March 10, 2008
Volume XXI, Issue 4
P2P MARKET CONFERENCE Coming This Friday
Don't miss the P2P MARKET CONFERENCE this Friday March 14th at the Princeton Club of New York. This is the best way to learn about innovative business models using peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies from top leaders in this space from around the world.
Register now and save up to $225 when you also sign up for the Media Summit New York (MSNY) taking place on the 12th & 13th.
P2P, which already represents the lion's share of all Internet traffic, now also offers unprecedented revenue generating opportunities and highly attractive entry points at many levels.
Sand Hill Bets $5 Million on P2P Monetization
Excerpted from Digital Music News Report
P2P technology has revolutionized media distribution and consumption, though start-ups are frequently destroyed by legal and financial quagmires. But the possibilities still seem so rich.
More conventional, web-based search has created financial superpowers like Google. That raises the question: can P2P entrepreneurs and content creators ever draw serious and continuing revenue streams from P2P?
Just recently, a group of influential VCs voted yes. P2P monetization start-up Skyrider has now landed $5 million in capital, according to information shared by VentureBeat.
The round features return investors Sequoia Capital, Charles River Ventures, and Velocity Interactive Group. Those backers are banking on an alluring technology that forces ads into file-sharing results, beyond simple file listings.
"As we bring the two worlds of web and peer-to-peer together, we create immense value for consumers, content owners and advertisers," the company described.
P2P Experiments Extremely Positive
Excerpted from Ars Technica Report by Jacqui Cheng
An experiment in distributing DRM-free content via BitTorrent has proven to be a success for one Norwegian TV broadcaster, with project manager Eirik Solheim calling the experience "extremely positive."
Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) has been offering the popular series "Nordkalotten 365" as unprotected MPEG-4 files through BitTorrent since late January and has been surprised with the public's overwhelmingly positive reaction. Solheim said that the experience will likely "clear the rights for this kind of distribution of more content."
Since the experiment's inception just over a month ago, Nordkalotten 365 has been downloaded over 90,000 times - shocking to NRK, since Norway is a small country of only 4.6 million. Not only that, but the people downloading have been good torrenters too. The files have had ratios close to 95 percent, which Solheim said saved license fee payers 95 percent of all distribution costs. "People are happily seeding the files," Solheim said.
Solheim said that the managers of Nordkalotten 365 were surprisingly open to the idea, even composing their own music to avoid dealing with licensing fees.
NRK sees this as the way of the future. "In the long run, traditional broadcast and DVD sales of content like this will decline anyway. It is important for us to start experimenting with new distribution methods," Solheim said. "We don't want to do like the music industry, running around thinking that people will keep driving down to a record store when they can have the content delivered with the push of a button at home."
QTRAX Renews & Extends Major Publishing Deals
Excerpted from Wired News Report by Eliot Van Buskirk
The "world's first free and legal P2P music service," QTRAX, has deals with EMI Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, and TVT Records. These new deals indicate QTRAX could make good on its ambitious promise to offer all of the music available on P2P networks as free, legal downloads.
In order to offer its service in the United States, QTRAX needs deals with both labels and with publishers, so the EMI and Sony/ATV publishing deals don't mean that major label music will be available yet. However, the deals show that QTRAX has made significant inroads.
The Sony/ATV deal represents a renewed commitment from the publisher. Martin Bandier, Chairman & CEO of Sony/ATV, said, "We enthusiastically support QTRAX as an innovative method for reclaiming rights and revenues from music misappropriated by worldwide P2P networks, while at the same time providing users with a superior legal and free net-based music experience."
"This agreement expands upon our original agreement with QTRAX and represents another example of Sony/ATV's commitment to securing our songwriters' rights in the digital space."
Likewise, the EMI deal is an extension of a previous deal, according to EMI Music Publishing Chairman & CEO Roger Faxon.
"EMI Music Publishing came on board with QTRAX very early because we believed that this concept could provide real value to our songwriters. As such we are extraordinarily pleased that it has come to fruition and that is now going to become a reality," he said.
"The entire music industry has had to change with the times and the behavior of the listening public. We at EMI Music Publishing are committed to making sure that our songwriters benefit from their creative output, and that fans have the opportunity to access digital music legally in as many ways as possible."
D Roc of the Ying Yang Twins (TVT Records), the first QTRAX artist of the month, is excited to be one of the first artists available on the service:
"With QTRAX our fans get to enjoy the music for free, and we get paid, that is cool with us."
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Congratulations to the organizers of Canadian Music Week for a very successful conference.
Kudos to Nettwerk Music Group CEO Terry McBride for being honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award, commemorating his induction into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame at a gala highlighted with a special performance by Gordon Lightfoot.
We are especially grateful for participants in our standing-room only (SRO) session on The Evolution of P2P & Music: From Enemy to Business Partner.
Panelists included Eric Garland, CEO, BigChampagne; Benjamin Masse, President & Founder, DoubleV3; Chris Gillis, Manager, Business Development, MediaDefender; Eric de Fontenay, Founder, MusicDish Network; David Hughes, Senior Vice President, Technology, RIAA; and Gary Greenstein, Attorney, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
The core question we addressed was whether P2P software programs, and in particular file-sharing applications, considered by some to have been "yesterday's enemy," can now be viewed as "today's out-of-the-box opportunity - and tomorrow's music industry savior."
Do P2P file-sharing technologies hold exponentially more potential for business traffic than other digital networks? At the end of the proverbial rainbow, will there be a robust new P2P marketplace for licensed music distribution?
Is now the time for songwriters, artists, and other rights-holders to step up and embrace a community of users who are actively looking for new music?
Eric Garland outlined the advancements of BigChampagne as an industry data resource and summarized current P2P usage statistics in the US market as having steadily grown to approximately 55 million regular file sharers distributing 1.1 billion files monthly, which is an exponentially higher number of tracks being distributed on P2P than via iTunes. On a per capita basis, Canada is among the top three territories in the world for P2P music file sharing.
While industry observers tend to view P2P in terms of its technical characteristics as a protocol, users don't care - they just want music; and ISPs need to be able to satisfy users' demand. People are not going to stop finding music with or without authorization; and it should be clear that a litigation strategy will not stop them from doing it. Even when discussing the matter privately, however, music industry leaders say they would not have done anything differently to this point.
Benjamin Masse described DoubleV3's dual thrust as a discovery-and-recommendation engine and monitoring / leveraging service actively working with some P2P companies. Advantages of P2P networks include viral marketing, ease-of-creation, and ability to generate real-time data on consumption of music. Canada has relatively fewer licensed outlets for online music than in the US, and licensing is extremely complicated.
Chris Gillis noted that MediaDefender has evolved from a strictly P2P anti-piracy services firm, which represented a cost center for its record label clients, in part, into an advertising revenue-generating company. P2P has never been an evil technology; abuses of it for infringement have been the problem.
Chris does not believe that ad-supported MP3s (or the like) delivered via P2P alone will make up for revenue lost from CD sales declines.
Nor does he agree that P2P is inherently superior to other distribution technologies for music. Listeners just want free, un-traceable music, without pop-ups; how it is delivered is of little concern.
MediaDefender sees the demographics of P2P users expanding, as well as overall usage. Users are now younger (pre-teen) and also older (baby boomers), expanding significantly beyond the entrenched core (18-24) and fringe (13-35) base.
Eric de Fontenay opined from his perspective as an online music publishing and artist management company that P2P has long served a useful purpose to help up-and-coming artists find their audience and develop their fan base. There are models that can be borrowed from other networked entertainment systems that can be applied to P2P to provide consumers with transparency while also generating revenue for music rights-holders.
Suing consumers is not a viable long-term strategy, according to Eric, and artists do not want to be put in a position that is negative towards their listeners. The industry must recognize that sharing music is unstoppable and get past the current phase and come up with a new business model or models. The Songwriters Association of Canada proposal of a modest monthly charge to be billed and collected by ISPs for P2P music consumers deserves serious exploration.
David Hughes quipped that the RIAA has been known for two things, granting platinum records and suing file sharers (from kids to grandmothers), but would have continued to be more closely associated with the former had it not been for the advent of P2P. He said that there is no question that P2P has proven itself to be very effective for distribution, especially for large files, but not for monetization. And in the case of relatively small files like music tracks, the verdict is out on whether the bandwidth savings is sufficient to offset the challenges of securely managing micro-payments.
It is clear that audiences just want free music and in greater quantities than in pre-digital times. People like to walk around with 4,000 songs on their iPods, of which 30 may have been purchased from iTunes, 600 transferred from their CD collections, and the remainder from unlicensed sources.
David projects that over the next twenty-four months, ISPs and universities will dramatically step up enforcement. This will be driven by their self interests, but also will provide an environment for legitimate digital distribution models to flourish. Canada used to represent 1/10th the amount of CD sales as the US; but now, due to rampant file-sharing infringement in Canada, has precipitously dropped to 1/45th. It is imperative that the "hassle factor" be raised to discourage this behavior.
Gary Greenstein cited his extensive legal background representing content rights holders initially and now digital distribution interests, and said that the music industry really should find a P2P business model that works. He doesn't believe it will be primarily subscription, citing low US take rates to date (3 million).
He sees that P2P offers great merchandising potential, however, because of the active screen-time users invest in searching for specific P2P downloads versus setting up Internet radio to play in the background, for example. P2P volume is enormous; micro-transactions can indeed be tracked.
It should be clear now that, by any standard of measurement, litigation has not been an effective strategy; with the usage of P2P increasing in numbers and expanding in demographic reach, Gary's view is that the music industry should try to do things differently.
During the Q&A, panelists further discussed bandwidth consumption, driven by increasing consumer appetites for greater quantities of richer and higher-definition (HD) media, and alternative business models which the industry could adopt for P2P music distribution. Share wisely, and take care.
Nine Inch Nails Releases Album on BitTorrent
Excerpted from CBC Montreal Report by Peter Nowak
Industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails has released a 36-track album in a variety of formats on the Internet, with a portion available for download for free over file-sharing networks. The band released the four-part instrumental album - Ghosts I-IV - on Monday on its own website as a full download for $5 US or as a $10 US double-CD, as well as deluxe editions for $75 US and $300 US.
The band also decided to make the first volume of nine tracks available for free over the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol.
Trent Reznor, who writes all Nine Inch Nails songs and is a proponent of new technology, said he has wanted to distribute an album for free over the Internet for some time, but was not able to because of interference from his record label. Nine Inch Nails split from Interscope in late 2007.
"Now that we're no longer constrained by a record label, we've decided to personally upload Ghosts I, the first of the four volumes, to various torrent sites, because we believe BitTorrent is a revolutionary digital distribution method, and we believe in finding ways to utilize new technologies instead of fighting them," Reznor said in a release on the album's website.
"I'm very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference."
Reznor telegraphed the move nearly a year ago, when he told the Herald Sun in Australia of his intentions.
"If I could do what I want right now, I would put out my next album, you could download it from my site at as high a bit-rate as you want, pay $4 through PayPal," he said in May 2007.
The release is also the second move by a high-profile act to use the Internet as its primary distributor. British rock band Radiohead released In Rainbows on the Internet in October 2007 and asked fans to pay whatever they wanted. The band also released the album as a regular CD in December.
Internet ISP Shaping Slows Canadian Flow
Excerpted from E Canada Now Report
The media uncovered a series of actions by United States company Comcast in regulating the Internet, which has caused quite a stir.
Comcast was interfering with the flow of traffic on the Internet by using traffic-shaping techniques. This practice has been shown to reduce traffic and available bandwidth for consumers, and it delays the Internet itself to some customers.
While there has been a large outcry, and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) involvement including recent meetings at Harvard University in the United States to address the outcome, there is concern that the same thing is happening in Canada but not being addressed.
The United States appears to be dealing with the issue, both by regulatory and legislative action as a result of the outcry by the media, consumer groups, and the public at large.
But in Canada, there does not seem to be as big a push. For Example, a Roger's Cable Internet employee talked about their own Internet shaping actions in Canada and how they at times use traffic shaping to limit bandwidth and that this affects P2P file sharing over the Internet.
Where is the Canadian regulatory response? What actions are being sought on behalf of the Canadian public? So far, there has been no response by Government officials on the issue, but the controversy continues.
Hiro-Media Launches Ad Supported Video Downloads
Excerpted from the Mac Observer Report by John Matellaro
Hiro-Media announced the launch of the Mac version of its video download solution that allows Apple Macintosh users to view free, ad-supported videos.
With the Hiro-Media solution, both Mac and PC users can download videos playable with either Windows Media Player or QuickTime. The videos include seamless, dynamic ads that are based on user preferences and can be changed from viewing to viewing.
The service will launch first in Israel with US and Australian service to follow in 2008.
With the Hiro-Media Media solution, users can download films and programs directly from content providers' websites, via P2P networks or from social networking sites, straight to their PCs and Macs.
The file can be viewed when the user is online or offline, delivering complete freedom and choice.
"Mac users are now able to download movies legally, on their own terms which they can watch whenever, and however they like," said Ronny Golan, Co-Founder & CEO of Hiro-Media Media.
"With the added Mac flexibility, the Hiro-Media system further delivers an experience that meets the demands of the consumer while offering a viable solution for content providers and advertisers."
The service was based on the motivation by content owners and distributors to provide a cross-platform system that would support embedded, targeted ads. "Now they have it," the Hiro-Media CEO said.
Vudu Ships 1TB Set-Top Box, Adds Update
Excerpted from Twice Report by Greg Tarr
Peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) download service Vudu has started shipping a 1 TB version of its Vudu set-top box (STB) that will store up to 500 standard-definition movies, and announced a software update for all of its boxes that will enable users to archive purchased movies on Vudu servers.
The company said the software update - called v1.3 or Vudu Vault (beta) - will provide a secure storage area for purchased movies off the hard drive of the box onto Vudu servers and allow the deletion of content from the local hard drive. This will help users free-up space for additional movie downloads.
Archived titles will still appear in the My Movies portion of the Vudu menu and may be downloaded again at any time with no additional charge, the company said. The function is available only for movies from select studios and all TV shows.
Users now can also easily permanently delete purchased movies without transferring them to the Vudu Vault, although this would require the user to pay again to view the title in the future.
Movie archiving and deletion are accessed through the My Movies screen. If a title is not eligible for archiving, deletion will be the only available option, Vudu explained. If a title can be archived, then users are given that option. Once archived, the title may be deleted.
Vudu offers a download-to-own or download-to-rent P2PTV distribution service tied to its special Vudu set-top boxes. No subscription fee is required; users pay to purchase or rent titles as they go.
To speed the delivery of titles to users, Vudu has developed a "distributed network" system that functions in a similar way to P2P file-sharing networks.
Movies are delivered in parts from other users' set-top boxes on the network as well as from Vudu's servers.
US Broadband Users Want More Zip
Excerpted from eMarketer Report
US Internet users are consuming more online video, playing more video games and generally doing more of the things that eat bandwidth.
As a result, fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and faster cable modem technologies are fueling a new round of bandwidth envy.
"Many consumers are actively looking for a broadband service that will increase the amount of bandwidth that they can use," said Mike Paxton, an analyst at In-Stat.
Nearly 33 million US households will have broadband services with speeds of 10 Mbps or higher by 2012, up from 5.7 million at the end of 2007, according to a March 2008 report by Parks Associates.
That is fast enough to stream high-definition video.
The average download speed of a US broadband connection is currently 3.8 Mbps, while the average upload speed is 980 Kbps, according to In-Stat.
Parks Associates said that although the new higher-speed broadband services appeal to many existing users, there are some potential issues.
The company cited ISP mistakes in bandwidth management, uncertainty around "network neutrality" and friction between broadband service providers as problems that could hold back growth.
The net neutrality issue is especially relevant. If some ISPs charge higher rates to heavy users (both consumers and sites that get a lot of traffic), this may be a disincentive to other providers to make capital investments in higher-speed infrastructure for all users.
eMarketer projects that there will be 20% more US cable broadband subscriptions in 2012 than in 2008. Some of these subscriptions will be at higher speeds. Many existing cable Internet customers are likely to upgrade to higher speeds as they become available.
The number of broadband households using technology other than cable or DSL - especially FTTH - will more than double by 2012 to a total of 8.6 million.
"Long-term broadband users are looking to upgrade not only their speeds but more particularly their services," said Ben Macklin, senior analyst at eMarketer. "Verizon and AT&T now have a genuine triple-play alternative to the cable operators. Cable operators are taking voice customers from the telcos, and telcos are now beginning to take video customers from the cable operators."
Mr. Macklin said that all broadband providers needed to identify and segment their target markets to tailor their service offerings and marketing campaigns.
"The next phase of broadband competition will be a marketing-led strategy rather than a technology-led strategy. Marketing a bundle of broadband services for $100 to $150 per month will not be good enough.
"Each part of the triple-play bundle has to be competitive in its own right in the market. It is a case of both defense and offense for both cable companies and telecom operators."
The eMarketer Broadband Services (IPTV and VoIP) report will be published in April 2008. Please click here to be notified when it is released.
Net Neutrality Solution: Buy Something
Excerpted from Light Reading Report by Raymond McConville
While the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) debates what it can do to ensure that carriers practice reasonable network management, some say the growing amount of traffic on the Internet is not a problem that can, or even needs to, be solved by legislation.
Lots of folks have arguments against the ways operators like Comcast manage their networks, but few from those same parties are offering solutions. That leaves it up to the vendors and content delivery networks to do what they do best - present solutions for a complex problem.
"You can wait for a miracle, you can wait for more bandwidth, or you can look at the practical thing to do," says Mark Strangio, Director of Marketing for PeerApp. "Most ISPs manage their networks using deep packet inspection (DPI) products. That's step two."
Caching, he says, is step three.
While applying more caching to an ISP's network could help to reduce congestion, other technical and economic adjustments can provide even more, says John Dillon, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of content delivery network (CDN) Velocix.
"I think the fundamental problem is that the value chain for video distribution on the Internet is broken," says Dillon. The value chain he describes inherently puts a financial squeeze on ISPs that can pressure them to apply limits on network traffic.
When a premium content provider pays a CDN to distribute its video, the CDN, in turn, will pay a transport provider, such as Level 3 Communications, to provide the backbone transport. The transport provider will then charge the ISP to receive the traffic.
"If you see an increasing volume of traffic, the transit fees that ISPs are paying are through the roof," says Dillon. This is a big problem for ISPs. While this raises their costs, their one source of revenue, subscription fees, has been on the decline, driven by competition.
Dillon says Velocix is working on a way to deploy its caching infrastructure within the ISP networks. The idea: once a piece of content is cached in the ISP network, the transit costs are now much lower for the CDN. The CDN, in turn, charges the content provider less and the transit fees for the ISP are less.
"The final piece is we actually will pay a royalty to the ISP based on the volume of traffic flowing through their network," Dillon says. Dillon's proposition would result in an additional revenue stream for ISPs with the added incentive to allow more traffic to flow through its network. But first those cash-strapped firms would have to find a way to add a lot more equipment into their networks.
Content makers that rely on speedy broadband connections are in favor of a more neutral Internet environment. As such, they argue that some network management techniques slow down its applications and could impair their business.
Count P2PTV service Vudu in the camp that's in favor of treating all packets equally. Vudu, which launched last October, uses a distributed network architecture to deliver a library of more than 5,000 movies and north of 1,000 TV episodes to special boxes outfitted with hard drives and high-speed ports. Vudu offers about 100 movies in HD format.
Vudu allows customers to download only one movie at a time, rather than downloading multiple movies simultaneously. Vudu's platform uses a buffering system that allows customers to begin viewing a movie as it is being downloaded.
"That changes the whole bandwidth requirement on our end," says Patrick Cosson, Vudu's VP of Marketing. "We're only downloading the content you want to watch immediately. We're not a bandwidth hog at all. We are very network friendly."
For customers to begin "instant" viewing of a given title, he estimates they will need a 2 Mbit/s connection for a standard-definition title, and 4 Mbit/s for an HD-encoded movie. The upload requirement from neighboring boxes is less than 300 kbit/s.
"The burden on the upstream side is very low, because we're pulling from several boxes simultaneously," Cosson explains.
Vudu has not disclosed any customer information or download data. "Consumption is probably more than what we expected. But we've seen nothing bad on the network side at all," he claims.
Although Vudu has no control of the speed being delivered by a customer's broadband ISP, it does encourage potential customers to measure their speeds on the Vudu site to see if they should expect to get a quality experience.
"We're favoring network neutrality," Cosson says. "It's good for innovation and it's good for the consumer. Anytime you have a gatekeeper, you stifle creativity and innovation."
Still, some question whether over-the-top players, despite their claims of innovation, are flawed from the get-go due to their lack of control over how (or how fast) their content can be piped to their customers.
The disconnect between broadband service providers and Internet video players has led some analysts to believe that the two sides should come together to hammer out business deals that can benefit consumers, and do so without government intervention.
Cosson says his company has not had any conversations with broadband ISPs about ensuring a particular quality of service when a customer is downloading a movie from Vudu.
"We encourage users to have that conversation. They should be empowered to get what they pay for. If they buy a 6 Mbit/s connection, they should be getting a 6 Mbit/s connection," he says.
Comcast to Bring DOCSIS 3.0 to Florida
Excerpted from OneTrak Report by Matt Stump
Comcast announced its first DOCSIS 3.0 market - south Florida - which will see network improvements that will serve as a precursor to launching DOCSIS 3.0 higher Internet speeds in 2009.
The system also is debuting six new HD channels: Food, USA Network, History Channel, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, and Sci-Fi Network HD in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Monroe counties.
Comcast currently offers 8 Mbps Internet speeds, with a PowerBoost feature to 20 Mbps. DOCSIS 3.0 would allow Comcast to offer 100 Mbps service.
"This new service will revolutionize the way our customers use their computers. With all the emphasis being put on streaming video and gaming, DOCSIS 3.0 provides a virtual superhighway of Internet speed for our customers that will be hard to match by any competitors in our market," said regional SVP Filemon Lopez.
The company has committed to launching DOCSIS 3.0 to a number of markets this year, but has not announced that list.
P2P on the iPhone
Excerpted from Inquirer Report by Allan David Reyes
As reported on Gizmodo, thanks to Core, a hardcore iPhone hacker, native P2P is now possible on the iPhone.
Based on the torrent app Transmission for the Mac, P2P file sharing can now be done using the premiere mobile phone from Apple.
Unfortunately, while the prospects of having a portable P2P client are indeed exciting, this is not yet the promised land for mobile file sharing. For starters, installation isn't as simple as running installer.app and it uses a command-line interface. Data communication is also limited to Wifi which, in a way, makes sense since its faster and more stable but the option to go EDGE would have been nice.
The whole process also takes its toll on the battery life of the iPhone so it won't be advisable to make it your no. 1 device for torrent downloading. Nevertheless, this is a welcome development and is sign of the many good things to come.
Cisco Turns Techs Positive
Excerpted from Internet News Report by Paul Shread
Cisco Systems saved the day Tuesday after worries about Intel and Citigroup sent stocks into another tailspin.
A steep sell-off Tuesday on worries about Intel's margins and Citigroup's losses turned into a slight gain for the Nasdaq by the close after Cisco reaffirmed its long-term growth forecast.
Intel traded 3% lower for much of the day after warning that NAND flash pricing pressures are hurting margins, but managed to follow the Nasdaq back to breakeven after Cisco CEO John Chambers reaffirmed the company's long-term 12-17% growth forecast at the Morgan Stanley tech conference. Cisco ended the day 2% off its lows.
Amazon and Apple also provided support for stocks. Amazon gained 4.7% after reaffirming its 2008 forecast at the Bear Stearns retail conference, and Apple climbed 2.4% after sticking to its iPhone sales forecast.
Also boosting stocks late in the day were reports that bond insurer Ambac Financial is progressing on a bailout plan. Early in the day, worries about Citigroup's funding levels and a stark assessment of the housing market by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke also weighed on the market.
Microsoft, HP, and IBM were winners, but Google sagged yet again, off 2.7%.
Obama Wins Primary Web Wars
Excerpted from Fortune Magazine Report
Web media guru Rishad Tobaccowala, Chief Innovation Officer (CIO) of the media buying division of Publicis Groupe, says much of Barack Obama's success over Hillary Clinton has come down to his superior online strategy.
Tobaccowala calls Obama the "digital candidate" versus Clinton, the "analog candidate." Why?
"His Web site is amazing," the ad exec exclaims. "It's completely and continually updated. It feels alive and energetic."
Obama has also been able to galvanize the grassroots community through the effective use of e-mail marketing.
For example, when Clinton donated $5 million of her own money to her campaign, e-mails went out to Obama's most active supporters telling them they had to match that total quickly.
Within 24 hours, the Illinois Senator raised $8 million.
IsoHunt Now Indexes 1 Million Torrents
Excerpted from TorrentFreak Report
The popular BitTorrent site isoHunt just reached a new milestone, indexing over 1 million torrents. In total, the torrents on isoHunt point to 22 million files that add up to a dazzling 743TB in data.
IsoHunt has been around longer than almost any other BitTorrent site in existence and is still moving forward. Last month, it released a new comment and rating system.
IsoHunt founder Gary Fung says, "It has been a long time coming, but with steady growth of active torrents from around the web, isoHunt's index reached the 1 million torrents milestone 2 hours ago."
IsoHunt is currently among the 150 most visited websites on the Internet, and listed in the top three most used BitTorrent sites together with The Pirate Bay and MiniNova.
The increasing popularity also has its downside though, in this case "downtime" because servers can't keep up.
The record traffic, in combination with new features, has caused server issues over the past few weeks, resulting in the display of an "Isohunt is Sick" error message. "It'll be back to normal soon enough," Gary says, adding, "You should seldom see that now that we got most congestion issues solved."
The increase in BitTorrent's popularity speaks for itself, with isoHunt indexing a million torrents, The Pirate Bay tracking 10 million peers, and MiniNova just marking its 4 billionth download.
12 Tools to Keep Kids Safe Online
Excerpted from PC Magazine Report by Neil Rubenking
You can do just about anything on the Internet these days. And so can your kids, if they have use of a computer with Internet access. Some parents feel that this freedom goes a bit too far. What can parental-control software do to keep kids away from the seamy side?
Look first for per-user configuration options, especially if you share a computer with the kids. You don't want the software to monitor or control your own computer use, and the restrictions you'd choose for a 6-year-old are naturally different from those for a 16-year-old.
One common rationale for installing parental-control software is to keep preschoolers from happening upon "adult" sites and to keep teens from visiting them deliberately. Virtually every parental-control product includes some kind of category-based website blocking.
Besides controlling where your kids can go on the Internet, most parental-control products help you limit times when they can get online. Some offer simplistic controls, like setting a single time-span for Internet access every day, or defining a maximum for daily online time.
Your kids can chat with anybody at all on the computer, and that's a big worry for some parents. Instant messaging (IM) is ubiquitous and hard to track.
Some products block access to IM. To be effective, this draconian measure has to take effect at the protocol level. Even that measure won't stop kids from using a totally web-based client. Of course, the category-based site-blocking feature might include an option to block web-based chat.
You can't always be around when the kids are using the computer; that's one of the main reasons to get parental-control software. They may be home from school long before you're home from work, for example. So the best parental-control systems build in remote notifications and remote configuration management.
Many products can be configured to send an e-mail any time the kids try to access a blocked site. Remote configuration should give you full access to all the program's settings, and any changes you make should take effect right away.
The flip side of parental control is parental monitoring - software that records what your kids do on the computer, with or without notifying them that they're under observation.
Rather than block access to certain sites, you can get a report of every site they've visited, possibly organized by content category. Rather than limit their time to a specified schedule, you can find out exactly when they've been logged on to the computer and what programs they used. And instead of controlling their use of IM you can record every conversation; some products flag problematic words and phrases in the recording.
But wait, you say, I have a suite that takes care of all my security, and parental control is built in. Do I really need a separate product?
Unfortunately, you do. Now that you've got an idea of the variations in parental-control software, consider what your needs are. Then take a look at these 12 products and see which best fits your family.
Court To Consider Whether P2P Uploads Infringe
Excerpted from MediaPost Report by Wendy Davis
In a closely watched case, the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will argue to a federal judge that a man who allegedly uploaded tracks to Kazaa shouldn't be held liable for copyright infringement unless the record industry can prove that other users have downloaded those tracks.
"Here, there's no evidence that the actual infringing act ever happened," EFF lawyer Fred von Lohmann said.
The record industry says that making tracks available for distribution by uploading them to a file-sharing service like Kazaa is sufficient to prove liability because, it argues, "the whole purpose of Kazaa is to share files with other users." The RIAA is now asking the federal district court in Arizona to rule in its favor without conducting a trial.
The RIAA initially sued Jeffrey Howell and his wife, Pamela, in 2006, after an investigator allegedly saw that he had uploaded 54 files to Kazaa.
Representing himself, Howell argued that he ripped the CDs to his computer, but didn't intend to share them with other users. Federal district court judge Neil Wake initially ruled in favor of the record companies and fined Howell around $40,500 (the statutory minimum of $750 per track), but later vacated that order and asked for further argument. The EFF got involved in the case in January.
A ruling against the RIAA on this issue would strike a blow to the record industry's litigation strategy of suing individual uploaders for copyright infringement. Since 2003, the RIAA has sued, or threatened to sue, more than 20,000 people throughout the country for alleged piracy based on the theory that they uploaded tracks to file-sharing sites.
But defense lawyers say that the RIAA can't prove that anyone - other than its own investigators - have downloaded the tracks. In the Howell case, the RIAA's investigators allegedly downloaded 11 tracks uploaded by Howell, and found 43 others that they didn't download.
The vast majority of the people targeted by the RIAA have settled, so only a handful of judges have considered the legal question of whether the RIAA's proof is sufficient.
Last month, federal district court judge Janet Bond Arterton in Connecticut ruled against the RIAA on this point. Quoting a treatise on copyrights, she wrote, "Without actual distribution of copies ... there is no violation of the distribution right."
The RIAA last week filed a motion for reconsideration in that case.
The same issue came up in the Jammie Thomas trial - the first lawsuit against a consumer to go to a jury verdict. There, the judge initially said he would instruct the jury that making files available on a P2P network doesn't violate copyright law unless the files are later transferred. But he changed his mind after further argument by the RIAA and instructed the jury that simply making the files available was sufficient to prove infringement. The jury ruled against Thomas and ordered her to pay $220,000 to the record labels.
Piracy Pact: Movie Studios Settle in China Lawsuit
Excerpted from Media Life Report
Downloading a movie in a Chinese cybercafe without authorization during this year's Summer Olympics in Beijing just got a little tougher. The Motion Picture Association (MPA) reports that five Hollywood studios - Walt Disney Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Paramount Pictures - have settled a lawsuit with a Chinese Internet company accused of providing cybercafes with the means to obtain unlicensed copies of their movies.
In September and December, the studios sued Beijing Jeboo Interactive Science and Technology Co. in Shanghai for supplying cybercafes with software that allows users to download unauthorized copies of such movies as "Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest."
While the deal terms weren't disclosed, MPA says Jeboo paid the studios a "significant" amount along with issuing an apology. MPA claims that more than 90% of DVDs in China are infringing and cost American studios $244 million and Chinese studios $2.4 billion in lost box office revenue in 2005.
Coming Events of Interest
Media Summit New York - The fifth annual MSNY, March 12th-13th in New York, NY. Jointly produced by Digital Hollywood, McGraw-Hill, Business Week, and Standard & Poor's. Keynoting this year will be Robert Iger, President & CEO, The Walt Disney Company.
P2P MARKET CONFERENCE - March 14th in New York, NY in conjunction with the Media Summit New York (MSNY). The industry's premiere marketplace focused on the unique global revenue generation 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).
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA - May 4th in Los Angeles, CA. The third annual P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA. The DCIA's flagship event featuring keynotes from industry-leading P2P and social network operators; tracks on policy, technology and marketing; panel discussions covering content distribution and solutions development; valuable workshops; networking opportunities; and more.
Digital Hollywood Spring - May 5th-8th in Los Angeles, CA. With many new sessions and feature events, DHS has become the premiere digital entertainment conference and exposition. DCIA Member companies will exhibit and speak on a number of panels.
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