on DVD in the US August 16th, and topped the downloading chart in December. 52,973 copies of the film were available for download across the eDonkey, FastTrack, and BitTorrent networks – 2,500 more than November's most popular film, "The Interpreter."
A spokesman for BayTSP said that the majority of films on the list are available on DVD, indicating that "file traders are downloading DVD-quality rips of older films rather than lower quality copies of new releases."
"Top Gear" was the most popular TV program available for download in Britain in December, with 96,355 copies being offered. This is the first time BayTSP has measured TV show downloads in the UK. The show beat US drama "Desperate Housewives" and animated comedy "Southpark" into second and third place.
BitTorrent's SXSW Music & Film Downloads
BitTorrent Inc., developer of the world's most popular P2P application, announced plans to support the 20th Annual South by Southwest (SXSW) Music and Media Conference and 13th Annual SXSW Film Conference and Festival.
To highlight the hundreds of musical acts from around the globe and emerging talents in independent film-making, SXSW and BitTorrent will offer free downloads. The music compilation and movie trailer package will be available on both www.sxsw.com and www.bittorrent.com. SXSWeek takes place March 10th-19th in Austin, TX.
With its highly efficient P2P publishing tool for delivering large files on the Internet, BitTorrent will enable consumers to quickly download a compilation of songs by artists playing at SXSW, including The Secret Machines, Giant Squid, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Boyskout, and hundreds of others.
Similarly, SXSW will be offering a collection of movie trailers from this year's schedule of SXSW Films, which includes over 50 world premieres. With BitTorrent as a publishing platform, it significantly lowers transfer costs and offers increased speed and effectiveness for the downloader.
"South by Southwest has become an important and globally recognized venue for indie artists to showcase their work," said Ashwin Navin, President of BitTorrent Inc. "BitTorrent, as the free-and-open standard for cooperative distribution technology, is a natural fit for what everyone hopes to achieve at the festival, and bring the expression to a global audience."
NeoEdge Networks' PrivatePeering
NeoEdge Networks is preparing to launch a new service based on its patent-pending PrivatePeering technology to help solve three of the largest challenges faced by digital content providers – cost of distribution, speed of download, and control.
"The challenge and cost of distributing digital content to millions of consumers is really hitting home to companies with content that they would like to monetize online," said Vic Mahadevan, CEO of NeoEdge Networks.
NeoEdge will offer content providers a direct channel to promote, sell, and deliver their digital products based on next generation P2P technology. PrivatePeering ensures rapid delivery and distribution regardless of file format or size, guaranteed content integrity, and significantly lower distribution costs for content providers.
This also means that higher quality video content and larger games can be profitably delivered over the Internet, with faster delivery for a better consumer experience.
Popular Telephony P2P IP Phone
Popular Telephony announced Peerio ONE+ONE, a Linux-based terminal powered by an AMD 300 MHz MIPS processor with 32 Mb of RAM, dedicated digital signal processor, and an embedded 4-port 10/100 Mb autonomous data switch with dedicated one port PSTN gateway. A media gateway integrated in each terminal provides PSTN access.
Peerio ONE+ONE has a built-in set of most-commonly used and high-level telephony features and services. Voice-mail, auto-attendant, call-routing, answering systems, and conferencing facilities will give small businesses enhanced productivity features. Station features such as hold, transfer, conference, forwarding, override, call-park, voice-mail, and others can be accessed and implemented from any terminal, following user authentication.
The P2P IP phones will be available to the general public from March 2006 for a suggested retail price of $249.
Search and More Search
Excerpted from Online Spin by Cory Treffiletti
"Search" has been top-of-mind as of late with all the Google news: Google takes on the government in an issue over privacy. Google is on the cover of TIME Magazine. Google stock takes a minor nosedive due to major profits not being as high as Wall Street speculated. With all the buzz around Google, we tend to forget there are lots of other things happening in search that will affect the daily life of the average consumer.
What about true video search? The big boys (Google and Yahoo) have their solutions for video search, but it seems their methodologies are slightly flawed, and more and more technologies are popping up everyday to solve the problem. There are two I've seen in the last few weeks:
Truveo: These guys have a great tool for searching video off the Web. I did some searches for the kinds of things I wanted to see and compared that with what I found on Google search and Yahoo search, and the numbers were telling, but how many of you have heard of Truveo? If they are under the radar now, they won't be for much longer. Their technology seems to be too good!
Riya: What they promise seems to be very cool and very valuable. They offer a technology for face recognition that will auto-tag your photos so they can be searched through an album. This would be extremely valuable in indexing personal photos – but just imagine the implications of the same technology in video search. If videos can be auto-tagged based on face or image recognition, then video search takes off through the roof! Imagine searching a set of auto-tagged photos and videos for specific people and places. The boundaries are limitless.
City Canyons Tenth Showcase
DCIA Member City Canyons Records, in conjunction with Black Dog Promotions and the New York City Guitar School, will present a remarkable combination of talent during its Tenth Showcase at Manhattan's famous Red Lion (151 Bleeker Street) Tuesday, February 28th at 7:30 PM.
This monthly Showcase by City Canyons – the exciting independent label based in downtown Manhattan – has become one of New York's most popular and prestigious ongoing showcases for independent music.
Coming Events of Interest
-
New Communications Forum 2006 – March 1st, Palo Alto, CA. NCF brings together the industry's leaders from around the globe to discuss the impact of participatory communications on media, marketing, PR, and advertising. This year the conference will examine how blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other emerging tools, technologies, and modes of communication are affecting organizations.
-
Social Marketing: Tapping Into The Power Of Connected Customers – March 7th in Toronto, Canada. More and more ad dollars are moving online, but smart companies are approaching social media with care. In a world of one-to-one conversations, how do you get real reach? Forget everything you know about traditional advertising - in social media, the rules of brand identity no longer apply. What advertising practices deliver results in social media? This event will cover how companies can use tools like blogs, RSS, and podcasting to connect with their customers.
-
Digital Media Revenue Strategies – March 27th at Digital Sandbox, New York, NY. Advancements in delivering and monetizing digital assets are happening at an extraordinary pace. Find out how leading edge B2B media companies have used digital technology to increase revenue, streamline operations, and open up new markets.
-
Omma West Conference and Expo-Hollywood – March 27th-28th in Los Angeles. The rash of technology innovations and content syndication deals over the past year, coupled with consumer adoption of broadband, DVRs, VOD, and an unwavering insistence on media control, are taking the shape of an infrastructure the media industry's most forward thinking prophets have long heralded. The Internet is now becoming what it was meant to be – the distribution channel for all media.
-
Digital Hollywood Spring – An expanded agenda of events will be featured during the 17th Annual Digital Hollywood Spring at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in Los Angeles, CA March 27th-30th. Digital Hollywood is the leading gathering of entertainment, media and technology executives. Digital Hollywood Spring 2006 will have tracks and panels of special relevance to the DCIA. Plan now to attend.
-
MIPDOC and MIPTV – MIPDOC is the international showcase for documentary screenings April 1st–2nd at the Carlton Hotel, Cannes, France; and MIPTV featuring MILIA – is the world's largest audiovisual and digital content market for mobile, iTV, and broadband distribution April 3rd–7th at the Palais des Festivals also in Cannes, France.
-
First Annual DCIA Conference & Expo – June 22nd, Tysons Corner, McLean, VA. Panel tracks at this first-ever global "P2P Media Summit" will cover policy, marketing, and technology issues affecting commercial development of the emerging file-sharing industry. Exhibits and demonstrations will feature industry-leading products and services. DCIA Member Alston & Bird's Aydin Caginalp and Renee Brissette will conduct a special session on corporate value optimization for firms in the distributed computing industry. Plan now to attend. For sponsor packages and speaker information, please contact Karen Kaplowitz at 888-890-4240 or karen@dcia.info.
|
