July 7, 2008
Volume XXII, Issue 9
Leaf Networks Demos New Web-P2P Platform
Leaf Networks this week announced the release of its Web-Peer-to-Peer (P2P) platform. As an initial demonstration of its web-based P2P technology, Leaf has implemented the first true P2P Facebook application.
The free app allows Facebook users to create a "game lobby" in their profiles and host "game servers" on their own PCs. Facebook friends can view game lobbies and connect directly to game servers utilizing Leaf Networks' underlying P2P technology.
"This is a platform which, once installed, allows any web developer to take advantage of P2P communication using basic JavaScript or Flash programming," explained Leaf Networks' CTO, Pramod Immaneni.
"Web-P2P uses standard networking interfaces so any network application can use P2P connections without any application re-writing."
The new technology fills a void between existing web and P2P applications, allowing public and private content to be combined without the need for centralizing all of the content.
"With the current trends in file sizes and end-user bandwidth, P2P makes much more economical sense," said Jeff Capone, Leaf Networks CEO.
"In the near future, P2P technologies will seamlessly assist the web for connecting users to rich media - bypassing traditional content delivery networks (CDNs)."
Currently, Leaf Networks offers embedded and desktop versions of its web-based P2P platform on an OEM basis, but plans on making its APIs available to developers as part of its Developers Program early in Q3.
Leaf Networks will also make its server components available, allowing easy integration between its P2P presence and availability with presence servers in other applications.
Leaf Networks licenses its technology to hardware and software vendors. Several new hardware and software applications which leverage Leaf technology are slated for release and introduction this year.
Leaf Networks also makes its basic P2P user application available as a free download on its website www.leafnetworks.net.
Leaf Network's Game Lobby Facebook plug-in, the first of many applications that will utilize Leaf Networks Web-P2P Platform, can be found on Facebook at apps.facebook.com/leaflobby.
Hiro & Pando Form P2P Video Advertising Alliance
Excerpted from Beet.TV Report by Andy Plesser
Hiro-Media, the Tel Aviv based company that is enabling video publishers to manage and distribute downloadable advertising, and Pando, the New York based company that is powering P2P distribution of files for major broadcasters, including NBC, have announced a joint partnership.
We don't know when customer deals will be announced, but this tie-up makes a lot of sense to us. It is inevitable that more video distribution will shift from streaming to download.
And for broadcasters and advertisers, distribution via cost-effective P2P is inevitable.
Beet spoke with Hiro Co-Founder Ronny Golan in Los Angeles last month and with Pando CEO Robert Levitan in Manhattan in May, and has republished both interviews with this week's news.
MBit Makes P2P Possible on Mobile Phones
Excerpted from Venture Beat Report by Chris Morrison
If phones are turning into miniature personal computers, there's a need to fill many of the same software niches that computers have. A company called mBit is tackling data and downloading with the mobile version of P2P sharing, in which users swap photos, music, and videos directly with each other.
MBit looks especially useful because phone hardware is advancing faster than the networks over which they work. Cell-phone cameras are becoming multi-megapixel, and their rapidly expanding memories are allowing storage of large amounts of music or video. But it can be nearly impossible to transfer a big file directly over a cellular network, especially with strict size limitations on multimedia messaging service (MMS).
Notably, mBit allows transfers to take place directly between two phones that are nearby to each other - in effect bypassing the cellular network. Transfers can also take place over carrier networks or on the Internet, through a WiFi connection.
Like regular P2P, the files are transmitted in chunks, so the download can take place over time, stopping and starting again without problem.
According to CEO Chun Yan See, mBit has quickly gained in popularity since it opened at the end of last year for public download from getjar.com, with 208,000 downloads to date.
That's a good sign for the company, because like any P2P application, mBit relies on its users, making it important for the company to have as many of those as possible. MBit itself maintains a centralized listing of all files, and users are allowed to share with other users around the world, creating a sort of global net. However, individual cellular networks can also run mBit for their users, charging a small monthly fee and reaping the benefits of reduced load on their networks.
So far, a pair of international carriers, Indosat and Smart, have signed on. For users who download the application on their own, mBit plans to run advertising.
Right now, Nokia and Sony Ericsson model cell-phones, the most popular internationally, are supported. The company also has plans to develop a version for the iPhone.
Owned by a larger company called mTouche, mBit itself is based in Singapore. MBit is also a MobileBeat 2008 nominee. If you're interested in voting for it, you can do so here.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 The DCIA is very pleased to announce the agenda and first wave of speakers for our upcoming P2P MEDIA SUMMIT Silicon Valley.
This first-ever Silicon Valley convening of the DCIA flagship conference series is scheduled for Monday August 4th in Salons IV-VI of the San Jose Marriott, and is being held in conjunction with Building Blocks, which is jointly produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and Digital Hollywood.
We are thrilled to be able to present a program devoted to the latest technological innovations and newest business models being introduced in the rapidly emerging P2P marketplace.
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 Silicon Valley speakers will include Abacast's Michael King, ARTISTdirect's Jonathan Lee, Bingham's Joshua Wattles, Brand Asset Digital's Joey Patuleia, Comcast's Barry Tishgart, Cloudshield's Peter Jungk, Digicorp's Jay Rifkin, Double V3's Martine Groulx, EM Syndication's Laura Tunberg, Getback Media's Chris Dominguez, GridNetworks' Jeffrey Payne, Hiro-Media's Daniel Leon, Jambo Media's Rob Manoff, Kontiki's Eric Armstrong, Leaf Networks' Jeff Capone, LimeWire's Brian Dick, mBit's Chun Yan See, MediaDefender's Chris Gillis, Motorola's John Waclawsky, Octoshape's Stephen Alstrup, Ono's Fabian Bustamante, Oversi's Eitan Efron, Packet Exchange's Chuck Stormon, Pando Networks' Robert Levitan and Laird Popkin, PeerApp's Eliot Listman, Ultramercial's Dana Jones, Verizon Communications' Doug Pasko, and YuMe Networks' Rosanne Vathana. More speakers will be announced.
There will be a continental breakfast, conference luncheon, and VIP networking cocktail reception.
The P2P MEDIA SUMMIT Silicon Valley will address such topics as global policy and regulatory action - 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 P2P MEDIA SUMMIT Silicon Valley is being held in conjunction with Building Blocks, and registration for both events yields a substantial savings for attendees.
For more information, please visit www.dcia.info/activities/p2pmssv2008.
Pre-registration rates, which save attendees up to $400 end July 28th. To register, please visit www.dcia.info/activities/p2pmssv2008/register.html.
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.
The Brains Behind the Operation
Excerpted from The Guardian Report
How do you top the invention of the World Wide Web? Bobbie Johnson introduces Cern's plan for the next leap forward in computer technology: the grid.
You may never have heard of Cern, but there's no doubt that you will know its most famous invention: in a nondescript office here in 1989, computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented a way for particle physicists to share information over the Internet, which he called the World Wide Web (WWW).
The web has since become one of the world's most important inventions, but the visionary computer scientists at Cern have not rested on their laurels in the meantime. Their latest invention turns a humble desktop into a supercomputer. Where the web uses the Internet to share information between computers, "The Grid" will use the Internet to share computing power.
In an average day of accelerating particles to near light-speed, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will produce more than 40,000 gigabytes of useable information. Over a year that makes 15 petabytes of data: enough to fill more than 20 million CDs. This is equivalent to everything held in the British Library nearly twice over. No normal computer can cope with this deluge.
So Cern scientists solved the problem by inventing a new way to network computers. Using a mixture of private fiber optic networks and the public Internet, the LHC Computing Grid (LCG) links thousands of machines to create a virtual supercomputer.
These days, thanks to the rapidly increasing power of even the most basic home PCs, technologists can link huge chains of processing chips over the Internet to achieve immense power - a process called distributed computing.
"Twenty five years ago you had these things that were huge and unbelievably cool," says Jon Crowcroft, the Marconi Professor of Communication Systems at the University of Cambridge's Computer Lab. "Now you can take a bunch of PCs, throw away the box and it's probably two orders of magnitude faster and cheaper than what we had back then."
Distributed systems were pioneered by American scientists, then by commercial groups such as animation studio Pixar, which needed raw power at low cost.
The Grid is not an alternative to the Internet - in fact, most of the time it uses the Internet as its main conduit, like an extra layer placed on top of the net we use every day.
The result is that when the LCG gets up to full speed, it will be comprised of around 200,000 processors, largely located in 11 academic computing clusters around the world. That will let around 7,000 scientists conduct experiments related to the collider, pushing out their calculations to the LCG, which farms them out around the network.
Distributed computing of this nature has several benefits. Steve Lloyd from Queen Mary, University of London, who has been working on the British end section of the LCG project for the past seven years, says it is much cheaper than producing enormous supercomputers, and is more flexible and easier to upgrade than a single complex machine.
And, crucially, it's more robust. Spreading the load around among many different locations means that the system can cope if, for some reason, one part of the network isn't available to it.
New Business Model for Music Industry Explained
Excerpted from Intellectual Property Watch Report by Bennett Lincoff
The music industry has been in a decade-long death-spiral. This predicament results primarily from insistence by those who benefited most from how the industry operated before the Internet arose that the established relationships upon which their past successes were based be preserved as the digital music marketplace develops.
The major record labels have set the industry's internet agenda overall. They are single-mindedly committed to making the Internet safe for sale of recordings on terms and conditions that they alone decide. They risked everything on the false hope that through a combination of digital rights management (DRM) and the force of law they could contain unauthorized Internet distribution of recordings.
Simply put, the Internet is fundamentally incompatible with the music industry's sales-based revenue model. Every Internet user, whether or not involved in P2P or social networking, and every webcaster, podcaster, or other audio service provider in the world is a potential source of unauthorized mass distribution of recorded music in pristine and unprotected form.
Through the Internet, the market for sale of individual recordings can be saturated in a moment's time and without payment of any royalties. The actual amount at risk may be greater for larger rights holders; but all rights holders, large and small, are impacted to the extent they derive revenue from sales of recordings.
The industry's efforts to salvage its sales-based revenue model have compelled it to resist consumer demand for full, unfettered, DRM-free access to music; blocked consumer electronics makers and technology firms from offering new products with next generation capabilities; limited the growth of webcasting and other digital audio services; chilled free speech and interfered with academic freedom on university campuses; caused distortions in the music licensing marketplace; relegated consumers to black-market services where adware, spyware, and privacy violations abound; and exposed consumers to ruinous infringement liability damages for conduct occurring in the privacy of their homes.
And for it all, the industry's efforts have resulted in fewer licensed transmissions of fewer works and slowed the growth of royalties that songwriters, music publishers, recording artists, and record labels otherwise may have earned.
In my view, public policy should strongly support the right and opportunity of rights holders to derive ample financial rewards from their contributions to culture and commerce. By the same token, however, the music industry should not have the right to demand that public policy support its desire to do business in a particular way.
An alternative to the sales-based revenue model is needed for digital transmissions of sound recordings and the musical works they embody. I recently proposed such an alternative in an article entitled Common Sense, Accommodation and Sound Policy for the Digital Music Marketplace, published by the Journal of International Media and Entertainment Law. A summary of that proposal follows here.
Allot Partners with PeerApp for P2P Video Optimization
Excerpted from SmartBrief Report by Ann Bednarz
It's no secret that voice and video traffic can require some special handling to keep networks running smoothly. In an effort to improve voice and video quality of service (QoS), Allot Communications is teaming with PeerApp to give service providers and large enterprises more granular control over WAN and Internet traffic.
Allot's roots are in bandwidth management. The company's centralized management system, NetXplorer, configures QoS policies which are implemented via its NetEnforcer or Service Gateway products. Service Gateway is a product Allot introduced last year that allows companies to put on a single platform both Allot's deep packet inspection (DPI) technology and "adjacent applications" such as a partner's quality monitoring or security products, says Cam Cullen, Allot's Director of Product Management for the Americas.
Through a partnership with PeerApp, Allot is integrating its own DPI and application-identification technologies with PeerApp's media caching and acceleration technology to optimize the delivery of video and P2P content over the Internet.
Deployed together, Allot's DPI engine identifies Internet video streams in real time and redirects them to PeerApp's UltraBand platform, which uses caching technology to free up bandwidth and speed the download process.
"When the DPI product sees that this is the type of product being requested by the user, rather than trying to prioritize that traffic - which would be a traditional DPI usage - what we're doing is redirecting that traffic to PeerApp's cache appliance," Cullen says.
Participants for McBride's Millennials Experiment
Excerpted from Music Week Report by Robert Ashton
Executives from all sectors of the music, gaming, and advertising industries are volunteering to take part in MusicTank's experimental "Face-to-Face with the Millennials" event later this month.
Nettwerk Music Group CEO Terry McBride wants to create a working "roadmap to tomorrow's business" for an up-and-coming British act using his recently-published report on the Millennials demographic - people born in the early Eighties - as a blueprint.
He will also encourage input from an array of industry executives, including Last.fm's Martin Stiksel, Warp Records' Steven Hill, 7Digital's Ian Bell, KLP's Kim Machray, Record-Play's Daniel Cross, and Woodwork Music's Rachel Wood.
An act has been chosen to be given the McBride makeover. No names are being revealed yet, but the band is currently releasing its second single; has already enjoyed media attention from Radio One, Xfm, NME, and The Guardian; and is slated to play a number of festivals this summer.
Russell Hart and Peter Ruppert, respectively CEO and President of Entertainment Media Research, will provide a UK focus to the significance Millennials play in helping break artists and bands. They will also assess the trajectory of acts broken by Millennials as they develop and attract a new and different audience. All of this will be supported with up-to-the-minute analysis and insight.
McBride will kick off the event, which takes place on July 17th at the Imagination Gallery in London, with a speech explaining why constant experimentation is key to success. Issues he is expected to cover include activating P2P communities, mash-up culture, the future of band and brand relationships, mobile content, and video games.
Following a Q&A, McBride's thesis will be put to the test by BBC 6Music presenter and songwriter Tom Robinson, interviewing a panel of UK Millennials who will set the record straight on free music, online communities, aligning bands with brands, and what works for them.
The final part of the day will see the act, its management, and leading representatives from digital distributors, e-tailers, marketing companies, promoters, sync specialists, video game developers, and beyond, working with McBride to create the act's 12 month road map.
Delegates will explore new ways of converting the act's tribe of fans into active agents working towards the artists' success. This will include experimenting with fan mixes, brand deals, releasing via the fan base, and P2P communities. When a roadmap for the act is finalized and set into motion, the band's progress will then be followed closely over the next 12 months via the MusicTank newsletter.
Ignite Technologies Appoints Jeffrey Toney as Sales SVP
Ignite Technologies, a leader in providing secure and scalable content delivery solutions enabling customers to efficiently publish, deliver, and manage digital assets, this week announced the appointment of Jeff Toney as Senior Vice President, Sales.
Jeff brings over 24 years of experience working with various growth-based software companies. At Ignite, Jeff will be responsible for overall sales strategy, sales operations, and channel management.
"Jeff brings an extensive skill set in corporate sales leadership, and specific experience with companies that require a consulting-based sales solution," said Jim Janicki, President & CEO at Ignite.
"As our enterprise customer base continues to grow and rich media increases within the enterprise, Jeff will enable Ignite to ensure our customers deploy an enterprise-wide, comprehensive content delivery solution."
Prior to Ignite, Jeff was the VP of Strategic Sales and Business Development at Fuego, the industry pioneer in Business Process Management (BPM) Software. Before Fuego, Jeff led domestic and international sales organizations at webMethods, Raytheon, Netscape Communications, USA Video Interactive, and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). He has a Bachelors of Business Administration in Computer Information Systems from the University of North Texas.
CDNs: A Detailed Analysis of Different Strategies
Excerpted from Generator Research Report
A new Generator Research report clearly illustrates the problems of content delivery networks (CDNs) in distributing legitimate video content on a mass scale over the Internet and offers a roadmap for addressing those problems.
The report analyzes the cost implications of four alternative video content distribution strategies, which are: 1) hosted, no local cache (parasitic transit & paid-for transit); 2) hosted, local caches; 3) hybrid (P2P and local caches); and 4) network aware, pure P2P.
The report first explains the cost and performance implications of delivering video traffic over the Internet. Peering and transit relationships are then explained so that the cost implications of sending large volumes of Internet video traffic among Internet networks can be quantified.
The report then describes a detailed network model that has been used to analyze each of the four content distribution strategies. The model includes 9.25 million homes, two markets, three ISPs, one Internet television service provider, two transit networks and two Internet exchange points.
The report then analyzes the contention ratio that is applicable for Internet television, which is dramatically different from the 30:1 that has been historically used by ISPs.
In each of the next four sections, the report includes a network architecture diagram, numerous tables, and a clear explanation of how the video traffic flows around the various networks used in the model. The cost implications of adding content servers and delivering traffic among networks are clearly defined.
The final part of the report contains a comparison table that offers an "at a glance" comparison of the cost implications of the four different content distribution strategies on ISPs and the Internet television service provider.
How to Design State Sharing in a Peer Network
Excerpted from MSDN Magazine Report by Kevin Hoffman
In recent years, people have started to discover the amazing power and functionality that can be provided by an application that communicates over a peer network. So-called peer applications cover the gamut from simple file sharing to instant messaging (IM) to full-on collaborative applications such as shared white-boarding, Voice over IP (VoIP) calling and conferencing, social networking, and much more.
Think about how your Xbox 360 automatically detects the presence of another computer running Windows Media Center and can immediately begin sharing audio and video with that computer, allowing you to play music from your computer on your Xbox. Wouldn't it be great if business applications sported the same kind of peer awareness and capability?
Think about how pleased your customers would be if someone created a new record from their desktop and everybody else within the organization using that application immediately saw that new record and you didn't have to install and configure a central server to make that happen.
This article is all about peer-enabling business applications by allowing them to "share state" in a serverless peer network. Please click here for the entire piece.
FCC Network Management Inquiry Seen Ending
Excerpted from Communications Daily Report by Jonathan Make
An FCC network management inquiry on Comcast (CD June 17 p2) seems to be ending. Staffers appear to have nearly all information they're thought to deem necessary for FCC action, said agency and industry officials.
The FCC is "still considering all pleadings and the best course of action," said a spokeswoman. Chairman Martin consistently has said the Commission has authority to enforce the Internet freedom principles under Title I, and that authority has been upheld by the Supreme Court, she said.
Martin has pushed for consumer rights in which ISPs clearly describe any limits on use of the bandwidth they buy, she added. Martin has signaled that if ISPs slow content, they must show they do so for all application providers.
"While we pursue policies to spur competition among broadband platforms, we must also work to preserve the open character of the Internet," Martin told a June 17th meeting of the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development meeting in Seoul, South Korea. The FCC released the remarks Tuesday.
If Martin asks Commissioners to vote, an FCC meeting likely to occur September 25th is a probable occasion, industry and Commission officials said. A vote outside a meeting is unlikely given the inquiry's high profile, said telecom lawyers and others.
The item likely will be voted on "because it's such an important decision," Free Press General Counsel Marvin Ammori said. "The FCC should be in its last stages because we've already had two rounds of comments, two public hearings, and testimony from Internet experts. All the facts have been gathered, and, hopefully, the Commission will get to a decision as quickly as they can."
September seems to be the soonest the Commission can act, a communications lawyer said. But the Chairman hasn't signaled when or even if he'll seek a vote, Commission and industry officials said.
Martin could issue a decision more quickly by bypassing fellow Commissioners and having the Enforcement Bureau issue an item.
One high-technology executive hopes the Commission does nothing, because industry is working out ways ISPs can improve the efficiency with which they manage P2P transmissions without slowing them down.
"More can be done by tapping the ISPs and the software developers" and having them work together "than by having government step in and try to do a rulemaking," said CEO Marty Lafferty of the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA).
"A concern that we have about premature or blunt force regulation is that it would tend to dampen innovation."
Verizon and Comcast are among a number of ISPs taking part in trials with leading P2P company Pando of a new protocol, called P4P, designed to streamline P2P, said Lafferty.
Other participants include cable operators and telcos as well as international ISPs. "It's a very good way to test any sort of circumstance" involving diverse "network architectures and conditions," Lafferty said.
Results of current tests under DCIA's P4P Working Group (P4PWG) will be publicized August 4th at the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT in San Jose, CA, Lafferty said.
Then, in August or September, the group will test P2P products by Kontiki, Vuze, and possibly others in addition to Pando's, he added.
Verizon Can Use Statutory Distant TV Licenses
Excerpted from Telecommunications Reports Daily Report by Lynn Stanton
In a report to Congress on licenses and royalties for programming carried on satellite and cable television systems, the Copyright Office said it finds no statutory obstacle to the use of Copyright Act Section 111 licenses to retransmit distant broadcast signals by Internet protocol (IP)-based video services, such as those offered by Verizon.
However, the Copyright Office urged Congress either to adopt a flat fee system for royalties or to define "headend" in the context of national IP-based systems, since royalties are calculated based on gross receipts from operations sharing a single headend.
It also suggested amending Section 111 to state "that all users of the license must comply with all current Title III and Title VI requirements found in the Communications Act pertaining to the carriage, distribution, and protection of local television broadcast stations. This would include the mandatory carriage provisions in Sections 614 and 615 of the Act as well as the retransmission consent provisions of Section 325.
Regarding the distribution of programming over the Internet, the report says that the Copyright Office "continues to oppose an Internet statutory license that would permit any website on the Internet to retransmit television programming without the consent of the copyright owner. Such a measure, if enacted, would effectively wrest control away from program producers who make significant investments in content and who power the creative engine in the US economy."
The report was delivered to Congress June 30th.
"Heroes" Producer Sees Upside to File Sharing
Excerpted from Wired News Report by Betsy Schiffman
Jesse Alexander, co-producer of "Heroes" and "Lost," says file sharing isn't all bad. It's mighty big of him to admit, given that P2P downloads of "Heroes" and "Lost" can run up to 10 million per week.
Alexander sees the silver lining. "People watching shows such as 'Lost' and 'Heroes' on BitTorrent is the present world reality," Alexander told TorrentFreak.
"TV networks have to recognize this, give their viewers more ways to interact with the shows, and find ways to generate revenue from every member of the global audience."
Incidentally, Alexander is also reportedly working on a 13-part TV show about piracy.
Filmmaker Michael Moore has a similar take: He has said on the record that he doesn't have a problem with people who download his movies, as long as they don't make a profit from it.
"The Nines" Director: Forget Sundance, Use P2P Instead
Excerpted from NewTeeVee Report
John August, director of "The Nines," has just published a lengthy article about his experience with the indie movie, including its Sundance screening, BitTorrent, and the competitive art-house film scene.
August made his name as a screenwriter for movies like "Big Fish," "Charlie's Angels," and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." "The Nines" was August's directorial debut - and an unexpectedly significant learning experience. "The release of the movie was deeply disappointing," he writes.
He would absolutely do the movie again, he says, except that this time he'd just upload the whole thing onto P2P networks himself.
The Nines premiered at Sundance last year. While it managed to get some buzz from the festival audience, it ended up making less than $100,000 from its theatrical release, prompting August to write that, "Sundance buzz is annoying and meaningless." The low numbers can be at least partly attributed to the fact that the movie never got beyond a limited release in three cities.
"It didn't feel like it at the time, but the theatrical release was really a token, contractually obligated gesture," writes August.
More importantly, theatrical releases mean release windows. So the movie opened in theaters in September 2007, but wasn't released onto DVD until the end of January, when everybody but the most hardcore film buffs had already forgotten about it. Lesson learned, according to August: "The smart thing would have been having the DVD come out immediately."
And then there is the P2P factor. "The Nines" leaked onto BitTorrent two weeks before its DVD release. August, as he made clear in a comment to TorrentFreak, wasn't too upset about the leak: "I'm not bouncy with joy over my movie getting torrented, but I think it's a stretch to equate unlawful downloading with traditional theft," he was quoted as saying.
In fact, the torrent version helped to get the word out. August now thinks he could have utilized that buzz better if he had embraced P2P himself and leaked the movie ahead of the theatrical release, complete with the URL of the film's website as a visible watermark.
He's quick to admit that P2P probably wouldn't have helped "The Nines" to become a blockbuster. But he believes that it would have at least helped to generate more attention from film fans.
Writes August: "Ultimately, I think that's how you need to measure the success of an indie film's release: how many people saw it."
NBC's Online Olympics Policy: Win for Unauthorized P2P
Excerpted from Silicon Alley Insider Report by Micahel Learmonth
Is NBC going to botch the Beijing Games online? Looks that way.
The network is planning an unprecedented 2,200 hours of live coverage on the web - far more than the 1,400 hours on six NBC U-owned TV channels.
Good, right? One very big catch: the network won't allow you to watch anything it thinks it has mass appeal - that is, anything it intends to air on its own broadcast - until it has shown it on TV, the AP reports. Contrary to the AP report, however, NBC says "some" events will be simulcast live on TV and NBCOlympics.com.
In addition, NBC U is banning the use of any Olympic video online by other news organizations covering the event. Video from the Olympic trials, going on now, must come down on August 7th, the day before the games begin.
NBC U paid $800 million for the US rights to the Beijing Olympics alone, and $3.5 billion for five Olympic games through 2008. The Olympics are a vast money-losing operation for NBC, meant to provide a ratings halo for the network's other shows and help promote the fall TV season. NBC expects to lose even more money on the online broadcast, but nevertheless sees it as an opportunity to build an audience that will surely seek coverage elsewhere if NBC doesn't provide it.
But by trying to embargo video online, NBC threatens to sabotage its own efforts, by giving unlicensed P2P and other unauthorized sites a de-facto monopoly on live online coverage of the games' most popular events.
NBC U says it can stop this via enforcement. The company says it is working with 100 of the biggest video sites on the web to get them to take down unauthorized video, and it is watermarking each second of video that comes out of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) feed, to make takedowns easier.
But that's just going to make taped footage scarce on legitimate video sites. It won't do anything to keep infringing TV feeds, or video shot by fans, from being uploaded to P2P files-haring services.
To see how this works, take a look at our coverage of Euro 2008 for an extensive list of unauthorized sources of live sports, as well as sources of ripped foreign feeds.
NBC U actually has the opportunity to make infringement irrelevant.
Not by fruitless crackdown efforts, but by ditching the antiquated notion that online coverage of live sports hurts TV ratings. One need look no farther than CBS's March Madness, or NBC's own online coverage of the US Open to see that's not the case.
So: if you want to watch fencing or kayaking live online in August, NBC has you covered. If you want to watch gymnastics, swimming, or any other marquee event on your browser, you're going to have to move your eyeballs elsewhere.
Virgin Defends File-Sharing Campaign
Excerpted from BBC Newsbeat Report by Jim Reed
Virgin Media has told Newsbeat there is "absolutely no possibility" of taking legal action or banning Internet users as part of a campaign against unauthorized file sharing on its broadband network.
The firm has sent 800 letters to customers over the last month warning that they should not be using "unauthorized peer-to-peer networks" like BitTorrent or LimeWire to swap copyrighted songs.
The individuals were identified by the music industry body, the BPI, as part of a wider investigation into the sharing of music files over the Internet.
The record industry wants all broadband companies to cut off users that continue to swap copyrighted songs on sites like The Pirate Bay and Isohunt.
Letters seen by Newsbeat came in an envelope labeled, "Important. If you don't read this, your broadband could be disconnected."
Virgin now claims that phrase was a "mistake" and it is running an "education-only" campaign that does not make any sort of judgment about the activity of its users.
Asam Ahmad from Virgin said, "It is important to let our customers know that their accounts have been used in a certain way but we are happy to accept it may not be the account holder that's involved.
"It could be someone else in the family or someone living in a shared house. It could even be someone stealing WiFi. We are not making any form of accusation."
In theory the BPI could still take legal action against individuals it thinks are sharing files online.
But Virgin says it will not share the names of identified customers with the music industry body "under any circumstances."
But some Virgin customers have told Newsbeat they are unhappy with the campaign.
Keith from Wimbledon said, "Virgin is there to perform the service that I pay for. If they are not going to let me view or download what I want, I will move across to another company."
Newsbeat went to see one of the 800 Virgin customers who have already been sent a warning letter.
Will McGree was living with his girlfriend and two flatmates in a shared house in Cardiff.
He received a letter in June claiming that his account had been used to copy a single Amy Winehouse track from a file-sharing network.
Will told Newsbeat the date and time of the alleged download did not add up.
"It was at 8am on a Tuesday morning," he said. "I checked with my flatmates and we can all guarantee we haven't copied anything, especially not this track."
"I suppose it is possible that someone accessed our wireless network from outside the flat but, beyond that, it definitely wasn't one of us."
"The campaign is doomed to fail. Virgin will lose a lot of customers over this because people don't like to be accused of stealing music over their morning coffee."
"It made me feel betrayed. I was under the impression that I paid a broadband company to keep my Internet connection protected from organizations like the BPI."
Asam Ahmad from Virgin said, "We are protecting our customers' interests by making them aware of the issue, so they can make an informed decision about how their connections are used."
"We want our customers to enjoy music safely and without the risks associated with sharing music without permission."
Both the music and film industries are increasingly worried about the growing popularity of file sharing networks on the Internet.
According to a recent survey by another organization, British Music Rights, 63% of 14-24 year olds in the UK say they swap files using a system like BitTorrent while 42% have let other users upload music from their computers.
The music industry has been lobbying the government to force broadband companies to do more to stop file sharing.
Ministers have now set a deadline of next Spring for both sides to come to a voluntary agreement or it says it might push through new laws to force the issue.
Virgin Media is the first major broadband company to co-operate with the BPI in a meaningful way, although both BT and Tiscali have sent a small number of warning letters to customers in the past.
Other providers have refused to sign up to the scheme.
The boss of Carphone Warehouse said earlier this year that, "We do not control the Internet nor do we control what our users do on the Internet."
The BPI has told the BBC it could decide to take broadband companies to court if they continue to ignore unlicensed downloading.
Privacy Pundits Lambaste Judge in YouTube Case
Excerpted from The Online Examiner Report by Wendy Davis
Privacy advocates are condemning a federal judge's ruling ordering Google to give Viacom information about which users watched what videos on YouTube.
Viacom had asked for the information as part of its $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against video-sharing site YouTube. Viacom aims to show that a large proportion of clips watched on the site are infringing.
The judge in the case, Louis Stanton, ruled in Google's favor in significant respects. He ruled that Google need not reveal its search formula or details of its ad platform. But he also ruled that Viacom could obtain data about users' activity on YouTube, including their screen names and IP addresses.
He held that such logs didn't compromise users' privacy because screen names are pseudonymous. Additionally, he wrote, IP addresses alone can't identify users. To support the latter proposition, he quoted Google's public policy blog, which argued that IP addresses should not be considered personally identifiable information (PII).
Pundits lost no time in criticizing that holding. "I say this with the utmost respect, but Judge Stanton is a moron. And Google simply cannot hand this data over without facing a class action lawsuit of staggering proportions," writes Michael Arrington of TechCrunch.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) also takes Stanton to task. "The Court's erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights, and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube. We urge Viacom to back off this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users," the group said in a statement.
In fact, whether IP addresses should be considered personally identifiable is a subject of huge debate. Regulators in Europe have indicated that IP addresses are personal data. Google, which stores uses' search queries by IP address, contests that notion, arguing that in most cases, IP addresses can't in themselves be used to identify specific users. Google says it needs to keep IP logs of search requests to improve its search engine and to fight click fraud.
In the US, privacy advocates and search engines have faced off on this issue, but without any resolution.
The EFF and other observers have pointed to AOL's "Data Valdez" - the data breach that occurred when an employee posted three months' worth of search queries for 650,000 users - as proof that IP addresses can reveal identity. But there, it wasn't the IP addresses that revealed people's identities; rather, it was the substance of the searches. The IP addresses had been "anonymized," but people's identities were ascertainable because they typed their names or addresses or other key information into the query box.
With YouTube, it's not clear that simply knowing what videos were watched will reveal people's identity the same way that learning their search history could. Still, it could happen. Additionally, as the EFF points out, YouTube users didn't have the opportunity to come into court and oppose Viacom's request. For that reason alone, Stanton should rethink his decision.
MPAA Helps Land Criminal Conviction in P2P Piracy Case
Excerpted from CNET News Report by Steven Musil
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has helped convict an administrator for EliteTorrents.org, a P2P site, of felony copyright infringement and conspiracy, the US Justice Department announced Friday.
Daniel Dove, 26, of Clintwood, VA, was the first criminal conviction after jury trial for P2P copyright infringement and the eighth overall resulting from a federal crackdown called Operation D-Elite that targeted administrators and people who provided content that was distributed through the BitTorrent hub.
The case began in 2005, when federal agents raided and shut down the popular website that had distributed copyrighted music and movies, including "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith."
At that time, Homeland Security agents from several divisions served search warrants on ten people around the country suspected of being involved with the EliteTorrents site, and took over the group's main server.
According to prosecutors, EliteTorrents attracted more than 125,000 members and assisted in the unauthorized distribution of about 700 movies, which were downloaded more than 1.1 million times.
According to the Justice Department, Dove led a group of "uploaders" that supplied unlicensed content to the group, as well as recruiting members with ultra-fast broadband connections to become uploaders. Prosecutors also said Dove operated a high-speed server himself.
The MPAA "provided substantial assistance" to the investigation, the Justice Department said. Dove faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced in September.
Scott McCausland, who used to be an administrator of the EliteTorrents server before the raid, pleaded guilty in 2006 to two copyright-related charges over the uploading of "Star Wars: Episode III" to the Internet. As a result, he was sentenced to five months in jail and five months' home confinement.
McCausland - a Linux user - reported in 2007 that the terms of his sentence meant he would have to install Windows if he wanted to use a computer during his probation.
Coming Events of Interest
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. The DCIA will conduct a P2P session.
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.
Streaming Media West - September 23rd-25th in San Jose, CA. The only show that covers both the business of online video and the technology of P2PTV, streaming, downloading, webcasting, Internet TV, IPTV, and mobile video. Covering both corporate and consumer business, technology, and content issues in the enterprise, advertising, media and entertainment, broadcast, and education markets. The DCIA will conduct a P2P session.
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV - January 7th in Las Vegas, NV. This is the DCIA's must-attend event for everyone interested in monetizing content using P2P and related technologies. Keynotes, panels, and workshops on the latest breakthroughs. This DCIA flagship event is a Conference within CES - the Consumer Electronics Show.
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