September 15, 2008
Volume XXIII, Issue 7
First-Ever Global P2P & MUSIC CONFERENCE
Don't miss the DCIA's inaugural international P2P & MUSIC CONFERENCE scheduled to take place at PopKomm in Berlin, Germany on Friday October 10th.
Keynote speakers include QTRAX's Allan Klepfisz, Octoshape's Stephen Alstrup, LimeWire's Kevin Bradshaw, Unlimited Media's Memo Rhein, Double V3's Benjamin Masse, HIRO Media's Ariel Napchi, We7's Clive Gardiner, Grooveshark's Sam Tarantino, and DowLohnes' Jim Burger.
Panelists include CUGate's Thomas Reemer, Soyuz Music's Alexej Aliaev, YouLicense's Maor Ezer, Shanghai Media Group's Jean Hsiao Wernheim, Media Universum's Alexander Kessel, You Bloom's Stuart Worthington, TAG Strategic's Ted Cohen, Finetunes' Tom Guenther, The Orchard's Scott Cohen, IODA's Erik Gilbert, Javien Digital Payment Solutions' Leslie Poole, Fraunhofer Institute's Karlheinz Brandenburg, PacketExchange's Andy Bills, AHT International's Ron Van Herk, Double V3's Martine Groulx, arvato mobile's Jan Marc Kuelper, MediaDefender's Jonathan Lee, Copyright Alliance's Patrick Ross, Feldman Weinstein & Smith's Lawrence Langs, Creative Commons' Markus Beckedahl, RightsFlow's Patrick Sullivan, and New Media Law's Ian Penman. More speakers will be announced.
Special pre-registration rates are available now, which save attendees $100 over regular registration fees and include free admission to PopKomm.
Marillion Harnesses P2P Power for Album Release
Marillion made history this week by leveraging the power of P2P networks for distribution of its new album.
The band partnered with Internet technology company Music Glue to harness the authorized use of P2P services for the release of Happiness is the Road, its fifteenth studio album.
After downloading a song, an interactive window appears on the music fan's computer with a video message from Marillion, telling them about the new album, the band's latest news, the forthcoming Marillion tour, plus products and merchandise available at Marillion's website.
Music fans can listen to the track and have the option to join an e-mail fan club allowing access to a DRM-free version of the track.
By using the Music Glue model, Marillion is embracing the worldwide super-distribution of P2P networks to connect with downloaders, enabling an interactive dialog with millions of potential new fans.
On adopting this new model for distribution, Marillion's keyboard player Mark Kelly said, "We want to know who our file-sharing fans are. If they like our new album enough, then we want them to pay for it or come and see us on tour. Music Glue is the means to achieve this goal."
Music Glue founder Mark Meharry added, "Until now, fans that acquire music via P2P networks have been treated as thieves by the global recording industry. From a commercial point of view, P2P provides access to more fans, on a global scale, than ever thought possible via traditional distribution methods."
"Young, modern music fans are loyal and financially supportive of the artists they love, by purchasing gig tickets and merchandise, plus they happily consume sponsored branding as part of the overall experience."
"Music Glue allows creators of music to interact with these fans via P2P in a positive way that generates revenue. Our model requires a paradigm shift away from the traditional legal perspective and forward to commercial common sense."
Marillion has sold more than 15 million albums in a career spanning three decades and the release of "Happiness is the Road" also sees the band embarking on a string of live dates across the UK this fall.
RightsFlow & YouLicense Partner for Music Licensing
YouLicense, the global online music licensing platform, and RightsFlow, the outsourced music licensing company, have partnered to offer synchronization and private label licensing solutions for record labels and content owners.
The CEOs of both companies will be featured speakers at the upcoming P2P & MUSIC CONFERENCE in Berlin.
This new partnership establishes a platform for artists and labels to participate in YouLicense's licensing marketplace directly connecting them with music buyers seeking music for film, television, advertisements, games, and web entertainment.
RightsFlow will work to bring content owners such as indie artists, labels, and publishers, to YouLicense along with helping to acquire white-label clients.
The private label solution provides an opportunity to increase sales and revenue by offering a direct licensing store that can be set-up on the owners' websites. The licensing store is a safe, secure, and branded environment.
"We cannot be more pleased with this partnership between YouLicense and RightsFlow," said YouLicense CEO Maor Ezer.
"These two services truly go hand-in-hand and will be beneficial to artists and businesses alike. The concept of music licensing is known to be complicated and expensive. The shared goal between YouLicense and RightsFlow is to break down the limitations and simplify the process."
"RightsFlow is proud to be working with YouLicense and helping the market develop with new and exciting business opportunities," said Patrick Sullivan, President & CEO of RightsFlow.
"YouLicense provides a much needed, easy-to-use system for artists and labels to position their music for key decision makers in the global synch market - all while retaining their rights," added Alex Holz, Director of Client Relations for RightsFlow.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 We hope to see you next week at Streaming Media West (SMW) and the CAN P2P DELIVER ON ITS PROMISE FOR VIDEO DISTRIBUTION session in San Jose, CA; and in three weeks at PopKomm and the P2P & MUSIC CONFERENCE in Berlin, Germany.
P2P technology continues to be a lightning rod for controversy in the online video industry. Our SMW panel will bring together BitTorrent's Eric Klinker, Verizon's Doug Pasko, Comcast's Barry Tishgart, and Cushman & Wakefield's Brian Jensen to address key questions including these:
Will the efficiencies that the most promising implementations of P2P promise to deliver prevail, or will the pitfalls of copyright infringement, network throttling, and other legacy issues prevent P2P from realizing its full potential? Which of the many P2P video distribution entrants will be most successful? Which will fail, and why? What more is needed for P2PTV to thrive in both live and download environments? Many other questions will also be addressed in this interactive session.
In Berlin, our focus will be on the equally kinetic situation regarding P2P in the online music industry. DCINFO's first article (above) lists sector leading speakers from all over the world who will come together to address key questions at this historic first-ever event, including these:
How can massive piracy in China and Russia be overcome so that these regions enter the global community for music distribution? Can P2P music business models be tailored for these markets? Or by analyzing what is happening in these territories is the West simply looking into its own future?
What has been the impact of online file sharing on the music industry since the advent of Napster? What lessons have been learned and what have been missed? Are closed or highly filtered systems the only P2P solutions of value for music distribution? How can the phenomena of social networking and user-generated content (UGC) be monetized by the music industry using P2P technologies?
What digital rights management (DRM), content delivery network (CDN), recommendation engine, networked hardware, and other technological solutions are now in development that will optimize P2P deployment for the benefit of music distribution stakeholders? How are music rights holders exploiting P2P today and what issues remain? Can the open file-sharing marketplace be harnessed or is anti-piracy enforcement the only technologically sound approach?
What are the various content licensing and market exploitation strategies that have been tried to date with respect to P2P distribution? How and why is collective licensing gaining traction in some geographic regions and should this be applied globally? What should the roles and responsibilities be for P2P companies, ISPs, CDNs, and other parties in an optimal but practical P2P music licensing regime?
At both SMW and PopKomm, in the public sessions and in myriad private meetings, we will be discussing solutions and exploring approaches that will work for all participants in the P2P distribution chain, including content rights holders, Internet service providers (ISPs), and P2P companies.
We will explore progress being made on the part of content rights holders in offering licenses, as suggested by this week's announcement from YouLicense and RightsFlow, to ISPs and P2P companies, for innovative new online business models. At the same time, we will seek to understand what content rights holders are looking for from ISPs and P2Ps in protecting against unauthorized distribution of copyrighted works.
Most important to the success of these evolving approaches will be their impact on consumers' ability to access high-quality content on attractive terms-and-conditions while also respecting copyright.
We also want to look into advances being made on the part of ISPs in providing sufficient bandwidth and employing equitable network management practices for a growing panoply of rich-media services that exploit the unique advantages of P2P technologies. We want to know what ISPs are coming to expect from content rights holders and P2Ps in new distribution business models and network-friendly bandwidth consumption solutions.
Most critical to the success of these developing policies will be their impact on consumers' ability to obtain reliable transparent broadband service while also restraining from excessive bandwidth use.
Finally, we want to advocate the willingness of P2P companies to work with content rights holders on unauthorized content filtering and with ISPs on cooperative approaches to bandwidth utilization.
The P2P industry is working hard to make itself attractive as a secure marketplace for super-distribution so that licensing and marketing support will flow from content rights holders, and at the same time to show ISPs how P2P can be even more beneficial to network providers as an extremely flexible and highly efficient content-transmission technology.
Essential to continued growth and success of these transitioning P2P strategies will be their impact on consumers' ability to obtain live and pre-recorded content seamlessly while also contributing to network resources so that P2P-based benefits accrue to all participants.
In many respects, in fact, end-user acceptance will be the driver for continued progress across the board. In the most basic terms, consumers want compelling new offerings that reflect technological progress, reasonable treatment including privacy and security, and clear disclosures from content rights holders, ISPs, and P2P companies.
What they can offer in return is compliance with the equivalent of vastly simplified end-user license agreements (EULAs) and the like, or in other words, living up to their part of what they perceive as a fair and equitable bargain. Share wisely, and take care.
EU's P2P Project Makes Everyone a Broadcaster
Excerpted from EE Times Report by Junko Yoshida
It was almost a decade ago when Napster's P2P file-sharing network first raised the ire of the music industry. The lawsuit filed by Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in late 1999 eventually drove Napster to shut down its service in 2002.
Fast forward to today, nine years later.
A consortium of European broadcasters, academia, and technology companies is hoping to turn P2P on its head to create a next-generation P2P content delivery platform, by connecting millions of TV sets at home.
By bringing the P2P technology to living-room TV, this newly proposed P2P platform will let a consumer broadcast a live stream - whether his or her own content or TV channel - to millions of Internet users.
This is a radical idea, since the proposed P2P content delivery signals would allow anyone to become a "broadcaster."
But this is the premise for the next-generation content delivery platform envisioned by the European Union-funded P2P-Next research project.
The consortium members include BBC, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Munich-based Broadcast Technology Institute (IRT), Technical University of Delft, and technology companies such as Pioneer and STMicroelectronics.
The P2P-Next group is demonstrating this week at IBC 2008 what it calls the world's first live P2P streaming of professional content to low-cost set-top boxes (STBs) using an open-source P2P video delivery platform.
"There is no reason to believe that P2P will go away," said Mark Stuart, R&D Manager of Pioneer Digital Design Center, who serves as technical director of the P2P-Next project.
Rather than fight it, he said that the group proposes: "Why not embrace it for more efficient video content delivery?"
Guiding Internet Traffic Beats Throttling It
Excerpted from New Scientist Report
Growth in P2P downloading has led some ISPs to limit or "throttle" connection speeds to preserve bandwidth for everyone else. But the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle has hit on a promising alternative.
Bottlenecks occur most when people download P2P content that is stored a long way from their homes; Internet links over thousands of kilometers (km) get tied up delivering it.
But the new scheme, called Proactive Provider Participation for P2P or P4P, could ease the load. It involves ISPs supplying P2P software applications with data on the shortest routes between peers, as well as network traffic reports that identify uncongested routes.
In tests, P4P cut the average trip of a P2P data packet from 1,600 km to just 250 km, reducing overall load by about 80%, a Seattle conference on the Internet heard last week.
P2P Is Coming to YouTube
Excerpted from NewTeeVee Report by Janko Roettgers
It looks like the idea of a P2P-powered YouTube is finally becoming reality. Singapore-based P2P start-up PPLive, is experimenting with a P2P accelerator for Flash video streams. The application, which is dubbed PPVA, essentially distributes the stream of any popular Flash video from sites like YouTube via P2P without any involvement of the hosting server.
PPLive began a Chinese-language only beta test of PPVA in June, and says it already clocked more than 10 million downloads, with the maximum number of simultaneous users being as high as 500,000. We tested PPVA with some popular YouTube videos, and the results are intriguing - especially if you consider what this could mean for online video hosters and content delivery networks (CDNs) alike.
PPVA, which is so far only available for Windows, is essentially a small plug-in that just sits in your task bar until it detects a Flash video stream. The app then finds out whether other PPVA users have accessed and cached the same clip; if that's the case, it will request some of the data from them. A small status window shows where the data for each clip comes from, as well as other details.
So how well does it work? That really depends on the popularity of the clip. Access one of YouTube's most popular videos, and only the first few bytes are requested from the server. After that, P2P distribution kicks in and that number quickly rises to 100%. Other popular videos show P2P distribution rates of around 30%, whereas more obscure stuff comes straight from YouTube's servers.
The potential implications of something like PPVA are huge. Google could save a whole bunch of money on YouTube traffic without actually doing a thing, and smaller hosters could avoid embarrassing server downtime that so commonly occurs when a clip suddenly becomes popular. PPVA could also make P2P CDN offerings like BitTorrent's DNA obsolete. After all, why would anyone pay for P2P content distribution if users can do it for free?
Of course, some content providers might be uneasy about not being asked whether they want their videos distributed via P2P. This becomes an even bigger issue when advertisers start requesting more detailed statistics about online video usage. PPLive told us that every video gets an initial request from the hosting server, which should allow video hosters to keep a tally of requests and viewers. But Google is reportedly moving towards a more detailed statistical analysis that looks at which parts of a video are being watched and which are skipped. PPVA could seriously distort these statistics.
Does that mean Google will get upset about PPLive's experiment? Only if they're hypocrites: Google invested $5 million in a Chinese P2P startup called Xunlei in late 2006. And guess what? Xunlei's download manager is doing for files pretty much the same thing PPVA is doing for video streams, speeding up http downloads through P2P without consent of the original hosting provider.
An English-language version of the plug-in will be available in about a month. Asked about ways to monetize PPVA, PPLive's James Seng had this to say, "It's new. It's cool. We will figure out the rest later."
Solid State Networks Partners with Funcom for Games
Content delivery software maker Solid State Networks, the leading developer of game and patch delivery solutions, this week announced a partnership with leading independent game developer and publisher Funcom to launch new digital delivery solutions that meet the ongoing challenges of distributing large videogame files via the Internet.
"Solid State's technology has enabled us to extend our game experience, starting with the launch of 'Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures,' to our gamers in new ways. Solid State Networks understands gaming and game delivery and continues to demonstrate its ability to create solutions that help us to overcome the challenges of delivering large games electronically to a global audience," commented Trond Ystanes, Operations Manager for Funcom.
"We are extremely excited to announce our partnership because it represents an opportunity to make significant steps in the evolution of game delivery."
Solid State has been working with Funcom since April to deliver the beta releases of "Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures," culminating with an early access program, which made the game available for purchase to a select group of beta testers one week prior to the retail launch. Funcom and Solid State successfully delivered the title to over 100,000 players in a matter of days, generating more than 2 petabytes of data transfer.
Solid State deployed its software solution, which includes secure P2P capabilities based on the BitTorrent protocol, in conjunction with the content delivery network (CDN) provided by Highwinds Network Group, thereby creating a true hybrid CDN/P2P delivery solution.
In June, Funcom expanded the use of Solid State's solutions to support the distribution of "Anarchy Online." Today, the companies are working closely together to incorporate Solid State's technology in a manner that addresses challenges associated with taking the online game experience to new audiences on a variety of platforms.
"We are honored to partner with Funcom because they continue to push the envelope when it comes to game development, and in doing so, they are elevating the challenges of delivering and keeping those games updated," said Rick Buonincontri, Founder & CEO of Solid State Networks.
"We are proud to be playing such a crucial role in delivering Funcom's games to players around the world, and we will continue to strive to deliver the ultimate game acquisition experience as Funcom expands to other platforms and develops future projects."
Separately, Solid State Networks this week also announced a new version of the company's patch delivery software. Solid Axis CURRENT Version 2.0 includes substantial functionality and patch management additions, which enable game developers and publishers to integrate this technology into their existing patching mechanisms via an application programming interface (API).
Solid State Networks will feature the new patching solution at the Game Developer's Conference (GDC) in Austin, TX beginning September 15th in booth 321. The company will also host a session entitled "Keep Your Gamers Current -- Best Practices for Seamless, Reliable Patch Delivery" on Tuesday at 3:00 PM in Room 2.
PeerApp Announces New Customers in Global Markets
PeerApp, the leader in intelligent media caching and content acceleration solutions for the video Internet, today announced the addition of six new Internet service provider (ISP) customers in China, Brazil, Central America, and the Middle East.
Faced with the rapidly increasing levels of video traffic, these ISPs selected PeerApp's UltraBand products to manage P2P and HTTP application traffic growth, reduce network infrastructure and bandwidth costs, and deliver a great consumer experience. UltraBand systems are now producing these benefits for 50 ISP networks in more than 25 countries.
One of PeerApp's newest customers, Guangzhou Radio and Television (GZ CATV), is a cable operator serving more than 600,000 broadband subscribers in China's Guangzhou Province. As a leader in the fastest-growing broadband market in the world, GZ CATV has experienced a rapid increase of P2P and HTTP-based video streaming traffic.
"Video content is consuming an increasingly significant portion of our bandwidth. In addition, we wanted to have a video caching solution in place prior to the 2008 Olympics in anticipation of a further increase of traffic," said Xu Zhi Hui, Director of the Broadband Services Department at GZ CATV.
"PeerApp's caching technology has dramatically improved the user experience even with the surge of additional Olympic-related traffic."
"We are very proud to be selected by GZ CATV," said Robert Mayer, PeerApp's CEO. "Our technology enables service providers to deliver a great consumer experience with video file sharing and video streaming without incurring the costs associated with a major network upgrade."
Xu added, "The PeerApp architecture is uniquely reliable and efficient; it delivers, or 'caches-out,' a large volume of video content particularly for BitTorrent applications, which are popular in China. Delivering a consistently good customer experience is very important to our future growth, and PeerApp helps us achieve this."
Ads That Reward Viewers - Ultramercials
Excerpted from iStockAnalyst Report by Ryan Furlong
After Salon.com announced it had suffered $80 million in net losses since its 1995 launch, the online subscription-based magazine's survival looked bleak.
In November 2002, desperate to turn a profit, it took a chance with a new form of online advertising: the ultramercial.
Ultramercial, based in Palos Verdes Estates, CA is an online advertising model that awards viewers access to copyrighted content - such as music, videos, news, games, or other online services - for free after they request and view a complete 30-to-35 second interactive ad.
The Ultramercial model positions the advertiser as the "good guy" because it provides something to the user that under normal circumstances would cost money, according to Michelle Keyes, Ultramercial's vice President of Advertiser and Publisher Operations.
Many ultramercials are made with interactive components that allow users to play games or choose the product they wish to learn more about. Users give their attention for 35 seconds, participate and advance through the advertisement.
After 35 seconds, a button automatically appears allowing the user to leave the ad and access the desired content, though a user can stay inside the advertisement for as long as he or she wants.
Ultramercial works with both publishers and advertisers and serves as the medium between the two.
"We put together advertisers and publishers," said CEO Dana Jones. "We are out on the business development side getting content partners that want to work with Ultramercial and want to monetize their content in this way."
Ultramercial has worked with a variety of publishers and advertisers, including Motorola, Best Buy, CNN, Master Card, Chrysler, Dell, Business Week, Sports Illustrated, and NBC.
When Salon.com, the publisher, teamed up with Mercedes-Benz, the advertiser, Salon.com viewers were given free access for one day to content that would otherwise only be available to Salon.com subscribers.
Viewers were given access after they requested and completed a 30-second E-Class Mercedes-Benz advertisement.
"We pitched them the idea to do this and they were so desperate that they said, 'OK, we'll do it,"' Jones said. Salon.com's willingness to take a risk with Ultramercial paid off.
"When we started with Salon they had 38,000 paid subscribers," Jones said. "After two years there were 89,500 paid subscribers."
Ultramercial and Salon.com had inadvertently created a trial and usage program.
"Maybe after the fifth, 50th, or 100th ad, a lot of people realized, 'You know what? I'm just going to subscribe' - and they did," Jones said.
Salon's subscription growth wasn't an isolated case, according to Jones, who said the vast majority of publishers experience a lift in subscribers, and added that no publisher has ever experienced an erosion of its subscription base.
Spike Lee Launches Babelgum's Film Fest 2.0
Excerpted from Variety Report by Jennie Punter
Spike Lee arrived in Toronto Friday, two days before the Sunday world preem of his Miracle at St. Anna, to launch the 2nd annual edition of the Babelgum online film festival.
Lee, who will reprise his role as jury chairman, and the international peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) company's US Division President Ethan Podell, made the announcement September 5th at a press conference at the Sutton Place home of TIFF's offices.
Short doc Oscar nominee Leslie Iwerks ("Recycled Life") was also onstage to preem the trailer for "Downstream," an environmental doc about the Alberta Oil Sands project and its effect on a small native community, Babelgum's first feature production.
Richard Recco, winner of the first fest's short film category for "Officer Down," appeared via taped statement to announce that Babelgum success lead to him signing with Hughes Capital Entertainment, to develop "Officer" into a full-length feature.
The fest accepts entries worldwide (more than 1,000 from 86 countries last year) then viewers (1.5 million last year) narrow the field by voting for their faves until a short list is presented to the jury. The categories include short film (any genre, 20 min. max), animation (5 min. max), mini masterpiece (edgy content 5 min. max) and documentary (30 min. max).
Cash prizes include the Spike Lee Award (20,000 euro) given to the top films in each category; Looking For Genius Award to one outstanding helmer in any genre (20,000 euro) and Professional Jury Award to the films chosen by an industry jury and the Babelgum audience (prize TBD).
In an interview after the presser, Lee, a professor at NYU Film School the last 11 years, said Babelgum is exactly the kind of stepping stone his third-year students need.
"My student film Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop (1983) won a Student Academy Award," he recalled. "That got me an agent and nothing happened until four years later.
"The dilemma when you get out of film school or for anyone wanting to become a filmmaker is how am I going to get my work seen? Babelgum is a great vehicle for young people all over the world."
Babelgum will accept film submissions until December 31st. Online voting begins in January 2009. Further information on submission specifications and regulations are available on www.babelgum.com.
Babelgum's programming focuses on indie film, the environment, global travel, music, and adventure sports.
Founded in 2005, the privately held P2P company has offices in the UK, Ireland, France, Italy, and the US.
Details Emerge on NextshareTV P2P Box
Excerpted from NewTeeVee Report by Janko Roettgers
The European P2P-Next consortium will unveil a set-top box (STB) prototype that allows P2P streaming at the IBC conference in Amsterdam this week. The device goes by the name of NextshareTV and has been developed at the Pioneer Digital Design Center in London.
NextshareTV makes use of some of the open-source P2P streaming technology of the Swarm Player, which was introduced by the P2P-Next project just two months ago.
The idea of bringing P2P to STBs isn't entirely new. Vudu is using progressive P2P downloads to deliver content to its boxes, and the Chinese P2P operator Vatata recently announced that its distributed streaming video service will be available on STBs as well.
NextshareTV one-ups these platforms by offering social elements, allowing its users to tag and share content.
TorrentFreak is reporting that the device is based on a 266MHz processor with 128 MB of RAM. The BBC's Flickr stream contains a photo of the actual box.
The press release itself refers to the Nextshare platform, which seems to be the software running on this box. Turns out Nextshare has its own website that offers a few more details about its social features, promising users the ability to "tag and share channels or exact moments with friends" as well as "interact and personalize" the distributed content.
Nextshare is being developed for PCs as well as STBs, and researchers at Lancaster University are preparing a "large-scale technical trial" of the system with "a wide variety of users, from local students to rural villagers." Pioneer confirmed earlier that it is building its STB for trials like this one, and we hear that there will be a trial with several hundred NextshareTV boxes.
Ipernity Media Sharing Site Embraces BitTorrent
Excerpted from TorrentFreak
A site dedicated to the sharing of all kinds of media, from blogs to photos and video, has embraced BitTorrent. Ipernity has been in operation since 2007 and has just finished work on a project to implement the sharing of bulky media on the site via BitTorrent and its own tracker.
For years now, it has mostly been dedicated torrent sites utilizing BitTorrent which have spread large amounts of data. However, as the protocol, technology, and benefits get reported more-and-more in the mainstream, other sites are getting interested in BitTorrent. Millions of tech-savvy people are already familiar with using this method of sharing files, and since it's incredibly cheap to implement, BitTorrent makes huge sense as a distribution option.
Ipernity set out with some simple aims in mind - to allow its members to publish their media - blogs, photos, music, and videos, all backed up by a powerful index to locate it all. A free service, Ipernity claims to be the first to offer users the ability to store all types of media, which will build-up over time to create their "digital heritage" within a social network.
Due to the huge bandwidth requirements of an increasing number of long videos and massive photo archives submitted from the Ipernity userbase, the site made a decision to implement a BitTorrent sharing system.
"We had more-and-more demands from our members about sharing voluminous content, such as full-length personal videos or entire folders of thousands of photos," Ipernity Managing Director, Christian Conti told TorrentFreak.
To this end, the Ipernity team decided to implement their own BitTorrent sharing system. "We think using the BitTorrent protocol is the right solution to share such content," said Conti, "and that's the reason why we decided to propose an Ipernity tracker. We are pleased with the savings."
Conti also told us that the Ipernity tracker isn't an off-the-shelf item, but a custom in-house private tracker. As with most trackers, it's possible to see a list of files contained within a torrent along with various stats. From a social networking position, torrent creators can see who from the community downloaded it. The torrent file itself is stored as a file in Ipernity and can be added to albums, noted as a favorite, commented upon, and tagged, with the torrent creator deciding who can have access to the material.
Veoh Aims for Respectability
Excerpted from Television Week Report by Daisy Whitney
Veoh CEO Steve Mitgang may be winning his battle against the perception that his peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) destination is mainly a home for anime and porn.
Veoh, which launched in 2006, regularly attracts about 3 million monthly visitors. It recently struck ad deals with Outback Steakhouse, Mini Cooper, Sony Pictures, and Maybelline and has raised more than $69 million in venture funding from high-profile investors including Michael Eisner, Intel, Adobe, and Spark Capital. Veoh also has partnered with ABC this year and now runs hits such as "Grey's Anatomy" and "Desperate Housewives."
The recent financial and advertising wins follow Mr. Mitgang's efforts to police the site's racy content more closely. It's a battle that reflects the tension felt by web video sites that want the kind of traffic drawn to naughty fare but fear alienating advertisers.
"We do not want to be a focal point for adult content," Mr. Mitgang said. "We have a fairly rigid policy and we make sure the site isn't overrun with porn. We have HBO-level nudity and we make sure that content is put in a category of 'sexy' and is only enabled by 18-year-old filters and registration."
That seems to satisfy advertisers. In the last year Sony, Lionsgate, Mini Cooper, and Microsoft have re-upped on Veoh, Mr. Mitgang said. He said he expects the site to become profitable in mid-2009.
But lingering perceptions of Veoh, along with the range of programming options on the site, are still causing some confusion in the market. Some web video experts and advertisers aren't clear which audience Veoh is targeting and what it's trying to be.
Other sites are easier to understand: YouTube is the dominant video site; Break draws young men; Hulu houses network content.
"It's hard to see how Veoh fits in," said Greg Sterling, Principal with Sterling Market Intelligence.
"It's been a challenge to put them in a specific place," agreed Chris Allen, VP and Director of Video Innovation at Starcom. "From an ad perspective, if you are looking for professionally produced content to sponsor, most will go to Hulu or ABC.com or even Break for something. Veoh could carve out a niche as the 800-pound gorilla for high-quality content, but it's tough with Hulu's backing from NBC and Fox and others."
Mr. Mitgang said Veoh's strategy is to be the No. 1 destination for high-quality content online.
"We are one of the top sites on the Internet for watching long-form shows from CBS, ABC, as well as independent material, tech talk training shows, lifestyle and cooking shows, sports and videos, professional and semi-professional. And it's all getting watched," he said.
So is the racier stuff. If you turn off the family filter on Veoh Networks, you'll find a video of two men blindfolding, handcuffing, and stroking a young woman who wears nothing but a bikini. Alongside those videos you'd come across a "sex channel," an "18-plus channel" and an "XXX channel," which includes clips of topless women delivering the news.
Mr. Mitgang said the R-rated content does not drive most of the views on the site. In fact, the most popular content category on Veoh is animation, he said.
Other recent successes for Veoh include winning an important court battle last month. In August Veoh was granted copyright immunity by a US District Court judge in a case brought by adult-video studio Io Group. The studio claimed Veoh violated its copyright by showing clips from its films. Veoh won the case, but the victory comes with its own complications.
"Of all the people you want to be sued by, it's probably not a porn company," said Adam Kasper, Senior VP and Director of Digital Media at Media Contacts, a division of Havas.
But Mr. Kasper said he has bought ads for clients on Veoh.
"I would consider them along with any of the other sites out there beyond the network sites that offer high-quality, professionally produced content," he said, adding that the ABC partnership has helped Veoh become a more credible platform for advertisers.
Will Richmond, analyst with VideoNuze.com, said he views Veoh as a broad-based aggregator of programming from providers such as Howcast, ABC, RipeTV, Celeb.TV, and others.
But aggregation is a tough business, because the top criterion for success is traffic, Mr. Richmond said.
"Veoh is going to be competing with aggregators head-on like YouTube and Hulu, and the question is how many aggregators does the world need?
That's not to say Veoh won't be one of them, but there are only going to be a finite number that make it," Mr. Richmond said.
Spark Capital is betting Veoh will be one of those that does.
"No one has really captured the long tail in longer-form or semi-professional content, and Veoh has always been going for that," said Todd Dagres, a partner at Spark Capital, a Veoh investor. He also expects Veoh will turn a profit in 2009.
In July, Veoh delivered 48 million video streams to 2.8 million unique users, according to Nielsen Online.
Online audience measurement service Hitwise reports Veoh's users are evenly split between men and women.
In terms of age demographics, for the four-week period ending August 23rd, about 30% of Veoh's users were 45-to-54, 20% were 35-to-44 and 21% were 25-to-34.
The top four sites driving traffic to Veoh are Google, which accounts for 18% of the traffic to Mr. Mitgang's operation, followed by YouTube, MySpace, and Yahoo. Those numbers suggest consumers are actively seeking out either Veoh itself or the type of video content the site houses via search engines.
Mr. Mitgang said Veoh is adding more functionality related to search and discovery of content on the site.
Q&A with Livestation CEO Matteo Berlucchi
Excerpted from NewTeeVee Report by Om Malik
Matteo Berlucchi, CEO of Livestation, has announced that his company had added Deutsche Welle as a customer to offer live TV over the Internet. It is now a channel choice alongside eight others including BBC World, EuroNews, and Bloomberg.
The London-based P2PTV startup that was spun out of Microsoft Research is also live-streaming the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment from CERN. Once the collider footage went up, people started accessing it at a rate of 2 downloads per second.
NewTeeVee: What is the business model for Livestation?
Matteo Berlucchi: Ad-funded and premium pay-per-view when we reach critical mass. Ads will run between channel changes and in the overlays. Everything is done in partnership with our partner channels.
NewTeeVee: Who do you view as your competitors? What makes you better?
Berlucchi: In a narrow sense, our competitors are aggregators of live content, such as those carried on Zattoo. The main difference is that we offer a global service based on international channels (news and others coming) and user-added channels (video, radio, webcams). These user-added channels - almost 900 in less than four weeks - are any stream a user wants to store on the system (like a bookmarking service for streaming) and then share with the user base - like delicious. A kind of social bookmarking for live streaming and official, high-quality partner channels.
In a broader sense, we compete for people's attention in the online video space. But what's distinctive is the mindset a user has when they seek on-demand vs. live content.
NewTeeVee: Who are your customers? The end consumers or media companies?
Berlucchi: Our customers are end users. Media companies are partners. Our model is: It's a confusing and early market, we have a great platform, you have great content. Let's get out there hand-in-hand and let's see what happens.
NewTeeVee: Why do you think live-streaming is important market?
Berlucchi: Well. You will surely want to time-shift your entertainment, but what about sports, news, live events (like the LHC today)? The market is probably going to split in two: live and on-demand. I like to think of them as brother and sister, same family but that's about it.
NewTeeVee: It seems to be a tough business that requires a lot of infrastructure investment, and the competition is fierce. There are CDNs and others who want to offer similar services. Can you keep them at bay?
Berlucchi: Better. We can work with them. Our "secret sauce" is our P2P technology (originally developed by Microsoft Research) which - in layman terms - extends the reach and capacity of the existing CDN infrastructure. In other words, you get more viewers for less, but the "more" is also the ability to actually serve more users than what the CDN can take. It's a double win: more capacity and less cost (btw, our system also implements a QoS approach for improved reliability).
Also, these guys (CDNs, Move, etc) are tech/service suppliers to broadcasters. We aggregate, which puts us in a different place.
NewTeeVee: If I understand this correctly, your competitors in the US (Ustream, etc.) have a higher mindshare, whereas you guys have less of a mindshare. Does that bother you? How do you fix that?
Berlucchi: Well, we are still in beta, but according to Alexa we've already overtaken Joost. We are also the top non-Apple download on Apple.com since we released the Mac version two weeks ago. Ustream offers a different service - they allow people to put up a webcast quickly and cheaply - while we partner with the largest networks and are developing something quite different from everything else out there.
We are trying to develop the evolution of the traditional TV experience (channels, etc.) in a global and interactive context (chat, buzz, recommendations, etc.).
NewTeeVee: Any other thoughts?
Berlucchi: We are young and just getting into this market, but the signs are that the user base is looking for something like this, an application on their computers (or iPhones) that allows them to aggregate and sort all of their favorite streams. We use a browser to surf the web, an IM to chat with our friends, Skype to speak to them. Why not Livestation to watch/listen to what's happening around the world?
Sky Player: Sounds Like iPlayer
Excerpted from Crave Report by Ian Morris
We've had the BBC iPlayer for some time now, and for many people, it's changed the way they watch TV, allowing them to watch things they hadn't considered before, or simply catch-up on the latest episode of "Dragons' Den." Sky clearly sees the massive potential market for this among its millions of subscribers, so it has a similar product called Sky Player, which it has just opened up to non-subscribers.
To give Sky credit, it was the first to bring PC downloads of its shows to Internet users. Its initial offering, known as Sky Anytime, launched in January 2006, a full year before 4oD and almost two years before the BBC finally got iPlayer out of beta and into a publicly useable service.
All of these platforms use the same basic software, a P2P application known as Kontiki, but each offer different levels of content.
Sky Player has the usual selection of free-to-download and pay-per-view content. Newer stuff is generally chargeable, whereas older things often come 'free', or more accurately, included in your Sky package. The good news is if you aren't a Sky customer you can now take advantage of the system, but you'll have to pay. Generally TV shows are £1 per episode and there's a sports highlights pack for £5 a month. There aren't any movies available to non-subscribers, but that might change in the future, according to the Sky Player website.
What makes Sky Player particularly cool is the addition of live streaming, which is the one thing missing from other services. Live TV is available to all Sky subscribers, but obviously you'll need to subscribe to premium channels such as Sky Sports to be able to view them online. Rumors suggest that the BBC will stream its channels live at some point, but the audience for that is so massive that many of the UK's ISPs are going to have a blue fit when it happens.
We have to say that the picture quality of the Sky Player's streaming content was excellent. We watched some of "Knocked Up" and "Die Hard 4.0" and were really impressed by the quality of the stream. Sure, it's not quite DVD quality, but it's very watchable.
So, is there anything wrong with it? You can only install the required software on one PC. It's obvious why Sky restricts this, but it's not apparent how you would switch the software to a new PC if you upgrade, or reinstall Windows. We'd also love it if you could stream Sky Player content to a TV, but unless you've got a laptop hooked up to your telly, you're out of luck here.
VeriSign Unveils New Solution for Social Networking
Excerpted from TMCnet Report by Rajani Baburajan
Xoomerang is designed to address the growing number of mobile consumers who want to use online social networking and media destinations and are a looking for an easy-to-use interface.
"Social networking is positioned to be the next big opportunity for the wireless industry, but to unlock its full potential requires not only improvements in the mobile user experience, but also solutions that leverage the existing operator infrastructure," said Warren Faleiro, Vice President of Multimedia Applications for VeriSign's Messaging and Mobile Media Division.
VeriSign said the Xoomerang solution offers a special user experience for publishing and consuming media, while facilitating immediate user adoption via a carrier's existing infrastructure.
VeriSign seeks to utilize its relationships with carriers globally that want to offer social networking and media services for millions of users.
For instance, YouTube is one of the online destinations available via Xoomerang. VeriSign will enable mobile users to easily upload and share video clips on YouTube's site through their mobile devices.
The entry of Xoomerang comes at a time when online social networking's growth worldwide is significant. A recent Gartner study found that about 180 million mobile users worldwide in 2008 use some form of mobile social networking service weekly. Adoption is projected to increase to more than 800 million by 2012, the report added.
"Using Xoomerang, wireless operators can immediately connect their subscribers to a host of destinations while also providing an enhanced user experience," Faleiro added.
How does Xoomerang contribute to the growth of social networking sites? VeriSign said the Xoomerang's Media Interexchange catalog management tool allows carriers to program pre-integrated destination sites available to users from a master catalog of connected sites and to configure custom places.
"Users can then personalize their account by choosing favorite destinations from either a handset or on the web," the company said. "As new destinations are added to the catalog, subscribers are automatically alerted both on the Internet and by text message."
Protection Against Online Piracy
Excerpted from eWorld Report by Adith Charlie
Rana Gupta is business head for India and SAARC at information security firm SafeNet. In an exclusive interaction with eWorld, he shares his views on online piracy and the losses that companies face on this account.
What new trends do you see in online piracy and anti-piracy of entertainment content?
Piracy is a truly global problem; not isolated to one, two, or three countries. However, the good news is that on the anti-piracy side, we are seeing a growing interest in the use of graduated response programs to help mitigate piracy.
For instance, in the US, we have worked with several large entertainment companies for providing such programs in cooperation with Internet service providers (ISPs).
Essentially this means that the stakeholders establish accountability policies around actioning takedown notices for users found to be file-sharing unauthorized content such as films or music albums.
Once SafeNet identifies such users and sends a takedown notice, the ISP is responsible for ensuring the takedown is delivered to the end-user.
We are then able to identify repeat infringers; in instances where a previously warned user is found again, the ISP is then obligated to implement further punitive actions, which could include temporary or permanent suspension of the offending end-user's account or a monetary surcharge.
Such programs are gaining traction across the globe, most recently in France and the UK.
Do SafeNet's solutions cater to both online and physical distribution of content?
We are mainly focused on offering protection solutions related to online piracy.
However, through our Early Leak Detection and Business Intelligence services, we are able to help content owners not only track initial leaks of infringing materials that appear online but also provide detailed analysis as to how that content is propagated across the Internet by the hour.
This is extremely valuable information for content owners as it helps to drive changes in their distribution windowing and release schedules.
Ultimately, it affects the piracy curve both on the street and on the Internet.
Is forward locking an effective method (in the mobile and Internet space) for the prevention of piracy?
Forward locking has been an effective model in the mobile space for facilitating monetization of low-value content. Forward locking is essentially a digital rights management (DRM) model and just like any other DRM technique, the focus is on prevention of piracy.
At SafeNet, we not only help prevent piracy but also go a step further by equipping companies with the ability to globally detect, track, and deter the unauthorized distribution of their content.
One must bear in mind that in spite of one having DRM technology, unauthorized distribution of content will happen due to infringement at the point of content consumption.
MediaSentry Defends Work in Music Cases
Excerpted from ComputerWorld Report by Jaikumar Kijayan
MediaSentry strongly disputed accusations this week, made by legal opponents of the RIAA and some state officials, that the company is engaging in what amounts to an unlicensed private investigation practice as it gathers evidence to use in copyright infringement lawsuits.
Through its parent company SafeNet, Belcamp, MD based MediaSentry rejected contentions that it needs to obtain private investigator's licenses in order to legally continue its work on behalf of the RIAA in many states.
The provider of online content-protection services also denied that it infiltrates the computers of users in search of evidence to back-up copyright infringement lawsuits filed by the RIAA, as some have suggested.
All of the information gathered by MediaSentry for the RIAA is publicly available on P2P networks and has been made openly available by the users of such networks themselves, SafeNet spokeswoman Donna St. Germain said.
"MediaSentry records public information available to millions of users," St. Germain added. "If private investigator licenses were required to do what MediaSentry does, every user on LimeWire and other P2P networks would be required to have a license. Indeed, every search engine and Internet user would be required to have a private investigator license if MediaSentry needs one."
The comments from SafeNet come in response to a growing litany of complaints about MediaSentry's alleged practice of doing computer forensics work for the RIAA without first obtaining the investigative licenses required in many states.
Last Friday, for instance, a student at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor asked the state government to initiate legal proceedings against MediaSentry over its work for the RIAA.
In a letter sent to Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth (DLEG), the unnamed student claimed that MediaSentry is willfully violating state law by continuing its investigative work on behalf of the RIAA despite knowing that it is required to have a private investigator's license in order to carry out such activities.
The student is one of several "John Does" at the University of Michigan who are being sued by the RIAA, which alleges that they downloaded and shared unauthorized music files. In June, the student filed an initial complaint with the DLEG asking the agency to order MediaSentry to cease all copyright-related investigations of Michigan residents until the company obtained a license allowing it to operate as a private investigator in the state.
The follow-up letter urged the DLEG to refer the student's complaint to the state attorney general for either civil or criminal prosecution. The letter claimed that MediaSentry had been informed by the DLEG about its need to obtain a private investigator's license as far back as February 22nd. But the company appears to have continued its work for the RIAA regardless, according to the letter.
The letter added that Michigan had "substantially revised" its statutes governing private investigators in late May. The revised rules make it "absolutely clear" that the work MediaSentry is doing requires a formal private investigator's license, the letter said.
The RIAA filed a lawsuit against the student and six other state residents in June in US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Pointing to that lawsuit, the student's letter said that the information about alleged copyright infringements presented by the RIAA was collected solely by MediaSentry, much of it since the company was informed of the need for an investigator's license. The type of information that was gathered clearly shows the investigative nature of MediaSentry's work, the letter said.
News of the letter was first reported by Recording Industry Vs. The People, a blog site run by Ray Beckerman, a New York-based lawyer who has represented individuals charged in other RIAA lawsuits. Beckerman also has posted a copy of the letter on his site.
eDonkey Server Admin Exonerated in Germany
Excerpted from Afterdawn Report
A court in Germany has ruled in favor of an administrator of an eDonkey server saying that he can not be held liable for infringing downloads through his server as long as he takes "reasonable steps" to prevent those downloads.
In the decision, the court ruled against Warner Music Germany which had sued the admin last year after it found Warner songs indexed on the server. Earlier this year, Warner actually won the case but the admin appealed and was successful this time.
Warner Music contacted the admin after finding a single CD being shared and asked him to take it down. The admin complied accordingly and put "keyword filters in place to make sure that the songs in question wouldn't get indexed again."
Warner, however, then found another CD by the same artist and began the lawsuit. The ruling, which should set a precedent in Germany, says the admin cannot be held liable because his server did not actually host the files in question.
The court also added that the "keyword-based filtering system was enough to stop infringement and that the server admin wasn't required to proactively stop future infringements of titles that were not part of the original complaint."
Coming Events of Interest
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. DCIA Member companies are exhibiting.
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.
PopKomm - October 8th-10th in Berlin, Germany. The international music and entertainment business trade show, conference, and festival. Decisive developments within the business. Think forward: for three days, experts will be appraising and voicing their opinions on creation, communication, and commerce. Over 400 showcase performances.
P2P & MUSIC CONFERENCE - October 10th in Berlin, Germany. The DCIA proudly presents an all-new day-long conference within PopKomm, focused totally on P2P solutions for the music industry. How to protect and monetize musical content in the steadily growing P2P marketplace.
Spirit of Life Award Dinner - October 15th in Santa Monica, CA. The City of Hope Music and Entertainment Industry Group will award the 2008 Spirit of Life Award to Doug Morris. Dinner packages and advertising information can be obtained through Mary Carlzen and 213-241-7328.
P2P & VIDEO CONFERENCE - October 27th in Santa Monica, CA. The DCIA proudly presents an all-new day-long conference in conjunction with Digital Hollywood, focused totally on P2P solutions for the television and enterprise A/V industries. How to protect and monetize video content in the steadily growing P2P marketplace.
Digital Hollywood Fall - October 27th-30th in Santa Monica, CA. With many new sessions and feature events, DHF has become the premiere digital entertainment conference and exposition. DCIA Member companies will exhibit and speak on a number of panels.
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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