July 2, 2007
Volume 18, Issue 3
Top Music Labels Back QTRAX
Excerpted from NY Post Report by Peter Lauria
Music file-sharing service QTRAX is about to hit the markets with the blessing - not to mention the catalogs - of all four major record labels.
Parent company Brilliant Technologies plans to spin out QTRAX and merge it with an entity called Flooring Zone so that the file-sharing service can be traded publicly.
After the deal, shareholders in Brilliant Technologies will own 80 percent of the new company and 20 percent will reside in public hands.
QTRAX’s market debut - a first for a file-sharing service - follows plans by Downtown Records and Internet entrepreneur Peter Rojas to launch an online-only record label that will offer its music for free and generate revenue only through advertising and sponsorships.
With a full complement of songs from the major labels as well as the esoteric live recordings and personal tracks stemming from users’ own collections, Brilliant CEO Allan Klepfisz estimates QTRAX will have access to between 20 million and 30 million copyrighted songs at launch in October.
At that size, the service could not only be considered a legitimate threat to Apple’s iTunes, which only features 5 million songs, but also a better economic proposition as well (record labels collect about 70 cents on each iTunes sale).
That QTRAX has the support of the four major record labels - EMI, SonyBMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group - and all of their respective publishing divisions, underscores the industry’s increasing realization that peer-to-peer (P2P) services can’t be sued out of existence and instead should be embraced as a potentially lucrative new source of revenue.
While digital sales have been the industry’s lone bright spot, they aren’t nearly enough to offset the decline in CD sales or stem the tide of unlicensed swapping.
More than 5 billion songs were swapped on P2P services last year while CD sales, the industry’s core revenue-producing product, continue to decline, dropping about 20 percent this year alone.
And according to a recent report from Jupiter Research, things are only going to get worse.
"Young consumers are increasingly shunning music buying in favor of file sharing, which is four times more popular than digital-music buying among ages 15 to 24," the report notes.
Statistics like that are a prime reason why the major labels are embracing advertising-driven business models like the one being implemented by QTRAX.
"Consumers clearly aren’t willing to pay for music, but advertisers are the one group that still will," said Klepfisz, who added that Internet advertising is growing at a 30 percent clip per year.
QTRAX’s initial revenue projections range from a low of $20 million to a high of $175 million. Record labels will get an equal split of advertising revenue in addition to the royalty fees it collects from QTRAX.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 We commend the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for issuing its 170-page report on Wednesday entitled Broadband Connectivity Competition Policy.
New investments and continued innovation are necessary to fulfill the Internet’s potential, and it is important that public policy supports these needs.
In its report, the FTC recommends that Congress not rush to introduce new legislation related to the issues of broadband Internet access and network neutrality. Now is a time for active vigilance, as opposed to preemptive government action, with respect to the highly kinetic marketplace for high-speed Internet-based services.
Such innovation is now most often led by the enormously promising and exciting new offerings contributed by the small but rapidly-growing distributed computing industry, working to advance the capabilities made possible by the massive capital investments of the much larger and established telecommunications industry in plant upgrades nationwide.
While the report notes that an initial response of ISPs to the bandwidth consumption of highly popular P2P applications has been traffic-shaping, it could not foresee how upcoming implementations of P2P technologies will also provide the best solutions for relieving network congestion (please scroll down to "Mapping the Internet"). An open and unregulated competitive market is the best stimulus for such innovation.
As FTC Chair Deborah Platt Majoras wisely comments in the document, "This report recommends that policy makers proceed with caution in the evolving, dynamic industry of broadband Internet access, which generally is moving toward more - not less – competition."
While those who favor government intervention claim that they are urging federal legislators to act-in-advance to protect non-discriminatory access to bandwidth, the record shows this is unjustified. Broadband ISPs are already taking steps that will be more beneficial to software developers, content rights holders, and consumers, than the uninspired visions of the future espoused by these flat-rate advocates.
The DCIA believes that premature regulatory action would stifle ongoing innovation and discourage new investments. The private sector, motivated by competitive market forces, has the ability to do more with technology and business solutions than well-meaning government can do with the relatively blunt instrument of a restricting legislative measure.
As the FTC further explains, "The primary reason for caution is simply that we do not know what the net effects of potential conduct by broadband providers will be on all consumers, including, among other things, the prices that consumers may pay for Internet access, the quality of Internet access and other services that will be offered, and the choices of content and applications that may be available to consumers in the marketplace."
While most US broadband users currently have a choice of two ISPs, typically the legacy regional Bell operating company (RBOC) and the local cable system owned by a multiple system operator (MSO), this is changing as both satellite and terrestrial wireless broadband providers proliferate and, on a longer time horizon, if dark-fiber experiments continue to augur well, power companies also enter the market as additional competing ISPs with ubiquitous footprints.
The record also indicates that there have been no instances of ISPs preventing access to bandwidth by either distributors or end-users. "To date, we are unaware of any significant market failure or demonstrated consumer harm from conduct by broadband providers. Policy makers should be wary of enacting regulation solely to prevent prospective harm to consumer welfare," avers the FTC.
While many issues remain to be solved in order to fully realize the expanded potential of the Internet, broadband ISPs should be encouraged to experiment with copyright protection, content revenue sharing, data prioritization, network optimization, and even vertical integration into online entertainment and information services and applications provisioning. If history serves as a guide, such efforts will serve to expand and not limit the marketplace to benefit consumers globally in the fullness of time.
Advanced distributed computing technologies – which include P2P, peer-assisted, and hybrid P2P content acceleration, caching, compression, streaming, and swarming – will further enhance the productivity of today’s and tomorrow’s software and available bandwidth.
With investment, innovation, and supportive public policy, the technology sector, ranging from the large telecommunications industry to the much smaller distributed computing industry, will be able to upgrade broadband networks and improve the efficiency of content distribution technologies to ensure that all users will be able to enjoy the promising new services that the Internet will offer.
Backbone providers are currently investing billions to upgrade the Internet’s infrastructure from OC48 to OC192, and are already planning for OC768, which will provide ever higher capacity levels. Local Internet access providers are also investing tens of billions to upgrade the final link to end-users, enabling upgrades to 100 megabit service – fifty times faster than current broadband – and are even planning for 1 gigabit service in the foreseeable future.
DCIA Member companies, and other participants in the distributed computing industry, are doing their parts as well, with innovative new applications and related technologies that optimize the use of bandwidth, storage, and processing power for the benefit of all users in the series of discrete user-networks, from the smallest LANs to the largest and most popular open protocols, that increasingly make-up the Internet.
We respectfully urge lawmakers and other formulators of public policy to follow the FTC’s recommendation and tread lightly. Support both the telecommunications and distributed computing industries in their important work. And we encourage our readers in turn to support their elected officials and other governmental authorities along these lines. Share wisely, and take care.
Mapping the Internet
Excerpted from MIT Technology Review Report by Duncan Graham-Rowe
Routing traffic through P2P networks could stave off Internet congestion, according to a new study.
The increased use of P2P communications could improve the overall capacity of the Internet and make it run much more smoothly. That’s the conclusion of a novel study mapping the structure of the Internet.
It’s the first study to look at how the Internet is organized in terms of function, as well as how it’s connected, said Shai Carmi, a physicist who took part in the research at the Bar Ilan University, in Israel. "This gives the most complete picture of the Internet available today," he said.
While efforts have been made previously to plot the topological structure in terms of the connections between Internet nodes – computer networks or ISPs that act as relay stations for carrying information about the Net – none have taken into account the role that these connections play. "Some nodes may not be as important as other nodes," says Carmi.
The researchers’ results depict the Internet as consisting of a dense core of 80 or so critical nodes surrounded by an outer shell of 5,000 sparsely connected, isolated nodes that are very much dependent upon this core. Separating the core from the outer shell are approximately 15,000 peer-connected and self-sufficient nodes.
Take away the core, and an interesting thing happens: about 30 percent of the nodes from the outer shell become completely cut off. But the remaining 70 percent can continue communicating because the middle region has enough peer-connected nodes to bypass the core.
With the core connected, any node is able to communicate with any other node within about four links. "If the core is removed, it takes about seven or eight links," says Carmi. It’s a slower trip, but the data still gets there. Carmi believes we should take advantage of these alternate pathways to try to stop the core of the Internet from clogging up. "It can improve the efficiency of the Internet because the core would be less congested," he says.
To build their map of the Internet, published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers enlisted the assistance of 5,000 online volunteers who downloaded a program to help identify the connections between the 20,000 known nodes.
The distributed program sends information requests, or pings, to other parts of the Internet and records the route of the information on each journey.
Previous efforts had relied upon only a few dozen large computers to carry out this task, said Carmi. But by using this distributed approach, which meant collecting up to six million measurements a day over a period of two years from thousands of observation points around the world, it was possible to reveal more connections, said Scott Kirkpatrick, a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who also took part in the study. In fact, the project has already identified about 20 percent more of the interconnections between Internet nodes than ever before.
The researchers then used a novel hierarchical approach to map the connectivity data, taking into account how the nodes are connected. Each node was assessed based on how well connected it was to other nodes that are better connected.
Most previous research efforts only considered the number of connections as an indicator of the importance of a node without factoring in where those nodes lead, says Carmi. But taking this new approach, known as a k-shell model, allows for dead-end connections to be discounted, since they play a lesser role in the connectivity of the Internet.
Seth Bullock, a computer scientist at University of Southampton who studies network complexity and natural systems, finds it encouraging to see people taking a more sophisticated approach to modeling network structures, which are often quite crude.
P2P Still King of Traffic
Excerpted from Marketing Vox News Report
Last week a press release issued by Ellacoya suggested regular web traffic had taken over P2P traffic for the first time in four years - astounding news, given that BitTorrent alone was estimated at consuming some 60 percent of an ISP’s traffic. But according to Slyck News, P2P is not only still king; it’s on the rise.
Ellacoya is a company that sells traffic shapers - P2P blocking systems. Though HTTP is seeing an increase as content options expand across sites like iTunes and YouTube, P2P still dominates ISP traffic, hovering around 60 percent and getting as high as 80 percent.
Cisco’s Consumer-Oriented Strategy
Excerpted from China Daily Report by Li Weitao
Network equipment maker Cisco Systems aims to make its way into Chinese consumers' living rooms with consumer-oriented gear and services, which could generate a new revenue stream for the US tech giant.
Cisco mainly makes routers and switches, which direct the Internet and e-mail traffic and form the backbone of the worldwide Internet networks.
Although it was ranked 77th in Fortune 500 this year, the firm is much less known by average consumers than other brands, such as Apple, Microsoft, and Nokia, as it is perceived as mainly a corporate technology vendor.
Susan Bostrom, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Cisco, said in an exclusive interview with China Daily yesterday that Cisco needs to refashion itself as a more consumer-oriented company by changing the way consumers communicate with each other.
"If you look back to 1990s, it's really about getting connected," she said. "But now it's about the power of end-users. We need to create human networks."
Cisco has been on a buying spree, acquiring a number of companies making consumer electronics devices including set-top box maker Scientific-Atlanta for $6.9 billion.
Cisco now hopes gear such as set-top boxes, wireless networked DVD players, and video services could help it woo average consumers. "Now the work-life environment is much blurred," Bostrom said.
The consumer-oriented approach would help Cisco tap into China's booming consumer electronics market, the world's second-largest, second only to the United States, according to the Development Research Center of the State Council.
US researcher IDC forecast the market could hit $15 billion by 2008.
Cracking the consumer market will be a tough challenge for Cisco as its brand awareness among average consumers remains low.
The firm is now launching a global marketing campaign to promote its brand in the consumer space, which industry observers estimate will cost more than $100 million.
Part of that would be poured into China. Cisco has already conducted some interactive campaigns in some Chinese digital communities.
The campaign, with a theme of "Welcome to the Human Network", is aimed at rebranding Cisco and making networks more relevant to people, according to Bostrom.
"We will make network capacities more visible to average consumers."
The popularity of Cisco's Linksys-branded wireless routers in Chinese households might give Cisco a leg-up.
The much-hyped Wi-Fi networks have been slow in catching on in China's public spots unlike Western countries.
But they are popular in Chinese households as many are using wireless routers, with Linksys being one of the preferred brands, to set up home networks to link computers and other devices.
Linksys, a division of Cisco, mainly serves consumers and small office / home office users.
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BitTorrent Not Just for PCs Anymore
Excerpted from KillerApp Report
Downloading music, games, and movies to personal computers would never have become massively popular without efficient P2P protocols like BitTorrent. Now the company whose P2P platform already accounts for a hefty proportion of Internet traffic, has released a toolkit for consumer electronics manufacturers that will let them build the platform into their devices. Network-Attached Storage (NAS) devices, set-top boxes, digital media adapters and routers will soon be capable of downloading files directly.
As an example of how these might be used, consider NAS devices, which are stand-alone storage devices – some with as much as a terabyte of storage – that are available to any computer on a home network. A NAS device that is integrated with BitTorrent could be set up with an always-on BitTorrent client to download files in the background, leaving the user’s computer free for other tasks and making it easier to access entertainment over the Internet.
And the more devices there are on the Internet running BitTorrent in an always-on fashion, the more BitTorrent seeds will be available, and the faster download speeds will be for everyone – and the more demand there will be for downloads.
Japanese manufacturer Buffalo has said it will integrate BitTorrent into its next generation of NAS devices, joining chipmakers Marvell Semiconductors and iAdea/Star Semiconductor and hardware manufacturers ASUSTeK, Netgear, Planex Communications and QNAP Systems.
"We see BitTorrent as broadband’s next killer app," Buffalo’s Morikazu Sano says.
Beauty TV Launches on Joost
Excerpted from World Screen News Report
Beauty TV, serving up content about make-up, hair, skin, spas, and more, will provide a range of programming to the P2PTV platform Joost.
On Joost, Beauty TV will feature content focused on beauty tips, hair, skin, nails, cosmetic surgery, spas, health, fitness, insider interviews, beauty news, and product reviews and trends. Future shows will include an on-going in-salon soap opera and a half-hour network pilot, "Beauty TV." Current segments feature interviews with John Paul DeJoria, the founder of Paul Mitchell Systems.
Founded in 2006 by Latino entrepreneur Rob E. Angelino, Beauty TV is dedicated to the beauty enthusiast in the ever-growing $150 billion-dollar-a-year beauty industry. It launched on January 9, 2007.
Yvette Alberdingk Thijm, the Executive VP of Content Strategy and Acquisition for Joost, said, "With professionally-produced programming in every category, Joost is a destination for people who are looking for a full entertainment experience – one that combines TV-quality programming and the interactivity of the Internet. Beauty TV is perfect for the Joost platform, because fans can watch the beauty and fashion news while they share their own personal tips through Joost’s community features."
Baeble Music Partners with Babelgum
Excerpted from Mashable Report by Kristen Nicole
Baeble Music, the online site for finding professional videos of live concerts, is partnering with P2PTV service Babelgum to syndicate its catalog of live music performances.
Babelgum will stream several selections from Baeble’s music library, which currently has over 70 videos of live concert footage for up and coming indie bands across a handful of genres (indie-rock, pop and heavy metal).
This is a good way for Baeble to get its content out and spread further. Its niche service is still appealing to enough people across the board for it to be able to leverage a deal with Babelgum in order to improve its distribution channels.
This is also an interesting move for Babelgum, which has spent a lot of time garnering relationships with other media companies for the provision of premium content through its service.
Other music and video community hook-ups include LG15 and Amie Street, and Prom Queen and Audio Street.
First Look at Pownce
Excerpted from Webware Report by Rafe Needleman
Kevin Rose, of Digg and Revision 3 fame, just launched an invite-only alpha of his latest project, Pownce. Pownce lets you share files, links, and other info with your friends. It’s not an original concept. Yet Pownce makes an extremely good first impression.
Pownce strongly reminds me of Tubes and Izimi, and a little less so of AllPeers and Pando. It’s also reminiscent of the file-transfer feature of various instant-messaging clients.
There’s also a heavy dose of Twitter in Pownce. Every time you send a file or note, it’s added to your running feed of activities that anyone can view; likewise, it’s easy to see the public feeds of other users and the private items posted by your friends.
You can send items to individuals on your list, to everyone, or to groups you set up (for example, you can have a family group, a group for a project at work, and so on).
At the moment, Pownce lets you send plain text notes, URLs, files, and event invitations – and it tracks RSVPs. I would not be surprised to see audio or video recording functions built into the product, which would make Pownce an interesting alternative to Twittergram.
Pownce works through a web page, and there’s also a slick Adobe AIR desktop app.
It’s easy to discount Pownce as a me-too concept. In fact, it’s several. But it’s extremely well put-together – capable yet easy to get into and use. And useful. And fun. Try it if you can.
Pownce is free, but there’s a pro version for $20 a year that’s ad-free and lets you upload larger files.
Blinkx’s BBTV Takes Aim at Joost
Excerpted from Mashable Report by Pete Cashmore
Everyone is attacking Joost these days. The latest P2PTV contender to throw its hat into the ring is video search engine Blinkx, which says it will launch a similar service called BBTV in the fall.
Obviously Blinkx’s strength is search, and that will be a major part of BBTV (Broadband TV), a downloadable client that uses P2P technology.
You can search the audio of TV shows and movies, and there’s a kind of "adsense for video" that displays relevant ads next to the clip you’re viewing. Blinkx is currently working on those all-important distribution deals to make sure there’s plenty of content - a lack of compelling media was a major weakness we found with other Joost rivals like Babelgum.
A limited beta starts next month, and Blinkx claims BBTV will offer higher quality video (hopefully not at the cost of speed).
Slapvid P2PTV in Your Browser
Excerpted from TechCrunch Report by Nick Gonzalez
Video on the web is a killer app, but it’s also a bandwidth hog. Forbes estimates that content distribution networks like Akamai or Limelight can charge distributors around a cent per minute, while larger distributors can get deals at around a half or tenth of a cent. Last year it was estimated that Youtube was spending over $1 million a month to stream more than 100 million videos a day.
In response, video distributors looking to give higher quality video at lower cost are pushing the burden of bandwidth to users through P2P networking. So far this has widely focused around larger desktop players such as VeohTV, Joost, and Babelgum. Video player start-up Slapvid wants to do P2P in your browser.
Slapvid runs as a Java applet coupled with a Flash video player. This means users authorize the 300Kb applet to run the first time, requiring less initiative on the users behalf than a full blown browser plug-in. The applet runs in the background, managing the delivery of video chunks to be displayed in the player.
When a user first starts a video, the player connects directly to Slapvid’s central video server to download enough of the beginning of the video as a buffer while the P2P kicks in. During this request, its server also sends back a list of 3-to-5 peers playing the same video. The applet then seeks out peers further along in the video, getting sent bits of the video in 64KB chunks. If the user doesn’t hear back from the peers, the video just streams from the central server.
To demonstrate the peering technology, Slapvid developed its own Flash player that shows the top Youtube videos in 5 minutes. The player mashes together short clips of each video. To get the peering applet, interested parties can apply for a beta account .
Slapvid is a Y Combinator start-up developed by four Carnegie Mellon grads.
Joost, VeohTV, Babelgum, Democracy
Excerpted from TV Squad Report by Brad Linder
Now that I’ve had a chance to check out full-screen P2PTV programs Joost, VeohTV, and Babelgum I’d been thinking about writing up a comparison. Mashable beat me to it, and threw in Democracy to boot.
All four programs aim to make the experience of watching online video easier. Web browsers were really designed for viewing text and images, not video. A side benefit is that most of these programs are also welcome additions to an HTPC.
In a nutshell, here’s what Mashable found: VeohTV has a well designed, easy to use interface and a wide selection of content. But the channels aren’t well organized, making it hard to find what you’re looking for. Babelgum has an excellent design, but very little content. Joost has a good balance of decent content and a good layout, but it takes a reasonably fast computer to run. Democracy can access almost any video on the web. The downside is you need to download the video, there’s no streaming capability.
I’ll agree with all of those points. I beg to differ with Mashable’s decision that Democracy was the best of the bunch. Of course, this is going to be a matter of taste, but I’d go with Joost for now.
The main thing to consider before choosing a video application is what you want from it. Do you want a full screen viewing experience? Do you want to be able to read information about TV shows while watching them?
I’m primarily looking for a program that can run on my home theater PC. Right now I’m getting video content in my living room primarily from a digital antenna and Windows Media Center’s online spotlight. Joost, VeohTV, and Babelgum can all help. Democracy just doesn’t work that well without a keyboard. If I want to download programs to view on my HTPC, I can use TV Tonic, which integrates with Windows Media Center.
I really like the content available from VeohTV. It includes full-length streaming TV episodes from CBS, FOX, NBC, and the CW, as well as tons of short user-generated clips. But the beta software doesn’t play well with my Firefly remote control, and wants to start in full screen every time I boot my computer even when I disable the option to start when Windows starts.
I agree that the biggest problem with Babelgum is lack of content right now. And that’s why the one program of these four that’s earned a permanent place on my HTPC is Joost. It works with my remote control. It’s got a great full-screen channel guide. And it’s got a reasonable amount of content including comedy, science fiction programs, news, cartoons, and music videos.
Mobile is Next Frontier for P2PTV Firms
Excerpted from Mobile TV Report by Stuart Dredge
Not heard of Joost yet? You will. It’s a P2PTV service that provides full-screen programming from a bunch of providers, including big broadcasters and more niche internet TV outfits.
Joost, along with rivals like Babelgum and VeohTV, is expected to provide a stiff challenge to traditional broadcasting models, as it takes off. Right now, it’s only available online – and in beta at that. But according to CEO Mike Volpi, mobile is a logical extension for Joost in the future.
"Joost is a piece of software and it can reside on a variety of platforms," he said. "It could be on a television set-top box. Or potentially it could be embedded in a TV set with an Ethernet connection, or on a mobile phone, or in some alternative device that might come out in the future."
Use Vuze for Free Videos, Music, Games
Excerpted from Digital Alchemy Report
Vuze is a way to download authorized high-definition video, music, and games using BitTorrent.
You might think of Vuze as a less technical version of the popular BitTorrent client Azureus. It’s made for the mainstream. Unlike Joost and Babelgum, Vuze foregoes flashy effects for a simple interface that resembles a web browser. It’s more iTunes in style and effect.
You have to actually download content to your computer to watch, listen, or play it. Since much of it is in HD, this can take a while. There’s a limited selection of free content from partners like Showtime, BBC, A&E, and Revision3. However, you can only keep it for 30 days.
Free episodes of "Penn & Teller," "Coupling," "Babar," and "Brotherhood" are interspersed with paid content like episodes of "The L Word," games like "Tomb Raider - Anniversary," and albums from artists like Cascada and Phil Collins. From the looks of it, Vuze is competing with the iTunes of the world – it’s an entertainment retailer not an Internet TV play like Joost.
TorrentSpy & ISOHunt Filter Content
Excerpted from ZeroPaid.com Report
TorrentSpy and ISOHunt plan to use a hash-based system called FileRights to automatically filter BitTorrent trackers that link to copyright-infringing content to help satisfy a suit brought against them by the MPAA for the unauthorized redistribution of copyrighted material.
FileRights will use file hashes provided by individual copyright owners of their content that will detect and remove any torrent trackers that link to unauthorized copies. Copyright owners sign up for an account with the system and then enter the hash values of their content into the system database. FileRights will then automatically remove any links to this content.
FileRights.com maintains a large database of copyrighted works managed by the content holders themselves. This database forms a master list of copyrighted materials that should be removed from BitTorrent sites. When a content holder uploads information about the works they have found on a BitTorrent site, FileRights then distributes this information to our website subscribers so that works can be removed (filtered) from their search results. The entire process is automated to minimize the effort required by both the content holder and website operator.
"With FileRights, we used the community networking power of the web to automate and aggregate the entire copyright filtration process," said Justin Bunnel, one of TorrentSpy’s founders and CEO of FileRights. "TorrentSpy now uses the FileRights cooperative filtering process to filter search results on its popular search engine."
"No longer will site-by-site DMCA affidavits be required for copyright owners to remove links to allegedly infringing files. With FileRights, we used the community networking power of the web to automate and aggregate the entire copyright filtration process," he continued.
Ira Rothkin, TorrentSpy’s attorney, also notes that ISOHunt, the subject of an MPAA lawsuit as well, will also use FileRights to filter copyrighted material from its search results.
Jacqueline Chooljian, a Federal Judge for the Central District of California in Los Angeles ruled on May 29th that TorrentSpy must begin tracking users’ activity on the site, a ruling which TorrentSpy is still appealing, but which will most likely stand due to the fact that the US Government has gone to great lengths to ensure copyright protection despite the costs to the privacy of consumers and to the neutrality of the Internet as a whole.
If TorrentSpy and ISOHunt do start filtering copyright-infringing content as stated, it will most likely simply mean more traffic for those file-sharing Swedes at The Pirate Bay and increased usage of Newsgroups and private BitTorrent tracker sites instead. As is always the case with a crackdown on a specific file-sharing program or site, it merely means that users turn to alternative sites and programs.
How P2P Piracy Hurts the Corn Farmers
Excerpted from Marketing Vox News
Don’t forget the corn farmers.
NBC made a borderline absurd case against P2P copyright infringement at a recent FCC hearing, stating that if unauthorized file sharing were to end, corn farmers would have greater profits and "buy more farm equipment," reports ZeroPaid.
The idea is that in a world without online copyright infringement, people would go to the theaters to watch more movies. They would consequently buy more popcorn, putting money into the pockets of corn farmers.
The corn farmer case was slipped in with a string of other industries affected by unlicensed file sharing, including video retailers and movie theaters.
However, their trickledown economics case has one major hole. Corn farmers are actually experiencing record profits due to the demand for ethanol fuel.
Coming Events of Interest
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Web Video Summit – June 27th–28th in San Jose, CA. This workshop is about video distributed over the Internet, bringing together the pioneers of an exploding industry. They’ll explain what you need to know about shooting, editing and encoding, distributing and promoting your work, and claiming your rewards. Real choices, working techniques, and field-hardened creators.
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Edinburgh Television Festival – August 24th-26th in Edinburgh, Scotland. Janus Friis, Co-Founder of P2PTV service Joost, will deliver the inaugural Futureview Lecture at this year’s festival. The aim of this year’s event is to assemble a cast list from the hottest shows, the most exciting new technologies, and the biggest TV controversies of the year.
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International Broadcasting Convention (IBC) – September 6th-11th in Amsterdam, Holland. IBC is committed to providing the world’s best event for everyone involved in the creation, management, and delivery of content for the entertainment industry, including DCIA Members. Run by the industry for the industry, convention organizers are drawn from participating companies.
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PT/EXPO COMM – October 23rd-27th at the China International Exhibition Center in Beijing, China. The largest telecommunications/IT industry event in the world’s fastest growing telecom sector. PT/EXPO COMM offers DCIA participants from all over the world a high profile promotional platform in a sales environment that is rich in capital investment.
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P2P Advertising Upfront – Sponsored by the DCIA October 26th in New York, NY and October 29th in Los Angeles, CA in conjunction with Digital Hollywood Fall. The industry’s first bicoastal marketplace focused on the unique global advertising, sponsorship, and cross-promotional opportunities available in the steadily growing universe of open and closed P2P, file-sharing, P2PTV, and social networks, as well as peer-assisted content delivery networks (CDNs).
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