April 7, 2008
Volume XXI, Issue 8
Blinkx Brings Video Search to New P2PTV Service
Excerpted from Wired News Report by Terrence Russell
As if the peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) space wasn't extremely competitive already, the video search gurus at Blinkx have announced their own service called BBTV, pairing a video distribution service with Blinkx's speech-to-text search tools.
According to Blinkx CEO & Founder Suranga Chandratillake, the ultimate goal was to build a bridge between the explosive growth of both search and web video. "The web is the largest repository of connected information in the world - on any subject and from myriad sources," he explained.
"BBTV delivers television over the Internet, but it also fuses that TV with the wealth of information on the web, rather than appearing as just another layer floating above it."
In many ways, Chandratillake has succeeded. Users of the service can not only search through a transcript of a given program, but can also click on the text and be taken directly to that section of the video. Also, if a user wants to pop out onto the web they can do so within BBTV's interface. The high-quality, full-screen experience comes off as slick within the walled garden of BBTV's service.
The biggest issue (as always) seems to be content. Although BBTV promises forthcoming content deals, it's sporting a lackluster catalog today. Other slights include the service's reliance on a custom downloadable player and lack of Mac compatibility - but those are minor in comparison.
Comcast Offers Superfast Internet
Excerpted from Newsfactor Network Report by Richard Koman
Comcast has launched a superfast Internet service in the Twin Cities. Billed as "wideband" by Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, the new service offers download bandwidth speeds of 50 megabits per second (Mbps), compared to current top speeds of 16 Mbps. And, Comcast says, the service can be revved up as high as 160 Mbps.
However, in the current version, the service offers upload speeds of just 5 Mbps, reflecting the inherent limits of cable Internet service.
The monthly subscription fee is $150, compared to average fees of $50 for Comcast's regular Internet service.
The roll-out, just a week after Comcast agreed to stop interfering with users of the BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) system, suggests that the new technology could render moot the issue of bandwidth management - at least on the high-speed network.
"We're committed to changing our network-management processes from what they are today by the end of the year," Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas said. "We're going to work, not just with BitTorrent, but with a lot of P2P companies and others to come up with a better way to manage the network."
The new network is based on Data Over Cable Systems Interface Specifications Three (DOCSIS 3.0), which works by bundling together four channels, that would otherwise be used to deliver analog television, into essentially one big data pipe.
"This creates more choice and an additional tier of products for our customers in all our markets once it's deployed," said Mitch Bowling, Comcast's SVP for High-Speed Internet.
"This announcement marks the beginning of the evolution from broadband to wideband," Bowling added. "We believe wideband will usher in a new era of speed and Internet innovation for today's digital consumers. Wideband is the future, and it's coming fast."
P2PViNE: Because We Need a Digg for P2P News
Excerpted from Mashable Report by Kristen Nicole
Digg-like features are being incorporated into lots of websites, large and small, for a variety of purposes. What this trend speaks to is not only the great utility that Digg-like voting provides for an onslaught of incoming content, but also its rising application to more and more niche communities. We've seen such utility being applied to photo-sharing sites, female-oriented commerce sites, product review sites, and more.
The latest is a community dedicated to P2P sites, called P2PViNE. It's very much designed like Digg, and is fully aware that its target audience is one that is likely already quite active on the top social news site. That's neither a good thing nor a bad thing, but merely boils P2PViNE's struggle down to stealing market share.
Most other start-ups would recognize the recurring battle of attempting to build up one's own community versus finding a way to leverage existing content and users from the larger community. P2PViNE is in fact looking to build up its own content, based on a similar premise to many of the video aggregators we saw saturating the market last year.
The problem with larger sites is that it's too much work to extrapolate the necessary data for the niche audience. The issue is still relevant, and P2PViNE is hoping that it can offer a resolution. The purpose of P2PViNE is to present the newest stories in a timely and organized manner, without having to sift across categories that aren't specific to P2P.
Some of the categories you'll find on P2PViNE are File Sharing News, Opinion, Tutorials, and Videos. The community is not, however, to be confused with a site that provides links directly to file-sharing content. In all, P2PViNE is very much set up like Digg, from the submission process to sharing and commenting capabilities.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 The Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) is pleased to announce the agenda, sponsors, and first wave of speakers for our upcoming P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA.
This third-annual DCIA flagship conference is scheduled for Monday May 5th in the Grand Ballroom of the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel, and is being held in conjunction with Digital Hollywood Spring.
We are thrilled to be able to present a program reflecting dramatic progress in the relationships among P2P software distributors and Internet service providers (ISPs) and very promising new initiatives with content companies.
The pace of commercial development of P2P and other distributed computing technologies is accelerating globally, and this conference will provide attendees with opportunities to gain unparalleled insights into the most exciting activities from all over the world.
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA speakers will include Abacast's Michael King, ARTISTDirect's Jonathan Lee, AT&T's Charles Kalmanek, Beat9.com's Jay Rifkin, BitGravity's Perry Wu, Brand Asset Digital's Joey Patuleia, DigitalContainers' Tom Patterson, Digital Watermarking Alliance's (DWA) Reed Stager, GridNetworks' Jeffrey Payne, Jambo Media's Rob Manoff, Javien Digital Payment Solutions' Leslie Poole, KlikVU's Lowell Feuer, LimeWire's George Searle, Manatt's Bill Heberer, MediaDefender's Chris Gillis, MediaPass Network's Daniel Harris, and Microsoft's See-Mong Tan.
Also featured will be Motorola's John Waclawski, Move Networks' David Rice, Oversi's Eitan Efron, Pando Networks' Robert Levitan and Laird Popkin, PeerApp's Eliot Listman, QTRAX's Allan Klepfisz, Rebel Digital's Lance Ford & Robin Kent, Rightscom's Mark Isherwood, RightsFlow Entertainment Group's Patrick Sullivan, TAG Strategic's Ted Cohen, TVU Networks' Paul Shen, Ultramercial's Dana Jones, Unlimited Media's Memo Rhein, VeriSign's Eric Armstrong, Verizon Communications' Doug Pasko, Vuze's Gilles BianRosa, Wingman Media's David Shor, and Yale University's and the P4P Working Group's (P4PWG) Haiyong Xie.
The P4PWG will have more test results this week, and more P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA speakers will be announced.
The conference will address such topics as global policy in the post MGM v. Grokster world - new rules for P2P; technology development for file sharing and related distributed computing applications - the evolving distribution chain; business models - what's working and what's not; artists and rights holders - P2P for content creators; solutions development - creating the commercial P2P ecosystem; and the next frontier - business practices and open standards.
The event will start with a continental breakfast and continue through a conference luncheon and VIP networking cocktail reception with live entertainment.
The P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA is being held in conjunction with Digital Hollywood Spring (DHS), and registration for both events yields a substantial savings for attendees. For more information, please visit www.dcia.info/activities/p2pmsla2008.
To register please visit www.dcia.info/activities/p2pmsla2008/register.html. Pre-registration rates, which save attendees up to $400, end April 28th.
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA sponsors include the Association for Media & Entertainment Counsel (AMEC), FTI Consulting, Javien Digital Payment Solutions, Nettwerk Music Group, QTRAX, and Unlimited Media. For sponsor packages and speaker information, please contact Karen Kaplowitz, DCIA Member Services, at 888-890-4240 or karen@dcia.info. Share wisely, and take care.
FAROO - Could P2P Search Change the Game?
Excerpted from ReadWriteWeb Report by Bernard Lunn
Entrepreneurs have learned that pitching anything to investors with "We can beat Google at search" is the kiss of death. This is like pitching against Microsoft in the PC world.
None of the high-profile, well-funded search engine start-ups with cool new interfaces, social search, or natural language technology have made a dent in the real world.
Not even Microsoft, with its army of smart researchers and piles of cash, has been able to halt Google's relentless market share gains in search.
So why would a bunch of engineers in Germany at a low profile company called FAROO have a chance?
This is a company without VC backing, with a funny name, that's located far from Silicon Valley and most of their press is not even in English!
The answer is: for the same reason that Microsoft's dominance was finally challenged - not by big competitors with a similar solution, but by tiny little efforts that eventually changed the game, like a young guy in Finland named Linus Torvalds writing some Unix code and giving it away.
The game-changing FAROO advantage is not that it is free software, it is its P2P architecture.
This can totally change the economics of search. To quote FAROO's front page, "Copy the entire Internet to one system? Strange idea. That's what search engines try to do. Therefore they require 450,000 servers and $2 billion."
That's it. You don't need to read any further. There are some other advantages that flow from this architecture, but the basic proposition is really that simple.
BitTorrent President on Comcast Agreement
Excerpted from CNET News Report
The thaw in Comcast-BitTorrent relations continued this week, with BitTorrent's President calling their new agreement a "win" for anyone who develops bandwidth-intensive applications.
Last week, the companies announced plans to forge a "collaborative effort" in which the cable operator would devise a method to manage its traffic on a "protocol agnostic" basis, while the file-sharing application firm would work on making the process of transferring large files work more smoothly on that network.
The agreement doesn't mean that Comcast will stop doing traffic management deemed necessary to keep its pipes unclogged at peak congestion hours, but BitTorrent President & Co-Founder Ashwin Navin said he's OK with that.
"Internet service providers (ISPs) need the ability to shape traffic in order to provide service," Navin said. "The win here for BitTorrent and for all P2P applications is that we will not be treated differently from other forms of Internet traffic."
The pact between the two companies arrives as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigates whether Comcast's admitted disruption of file-sharing uploads was a "reasonable" episode of network management or something more sinister.
Shortly after the Comcast-BitTorrent news broke, a seemingly unlikely suspect released a press release praising the deal: the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
MPAA President Dan Glickman called the agreement "exactly the kind of industry cooperation that is urgently needed to address the problem of online piracy," even though the joint BitTorrent-Comcast press release made no mention of copyright infringement matters.
Navin suggested rights holders could benefit from embracing content delivery methods like P2P file sharing, and BitTorrent has already struck scores of those deals itself.
"In the future, digital piracy will be not nearly as pronounced as it is today," Navin said, "because we will have innovated business models and found ways to monetize free flow of video."
What BitTorrent/Comcast Actually Means
Excerpted from TechDirt Report
Comcast's decision to collaborate with BitTorrent attracted a predictably huge amount of attention and analysis. But surprisingly little of it has speculated as to what BitTorrent is actually going to do for Comcast.
There are two problems facing Comcast: 1) expense in infrastructure demands and bandwidth bills, and 2) the public outcry and potential FCC action invited by its initial solution to that problem.
Announcing the partnership with BitTorrent, pledging to increase upload capacity, and ceasing to forge RST packets all go a long way toward solving the second problem.
But the first problem - the expense - remains, and it may prove to be the area where the new partnership has the most to offer.
BitTorrent has announced partnerships with various hardware manufacturers. And while some of these vendors are probably looking for little more than to be able to slap "BitTorrent Approved" stickers on their consumer-grade routers, others clearly have the expertise to make network appliances. This is what BitTorrent may be offering Comcast.
What will these theoretical boxes do? Despite Comcast's announced intention to be protocol-agnostic, it seems most likely that the devices would serve as P2P repeaters, keeping more of a given swarm inside Comcast's systems and thereby minimizing expensive trips across the network boundary.
Contrary to all of the online wailing about bandwidth hogs degrading its neighbors' Internet service, this expense was always the real issue: it's telling that forged RST packets were only ever sent for BitTorrent connections that extended beyond Comcast's network. Establishing a repeater product would also add nicely to the company's BitTorrent DNA offering.
Whatever the specifics, minimizing network expenses is a reasonable goal that Comcast is certain to continue to pursue. Hopefully, BitTorrent will help them find a way to do so.
Everyone's a Winner in BitTorrent-Comcast Detente
Excerpted from The Register Report by Richard Bennett
Comcast will stop shaping P2P seeding sessions with spoofed TCP RST commands. The move should delight the company's critics. These innocent control packets have been compared to identity theft, collusion with dictatorial regimes, and outright hacking of customer systems.
Instead, it will install additional equipment that will do real-time traffic accounting by user, feeding back information to the cable infrastructure that will equitably distribute opportunities to offer upstream traffic. In essence, this system makes the cable standard DOCSIS much more sophisticated: now it will behave just like DSL, only faster.
In DSL systems, each customer typically has a dedicated physical cable to a DSLAM, a type of concentrator. The DSLAM aggregates customer data onto a common upstream link according to a fairness algorithm that picks frames from buffers at the heads of these dedicated links in a manner that minimizes bandwidth hogging.
In the new Comcast system, the fairness algorithm is deployed in the CMTS (the cable equivalent of a DSLAM), and acts on buffers in each customer's cable modem. The CMTS is able to do this because DOCSIS data transfers from customer to network are preceded with brief requests for bandwidth.
Armed with intelligence about each user's recent traffic history and the state of the network generally, the newly-intelligent CMTS will schedule bandwidth by customer according to a fairness algorithm of its own, with the same range of choices that exist for DSLAMs.
Under the new regime, P2P seeding will be treated neither better nor worse than any other use of upstream bandwidth, unless it imposes a greater load than the typical customer, and then only when the network as a whole is heavily burdened.
When the network is lightly loaded, management will presumably be lighter than it has been, because the hard caps in today's cable modems won't be necessary.
Combining this traffic management system with the enhancements Comcast has already announced for its network in areas where it butts heads with Verizon's FiOS and AT&T's U-verse will give its customers shared 130 Mbps downstream and 100 Mbps upstream.
Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and lightly loaded concentrators will continue to provide it with max headroom for moving traffic as fast as customer equipment permits, but Comcast will be able to outperform fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC) networks in most scenarios.
The significant fact for network neutrality champions is simply this: Comcast will no longer care about the content of your packets, only their number. You'll always get a fair share of the pie, whether that's a lot (as it usually will be) or a little.
Policy created in election years tends to be infused with hyper-polarization, so to the extent that Comcast and BitTorrent can make the FCC calm down and let business take its course, consumers will be the winners.
Comcast isn't there yet, but the replacement of application-centric network infrastructure with traffic-sensitive equipment is a strong step in the right direction, and all of us who buy network services from the cable company should be happy about it.
The Young Genius behind BitTorrent
Excerpted from NPR Report by Andrea Seabrook
Bram Cohen wrote a groundbreaking program called BitTorrent. Cohen, 32, has been coding since around five years-old. Please click here to listen to his interview on National Public Radio's (NPR) All Things Considered.
QTRAX - Free Music Downloads
Excerpted from SF Zone Report
QTRAX promises users free and legal music downloads. The interface is really smooth and with a nice design. The idea of free music downloads is really tempting, and when it also has the word "legal," we are even more tempted to try it. But does it actually work?
It is easy to use. It has a web browser (Mozilla based) and a music player. With the browser you navigate the QTRAX music website and from this software you download the songs.
The site is well organized and easy to navigate. You need to register to be able to search for music, but that should not be a big problem considering registration is actually free.
When you register, you choose a country from a list provided.
Searching for a leading major label band returns a list of tracks from it. Songs are organized by year, album, and genre. Clicking on the "Download" button, however, currently results in an error message saying that download will be available soon.
Considering that this is version 02 of the software and the final version will be released in the future, we hope that it will be good software and that it will have a huge database of music for you to enjoy.
LimeWire Store Inks Deal with BFM Digital
LimeWire announced an agreement with BFM Digital, a leading aggregator and distributor of independent music, to sell DRM-free music in LimeWire Store, the company's online music store.
The partnership will make 50,000 tracks available from BFM's catalog of independent artists and labels. With this agreement, BFM joins an ever-expanding group of content providers already offering nearly 1 million tracks in LimeWire Store.
"We are really excited to add BFM's diverse roster of distributed labels and artists to LimeWire Store," said Jim McDermott, LimeWire Store's Director of Operations. "BFM joins an expanding network of independent music distributors who see the strategic value in partnering with LimeWire and our user base of over 60 million."
Steven Corn, CEO of BFM Digital, said, "BFM has always supported companies that are developing alternative business models in the digital music industry. LimeWire Store is a service that can meet the needs of both the buyers and content providers. We are very proud to encourage such innovative strategies."
LimeWire Store beta launched in March 2008, and features nearly 1 million licensed, high quality DRM-free tracks for sale, provided by partner labels including BFM, Redeye Distribution, IODA, Ingrooves, Nettwerk Productions, and IRIS. Those relationships are increasing as a result of LimeWire's aggressive pursuit of partnerships with distributors, labels, and artists.
"Our goal is not only to create a platform that gives fans a way to connect with their favorite musicians, but also to create a valuable sales-and-marketing channel for labels and independent artists," added McDermott.
Azul Systems Selected by LimeWire
Azul Systems, the award-winning innovator of server appliances that deliver compute-and-memory resources as a shared network service, has announced that LimeWire is teaming with Azul to meet the demands of users by providing richer media content, more advanced functionality, and delivering outstanding quality of service (QoS).
Fast and easy-to-use, and running on both Gnutella and BitTorrent P2P networks, LimeWire is the world's most popular P2P file-sharing application. Compatible with nearly every current operating system, LimeWire is open-source and distributed under terms of the General Public License (GPL).
"As we began to build LimeWire Store in early 2007, we knew that with over 60 million active users of the LimeWire client that application scalability, data center footprint, and cost were our top issues. Few new ventures need to handle thousands of hits per second on their first day of operation, and we couldn't afford to stumble," said Jason Pelzer, Project Manager of LimeWire Store.
"Azul Systems' appliances worked with our existing data center resources, improved manageability, and boosted our Java application performance, both in terms of scalability and reduced response times, without consuming additional data center floor space or power."
Velocix & MediaMelon Hybrid P2P for HD Video
Velocix, provider of the world's leading digital asset delivery network, and MediaMelon, a leading high-definition (HD) video delivery network, are partnering to deliver HD videos on behalf of content owners.
P2P is widely recognized as a highly effective technology that enables new levels of scalability to large audiences and improved economics for video distribution.
However a fundamental limitation is that delivery performance can vary dramatically, based on popularity of content being distributed. Viewers of popular content will receive a high quality experience as there will be many sources available. For less popular content, or newly released content which has yet to become widely distributed, there are fewer 'peers' sharing the video.
Velocix digital delivery services are designed specifically for large digital assets such as HD video, and Velocix Network cache delivery evens out the "bandwidth troughs" associated with standard P2P-only solutions.
These capabilities combined with MediaMelon's set of higher-layer network services and browser web-links, provide content publishers the flexibility to offer HD videos from a variety of websites, ensuring good user experience and monetization capabilities.
"We were looking for a flexible high-performance delivery network to assist our service so that we could ensure a high quality user experience, regardless of bandwidth available for P2P file sharing." said Kumar Subramanian, CEO at MediaMelon.
"Our work with MediaMelon is a great example of how the Velocix Network can be successfully integrated with P2P delivery," said Phill Robinson, CEO at Velocix. "This partnership is further validation of the hybrid-P2P delivery techniques pioneered by Velocix and MediaMelon. It provides a highly scalable service with the perfect balance between delivery performance and cost."
RawFlow Demos iCDN at NAB
RawFlow offers a completely new way of streaming live content over the Internet. Its managed live streaming service, iCDN, uses a unique hybrid of P2P and traditional content delivery network (CDN) streaming technologies giving customers unrivalled price performance for live streaming.
RawFlow's iCDN has been designed to cope with conditions specific to live streaming such as peak traffic volumes, high server loads, and network congestion, ensuring optimum performance and consistent delivery of live broadcasts.
By having a best of breed, hybrid P2P global CDN, RawFlow is able to deliver content at a fraction of the cost of traditional unicast networks - a saving it passes on to its customers in the form of incredibly attractive and simple prices.
Plan now to visit RawFlow at the NAB Exhibition, Las Vegas, NV, Booth C1955 to start making live broadcasts profitable.
Joost's Live Test: No Antenna? No Coax? No Problem
Excerpted from EDN Report by Brian Depert
Joost is currently running a live test in combination with its investment partner, CBS, featuring NCAA basketball's "March Madness."
Joost was very upfront about the fact that viewers shouldn't expect a glitch-free experience:
"This is a test of our live P2P streaming service. It's a pretty complex technology, and we fully expect things to go wrong. The stream may stutter, slow, or stop altogether. If your stream does stop, we recommend restarting the channel - that usually works. Otherwise, you might have to re-start Joost. We apologize for any inconveniences, but your participation will help us build a stable live service!"
Please click here for Brian's detailed report. All things considered, Joost's live TV experiment has been a tremendous success.
Metaaso Mermaid IPv6 P2P App
Excerpted from TMC Net Report
Metaaso Mermaid is a line of products based on a P2P technology, which is completely server-less and allows users to broadcast data/audio/video/text to millions around the world, without the need for heavy infrastructure, and over their very own private, secure P2P networks.
What's interesting about Mermaid is that it's the first IPv6 P2P sharing application that makes extensive use of the new IPv6 address scheme, which helps get around pesky NAT issues and share data/media with other peers.
What can you do with Mermaid? Broadcast movies in real-time to millions of people worldwide over a private, secure, server-less P2P network; broadcast and receive news, over a server-less, P2P network spanning the globe; broadcast any audio/video source connected to your computer over your own private, secure, P2P network; and connect multiple people to each other, sharing their webcams, desktops, voice and files (file sharing) over their very own private P2P network, bringing global, and scalable multi-node video conferencing to mainstream.
How does it work? Mermaid products are pure P2P, and do not require any major infrastructure to scale to millions of people. What that means, is that you can create your own network, which will be identified with your network-id and password, and over that network, you can broadcast movies, webcam feeds, audio feeds, news, and files to all the people connected to your network. What's more, you can put your own ads to be shown on your network(s).
The more people on your network, the better. In fact, you won't need a heavy-tank computer or a gazillion-terabytes/second network to stream to millions of people. The collective power of all the computers connected to your network will be harnessed. You can easily make do with an average PC and an average network.
DRM-Free Movie Torrents from Sweden
Excerpted from TorrentFreak Report
Headweb, a new online movie store now from Sweden, offers over 500 DRM-free authorized movies, which can be downloaded via BitTorrent. True to the BitTorrent philosophy, sharing is rewarded.
The downloaded movies can be played with any media player. On top of that, the download manager comes with a built in DVD-burner to burn the movies onto a disk and play them with any standalone DVD-player.
Peter Alvarsson of Headweb said, "We believe it's fair to pay for our users' time and resources and we give credits back to those that upload to other users. The ratio is 1 credit per 10MB which makes it possible to get a free movie after reaching 50GB in uploads."
"We've seen that some users are really good at predicting 'hot' movies and earn a lot of credits by keeping their clients running after the download has finished," Alvarsson added. A win-win situation really, the sharing mechanism saves Headweb bandwidth and server resources, and the users get free downloads.
"It has taken us nearly two years to convince movie studios that DRM-free downloads are the future," added Alvarsson. "We're not there yet with everyone but we are getting closer. More studios now start to realize that DRM isn't consumer-friendly and that it has to go."
Several surveys have shown that a lot of people are willing to pay to download movies as long a there is enough content available, and if the files are high quality and DRM-free.
Headweb's users seem to confirm these findings. "We've received a lot of feedback from people telling us that they would switch to support licensed services completely, if only the services had the same selection," Alvarsson said.
In the near future, Headweb will be working on more new features, groundbreaking innovations and more content. They are confident that this will enable them to compete with The Pirate Bay.
Marketing in P2P Environments
Excerpted from ClickZ News Report by Michael Miraflor
The P2P landscape has evolved dramatically over the past few years. Bandwidth has increased and is more affordable to more people. Video has eclipsed audio.
Must-see TV episodes are the new hot singles; entire seasons the new hot albums. Recent studies show that upwards of 50% of all BitTorrent downloads at any given time are for TV content. Almost 25% are for full-length movies.
Years ago, it might have been true that only the upper echelon of web surfers (i.e., "geeks") were involved in P2P. Today, more than half of the top 50 downloads on Dowload.com are for BitTorrent clients, proprietary P2P programs, and utilities that help users convert and play downloaded files.
Even broadband providers like Verizon are getting involved, touting new P4P technologies to increase the efficiency of large file transfers and reduce the burden that such transfers place on the overall broadband network infrastructure.
It can be argued that most users don't have any malicious intent when downloading unlicensed content. The industry hasn't caught up with consumer behavior. In this age of instant gratification, consumers are conditioned to expect content to be made available online almost immediately.
These users will naturally seek the path of least resistance. Networks such as ABC that have adopted an ad-supported model for streaming popular programming have made this process relatively painless, but such solutions are few and far between.
When arcane legal restrictions and dated intellectual property (IP) laws prevent coveted programming from being streamed online, consumers get content from unauthorized sources.
It's time to step up your knowledge of the P2P space, regardless of industry taboo or the continued indifference and ignorance of those who "control" content distribution. We must understand consumer motivations behind download behavior and leverage P2P environments as a potential marketing channel.
There's almost no excuse for not having at least cursory knowledge of BitTorrent, by far the most popular and technologically advanced of file transfer platforms.
If you're a technology provider working on a lawful BitTorrent or P2P marketing solution, be proactive about educating your clients about the space.
If you're a marketer working in the entertainment vertical and your job is to work with TV or movie assets, ask your digital agency about how to best leverage legal P2P tactics to distribute your content to users actively seeking it. If there isn't at least one person there who has intimate knowledge of the P2P space, you might be in trouble.
If you're at a digital agency, realize that thought leadership in the P2P space will be a key differentiator in the next one-to-two years as bandwidth continues to increase, consumers become more aware of their options, and industry continues to lag behind consumer behavior and marketplace trends.
The P2P space is in the same position with video that it was with MP3 files seven or eight years ago. There are more questions than answers, and there's more speculation than solutions. This time, we have the opportunity to educate ourselves, develop new models, and test possible solutions before it gets out of hand.
File Sharing: Fight or Accommodate?
Excerpted from Los Angeles Times Report by Jon Healey
The movie and music industries have long had a common problem with piracy. Yet as the infringements migrated from analog to digital, their responses have diverged.
The most recent illustration came in comments last week by Jim Griffin, a digital maverick retained by Warner Music Group (WMG), and Jim Williams, Chief Technical Officer for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
In remarks published Wednesday, Griffin called on Internet service providers (ISPs) to let customers download and share an unlimited quantity of music for a flat fee of about $5 a month. At a conference in Hollywood the next day, Williams urged ISPs to use emerging technology to stop customers from downloading and sharing bootlegged movies online.
Put another way, a top geek at a major record label said, "Let's embrace file sharing and make some money off it," and a top geek at the MPAA replied, "Let's take the fight against file sharing to another level."
Granted, Griffin - a former Geffen Records executive and new media consultant - hasn't been exactly a mainstream voice within the music industry. For many years he has begged the industry to make a radical change in business models: abandon individual sales in favor of an open-catalog approach. But ideas like this, which the major labels used to reject out of hand, are starting to gain credence. Top executives at the two largest industry conglomerates, Universal Music Group (UMG) and Sony BMG, have advanced variations on the all-you-can-eat music theme. And both UMG and EMI have agreed to Nokia's plan to include unlimited music downloads with premium-priced smartphones.
The studios' thinking about the Internet is evolving too, but not at the labels' pace. That's because the music industry's dominant product line is failing much more quickly than Hollywood's. CD sales have slid in six of the last seven years, coinciding with the rise in file sharing. But DVD sales only recently leveled off after years of double-digit growth, and box-office revenues have rebounded the last two years. Some Hollywood executives think they'll be spared the music industry's fate for at least a few more years because broadband speeds in most countries aren't fast enough to make downloading a movie as tempting as grabbing a song or an album off a file-sharing network. However, the popularity of bootlegged movies and TV shows online suggests that millions of downloaders don't share that view.
At any rate, the studios have tended to take a longer view of digital piracy. Instead of playing small ball like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and suing thousands of file sharers, they've swung for the fences. They've lobbied Washington to force consumer electronics and computer manufacturers to add government-approved anti-piracy technology to their products, require colleges to study ways to block illegal downloading on their networks, and pressure other governments to crack down on infringement.
Lately, the bold stroke being advanced by the studios is to have ISPs identify and cut off online pirates. To be sure, the major record companies like this idea too. But as Griffin's hiring by WMG indicates, the labels also appear to be moving ahead with Plan B in case ISPs prove to be more porous than the Maginot Line. The closest the studios have come to supporting an all-you-can-download plan is licensing the subscription rental offerings from Vongo and Netflix. Those offerings are hobbled by restrictive electronic locks and incomplete catalogs.
Williams of the MPAA pushed the ISP-as-defense-against-piracy idea during a panel discussion on copyright law at the Technology Policy Summit last week. When asked how lawmakers might improve the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Williams said he'd like to see something that would encourage ISPs to deter mass, indiscriminate redistribution of copyrighted material. Citing a nearly 4-year-old estimate by Velocix that 50%-to-80% of the traffic online was file sharing, Williams said it "stands to reason that much of the Internet is being clogged up with 'stolen' goods." That congestion gives ISPs an interest in deterring piracy, he said.
The studios aren't trying to stop file sharing, Williams added later. It's a useful technology. And ISPs don't necessarily have to be pushed by lawmakers to filter out bootlegs. "I believe that they will find incentive to make their networks more efficient for all their paying customers," he said. If they reduce infringing content, they'll have more capacity for legal traffic.
Identifying copyrighted movies and TV shows amid the flurry of data packets would be no mean feat. The file-sharing protocol of choice these days is BitTorrent, which enables people to download multiple pieces of a digital work simultaneously from scattered sources. Williams said that the technology exists for ISPs to participate in BitTorrent swarms and grab enough of a sample of the file being transferred to match it against a database of video fingerprints. If the file included watermarks, the identification can be done with a minimal amount of data. Other information such as file names and keywords can help to confirm the ID, he said.
Speaking at the same conference, Ashwin Navin, President of BitTorrent, said ISPs "absolutely" could identify BitTorrent downloads as they happen. He added a few caveats: such monitoring would be costly, it may require "some technical investment," and it raised questions about data privacy. "We think ISPs should be disclosing that to consumers," advising customers that infringements will be detected and expose them to some kind of sanction, Navin said.
Once ISPs start trying to filter out the studios' works, determined pirates will fight back with encryption and other measures that make it harder to detect what's being shared online. So it will be a cat-and-mouse game, Williams acknowledged, and anti-piracy vendors will have to redesign their tools repeatedly. Given how rapidly downloaders have shifted from application to application in the face of filters, the mice appear to have the upper hand in this one.
A more troubling issue, according to Zahava Levine, YouTube's chief counsel, is that content-identification technology can't tell whether copyrighted material is being shared legally - for example, if it was a snippet in a news story or film review or if it was part of a parody.
Both Levine and Navin suggested that the best use of content-identification technology is to monetize the distribution of video online, not block it. According to Levine, more than 100 companies are using YouTube's content-identification system. Most of them have instructed YouTube that when one of their works is posted by the site's users, the company should "sell ads around it and share the revenue," Levine said. That's what the major record companies are doing.
Williams agreed that there are more options than simply blocking unauthorized distribution online. Once an ISP or site identifies a file, he said, it would consult a database of instructions from content owners to find the right policy to apply, such as blocking the transfer and sending a take-down notice to the source, redirecting the downloader to an authorized supplier of the file, or allowing the transfer in exchange for a share of the advertising revenue.
To make these options possible, though, content-identification tools must be inserted deep into the network. The major record labels would like to regain that kind of control, too. But having little to show from seven years of fighting to rein in file sharing, they've started to talk about new models that don't rely on limits - technological or otherwise.
File Sharing May be Good Says EMI executive
Excerpted from The Guardian Report by Owen Gibson
The senior Google executive poached by EMI's new owners to overhaul its global digital strategy said yesterday that file sharing, for so long deemed the scourge of the music business, was "not necessarily bad."
Glen Merrill was Google's Chief Information Officer (CIO) and one of the architects of the Internet firm's successful flotation in 2004. He has been appointed at EMI to a new role overseeing all of the company's digital strategy, innovation, business development, supply chain, and global technology activities.
Since the rise of Napster, the music industry has blamed file sharing and P2P networks for the continuing slump in CD sales. With digital sales failing to bridge the gap, it is desperately searching for a new business model.
"There is academic research that shows file sharing is a good thing for artists and not necessarily bad," said Merrill. "We should do a bunch of experiments to find out what the business model is."
Previously, the music industry has rubbished studies that claim file sharing can have a positive effect on music sales. "I think people will pay," Merrill said. "There is evidence that people we think are not buying music are buying music. They're just not buying it in formats we can measure."
He also criticized the approach of the major labels in pursuing individual file sharers through the courts. "It's a poor business model to sue your customers. I don't think that's a sustainable strategy."
Merrill plans to experiment with ad-supported music download services, pointing to Google's success with targeted advertising and subscription models.
Get the Most out of File Sharing
Excerpted from Computer Active Report by Jonathan Parkyn
The terms "file sharing" and "P2P networking" have some pretty negative connotations.
In the press, they're more often than not associated with legal wrangles over copyright infringement, but you might be surprised to learn that there's actually nothing illegal about the P2P networks themselves and, in principle, nothing unlawful about using them to share files.
It's certainly true that many users of P2P networks continue to exploit this technology in order to distribute large amounts of unlicensed copyrighted material over the Internet, but you'll also find the exact same technology being used for a great number of perfectly legitimate uses, too.
Click here to read this entire feature article to find out precisely what file sharing is, how it works, and how it can be put to good use.
Music Industry Plan to Legitimize P2P
Excerpted from FMQB Report
Earlier this week, it was reported that Warner Music Group (WMG) was looking into a new business model for digital music, with a monthly subscription service.
Now there are reports that Warner's plans could also include a way to legitimize P2P file sharing.
According to Wired News, WMG's concept for the new model would have ISPs paying out a few dollars-per-person each month, which would then be split up among the labels and artists.
Industry consultant Jim Griffin has been hired by WMG to work on the plan, and has set up an independent company as a clearinghouse for digital rights, essentially as the equivalent of ASCAP.
BigChampagne would also be involved as a source of file-sharing data.
"The music industry has no choice," Bob Kohn, CEO of Royalty Share, told Wired. "It's significantly weaker than it was in 2000. And the longer this drags on, the more difficult it will be to succeed."
However, the WMG plan is far from a done deal. A senior exec at Warner anonymously told Wired that "what remains to be sorted out is basically everything."
Free Music Only Way of the Future
Excerpted from News.com Report
Record companies must give away music for free and stop expecting people to pay for songs, industry insiders have told a music conference.
The inaugural Song Summit Sydney (S3) has been told the record industry has ignored consumers for a long time, and must develop new business models to survive the digital revolution.
Universal Music's Director of Digital Sales & Marketing, Luke Bevans, said as CD sales in Australia dropped 10% in the past year, a rethink was overdue.
"Probably for a long time the record industry hasn't been focused on its consumers," Bevans said.
"For a long time we ignored the threat of P2P and also the way people can easily rip and burn CDs from their computers. If we start to look at how we can put our consumers first, then I think we have a chance."
Mark Meharry co-founded Music Glue in 2006 in reaction to the lack of response by the music industry to model its business to the changing behavior of music consumers in the digital landscape. Among its core principles are that consumers who file-share are not thieves, they are music fans.
Meharry said the music industry was now dealing with a new kind of consumer - one who had never paid for music. "The reality is if you get a kid off the street today, in London in particular, and ask them about ownership of music, ask them if they have ever owned a CD, ask them if they have ever bought music, and ask them if they understand if music has any value," he said.
"And it's a pretty consistent message you get back. They don't buy music. They never have bought music. They started listening to music on their dad's iPod."
He said the industry must stop trying to make people pay for music, and find other ways to make money from the consumption of music. "Give the music away for free and sell all the other products available," Meharry said.
"There is not a fan in the world that if you ask them nicely in the right way to pay for something, will say no. That payment could be in the form of information about the consumer, or it could be buying a ticket. But if you ask them to pay for the music, then you've got a problem, because they will go elsewhere."
Meharry also said trying to filter P2P file-sharing networks is useless. "Best of luck to anyone who wants to try to police the Internet and force consumers back to old models," he said. "There will always be new ways around such efforts."
"You can't control popular culture - popular culture is speaking and they have a loud voice."
New Software Lets Law Enforcement Patrol P2P Nets
Zemerick Software has announced the availability of free computer software that lets law enforcement patrol P2P file-sharing networks. This software, called Forensic P2P, joins other free software for law enforcement collectively known as SPEAR Forensics.
Forensic P2P lets officers search the Gnutella P2P network for files, such as music, image, and video files. Forensic P2P has all the features of popular file-sharing programs such as BearShare and LimeWire, but with extra features designed specifically for use by law enforcement.
Forensic P2P can integrate with the officers' database of known unlawful files to quickly highlight them in search results. Also, Forensic P2P can show the IP address and ISP information of users that are sharing files on the network.
Forensic P2P requires Windows XP or newer and is available for free to members of law enforcement at www.spearforensics.com.
Rights Holders Can't Sue over P2P
Excerpted from the Inquirer Report by Stewart Meagher
A New York judge has ruled that the act of making files available for download does not constitute copyright theft. The ruling is likely to hobble thousands of pending cases brought against file sharing networks and individuals by the content industry.
The new ruling places the onus on organizations like the Recoding Industry Association of America (RIAA) to prove that the actual unlawful download - ergo copying - took place.
The whole "making available" argument, which the RIAA has successfully used in a number of cases, one of which resulted in one victim having to pay $220,000, seems to have been shot down in flames.
If the suit had been successful, anyone with an open Internet connection and an unprotected folder on a hard drive could technically have fallen afoul of the law.
That's not the end of the matter, however, as the judge also ruled that "making an offer to distribute" does constitute an infringement.
You can try to make more sense of the ruling yourself.
UK ISP Refuses to Police Internet
Excerpted from Red Orbit Report
One of Britain's largest Internet service providers (ISPs) has refused to disconnect users who ignore requests to stop sharing music, telling the music industry it's not their job to police the Internet.
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), the trade body for UK music, asked ISPs to disconnect so-called "Internet music pirates" who refuse to stop sharing files.
But Charles Dunstone of Carphone Warehouse, which runs the TalkTalk broadband service, is refusing to comply with BPI's demand. TalkTalk, which is Britain's third largest Internet provider, says the demands are unreasonable and unworkable.
Despite threats of legal action, Dunstone said his firm will refuse to cooperate with the BPI.
The BPI says Internet firms need to educate their customers not to share music or the government will bring in legislation to make them cooperate.
The BPI website claims unauthorized P2P file sharing has cost British music sales an estimated 1.1 billion pounds in revenue lost in the last three years.
"The music industry has been fighting a losing battle to prevent people from swapping songs on the Internet," said Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC Technology Correspondent.
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Coming Events of Interest
AdMonsters Leadership Forum - April 22nd at the Digital Sandbox, New York, NY. The forum brings together senior members of the online ad operations community for a day of workshops, member-led presentations, and peer-certified best practice recommendations. This is truly a meeting of the minds for those leading operations online. David Clark, EVP of Joost, will keynote.
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA - May 5th 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 6th-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.
Streaming Media East – May 20th-21st in New York, NY. SME is the place to learn what is taking place with all forms of online video business models and technology. Content owners, viral video creators, online marketers, enterprise corporations, broadcast professionals, ad agencies, educators, and others attend. The DCIA will participate in the P2P session.
Advertising 2.0 New York - June 4th-5th in New York, NY. A new kind of event being developed as a partnership of Advertising Age and Digital Hollywood. The DCIA is fully supporting this important inaugural effort and encourages DCINFO readers to plan now to attend.
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT SV - August 4th in San Jose, CA. The first-ever P2P MEDIA SUMMIT in Silicon Valley. 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.
Building Blocks 2008 - August 5th-7th in San Jose, CA. The premier event for transforming entertainment, consumer electronics, social media & web application technologies & the global communications network: TV, cable, telco, consumer electronics, mobile, broadband, search, games and the digital home.
International Broadcasting Convention - September 11th-16th 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. Uniquely, the key executives and committees who control the convention are drawn from the industry, bringing with them experience and expertise in all aspects.
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