October 20, 2008
Volume XXIII, Issue 12
Welcome Dow Lohnes to the DCIA
We are very pleased to welcome Dow Lohnes LLP to the Professional Services Group of the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA)
With over 160 lawyers based in offices in Washington, DC and Atlanta, GA, Dow Lohnes prides itself on serving as a strategic partner to its clients in a number of dynamic industries, including traditional and new media, information technology (IT), communications and education, to name a few.
Dow Lohnes offers particular expertise on the legal and policy issues arising from the confluence of digital technology, intellectual property (IP) protection, and government regulation, particularly as affecting the Internet.
The firm represents clients on matters ranging from the protection, acquisition, licensing, and use of IP, to counseling and negotiations on matters affecting virtually every kind of new media and alternative technology, including computer and telecommunications systems, high technology, and the Internet.
Dow Lohnes lawyers offer not only substantial expertise in copyright, trademark, libel, privacy, and communications law, but also a genuine understanding of the technological and industry developments that drive change in these dynamic areas.
One of the firm's senior partners, Jonathan Hart, has literally 'written the book' on Internet law. The sixth edition of Internet Law: A Field Guide (scheduled to be published later this month) covers topics such as: freedom of speech; trademarks, domain names and copyright; data collection and privacy; electronic contracts; advertising, marketing and spam; and a variety of other issues impacting business and commerce on the Internet.
In addition, the firm's Government Relations lawyers have successfully lobbied legislation before numerous Congressional committees on behalf of a variety of domestic and international clients, with a particular focus on Internet-related issues.
Groundbreaking New P2P Research Coming This Week
Market research company, MultiMedia Intelligence, this week will release groundbreaking new research on P2P networking. The report will identify the potential for P2P as a next-generation media distribution channel, as well as the impact of P2P on network infrastructure and copyright infringement. MultiMedia Intelligence projects P2P traffic will grow almost 400% over the next 5 years, as authorized P2P applications become a meaningful segment.
The research, P2P Networking: Content's "Bad Boy" Becomes Tomorrow's Distribution Channel, analyzes the P2P market in terms of worldwide broadband penetration, consumer consumption of data, audio, and video files and its associated revenue. Detailed forecasts are provided on an annual or per monthly average going back to actuals for 2006 and going forward through 2012.
Forecasts include: Worldwide and Regional Broadband Penetration; Worldwide Consumer Internet Data Volume; P2P Traffic as Measured by Quantity of Bits Transferred, by Content Type, and by Number Monthly P2P Files; Total Media P2P Files by Content Type, Monthly Data Volume by Content Type and Licensed Media by Content Type; "Value" of Purchased and Infringing Content for Music Tracks, Short-Form P2P Video Content, Episodic P2P Video Content, and Long-Form P2P Video Content; Apportioned US ISP CAPEX and OpEX Resulting from P2P.
Please click here for a preview of this important research and e-mail research@dcia.info to learn about special DCIA rates.
CopyRouter Protects Against Criminally Obscene Content
Excerpted from Daily Tech Report by Tom Corelis
Brilliant Digital Entertainment, parent company of Altnet, can stop criminally obscene content from being redistributed on the Internet with CopyRouter, a new tool it is demonstrating for Internet service providers (ISPs) and law enforcement agencies.
CopyRouter sits between an ISP's subscribers and their Internet connections, monitoring data that passes through for illegal files defined by a hash-list provided by law enforcement. CopyRouter uses deep packet inspection (DPI) to peek inside the content of connections, and Brilliant Digital can use this to monitor e-mail attachments, HTTP downloads, and peer-to-peer (P2P) protocols.
When CopyRouter detects an instance of known-to-be-illegal child pornography, it intercepts the connection and replaces the data in transit with an alternate file provided by law enforcement.
A presentation, given to a number of groups including AOL, the administration of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), portrays simulated examples where CopyRouter replaced a blacklisted file with a warning from law enforcement - denying the downloader the material he or she originally requested and adding the attempt, without any information on who requested what, to a log file.
More importantly, CopyRouter is able to beat counter-measures. Connection handshakes that negotiate things like compression or encryption - common techniques that are sometimes used to fool DPI - are silently manipulated so that the connection is actually read as plain text.
"We have been working on it for some time," says Brilliant Digital's Michael Speck, Commercial Manager for the company's law enforcement products, in an interview with MSNBC.
CopyRouter references Global File Registry, which Brilliant Digital intends to use as a private clearinghouse for hash-codes of contraband data.
"We'd be grateful for any assistance in getting this to the relevant ISPs and law enforcement agencies, and making any adjustments necessary," says Speck. "For this to be a viable law enforcement tool, it has to operate within the legislative framework of each participating country."
One US legal hurdle revolves around who compiles the hash-list. If the list is privately maintained, then ISPs have more freedom to report CopyRouter's findings to the authorities, because its monitoring can be worked into subscriber agreements. If the government steps in at that stage, it could run afoul of US communications and privacy laws, as well as the Constitution.
Such hurdles are likely to be overcome, however, by the Combating Child Exploitation Act of 2008, which recently passed both the House and Senate. One of the bill's provisions allows the non-profit NCMEC to distribute its hash database of child pornography to ISPs, who can then plug the list into CopyRouter or other systems. The bill would also hold ISPs accountable, to the tune of $300,000, for each time they fail to report an infraction.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 We very much hope you'll attend the inaugural P2P & VIDEO CONFERENCE taking place next Monday October 27th at Digital Hollywood Fall in Santa Monica, California.
P2P continues to represent both the most significant challenges as well as the greatest opportunities for the motion picture and television industries - and we are grateful to Digital Hollywood's organizers for recognizing that and working with us to mount this important event.
We cordially invite digital video stakeholders from all parts of the world to participate. P2P in some form will be a part of your future - and already accounts for more than 65% of successful Internet video deployments.
At this conference you will learn about: video file sharing and how to protect against copyright infringement; P2PTV client distribution of secure downloads of film and TV programs; live P2P streaming of stand-alone events and telecast retransmissions; browser-based clientless P2PTV distribution systems for video content; hybrid peer-assisted video content delivery network (CDN) solutions; and more.
This special industry event is scheduled from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel. The "Conference-within-Digital-Hollywood" will feature keynotes from top P2P companies and major video distributors, panels of industry leaders, as well as a continental breakfast, conference luncheon, and VIP networking reception. Pre-registration rates end today.
P2P & VIDEO CONFERENCE keynote speakers include Robert Levitan, CEO, Pando Networks; Barry Tishgart, VP of Internet Services, Comcast; Michael King, CEO, Abacast; Kevin Bradshaw, COO, LimeWire; Kumar Subramanian, CEO, MediaMelon; Orang Dialameh, CEO, iVisit; Tom Patterson, CEO, Digital Containers; David Rice, VP of Marketing, Move Networks; Phill Robinson, CEO, Velocix; Eitan Efron, VP of Marketing, Oversi; Ronny Golan, Co-Founder & CEO, HIRO Media; and Harvey Benedict, VP, Corporate Development & Strategy, Kontiki.
Panelists and moderators include Arash Amel, Head of Broadband Media/AMR, Screen Digest; Philippe Benoliel, CEO, MashON;Chris Gillis, Director of Sales, MediaDefender; Paul Grusche, COO, Ultramercial; Peder Jungck, CTO, Cloudshield; Karen Kaplowitz, Member Services, Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA); Gerry Kaufhold, Principal Analyst, Reed Business; Kshitij Kumar, CEO, TellyTopia; Sari Lafferty, Business Affairs, Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA); Walter Leaphart, Advisor, Music Intelligence Solutions; Jonathan Lee, SVP, PiCast; Eliot Listman, VP of Business Development, PeerApp; Alex Mashinsky, CEO, DigiMeld; Rob Manoff, CEO, Jambo Media; Steven Masur, Managing Partner, MasurLaw; Jeffrey Payne, CTO, GridNetworks; Keyvan Peymani, COO, Nettwerk Music Group; Laird Popkin, CTO, Pando Networks; Patrick Ross, Executive Director, Copyright Alliance; Johan Ryman, Director of Sales and Partnerships, Octoshape; Neerav Shah, VP, Business Development & Strategy, Verimatrix; Jeremy Toeman, CEO, LiveDigitally; Dave Toole, CEO, MediaMobz; Laura Tunberg, CEO, EM Syndication; and Jeff Ulin, Of Counsel, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
The P2P & VIDEO CONFERENCE will address such topics as: Video Content Protection - Copyright Infringement Deterrence or Prevention through Enforcement; P2P Technological Advancement - Instant High-Definition Delivery or Deprioritized Low Resolution Transmission; P2P Content Licensing - Distribution for Video Rights Holders or Rewards For Copyright Enforcers; P2P Video Revenue - Ad-Supported, or Subscription, or Paid Download Business Models; Future P2PTV Innovation - Market Opportunities or Disruptive Previews of the Future.
The P2P & VIDEO CONFERENCE is being held in conjunction with Digital Hollywood Fall, and registration for both events yields a substantial savings for attendees. For more information, please visit www.dcia.info/activities/p2pvcca2008.
The P2P & VIDEO CONFERENCE is being sponsored by CUGate, Javien Digital Payment Solutions, Unlimited Media, and RightsFlow; and is a companion piece to the P2P & MUSIC CONFERENCE, which took place on Friday October 10th at PopKomm in Berlin, Germany.
Our media partner for this event is Screen Digest, the pre-eminent firm of industry analysts covering global media markets. Headquartered in London, with offices in New York and Monterey, CA, Screen Digest employs a team of 40 analysts covering film, television, broadband, mobile, cinema, home entertainment, and gaming.
Its online services and reports provide the information and analysis that hundreds of media companies worldwide base their decisions on. Most recently it launched Global Media Intelligence (GMI), a new service which provides research and analysis specifically for media-focused institutional investors.
To register please visit www.dcia.info/activities/p2pvcca2008/register.html. Pre-registration rates end October 20th.
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.
Internet Congestion: ISPs & P2Ps Collaborate on Solutions
Excerpted from E-Commerce Times Report by Jeff Meisner
Internet service providers (ISPs) are apparently locked into the belief that it will never be feasible to build big enough pipes to end data traffic congestion, and are tinkering instead with various forms of network management. The FCC has already said they can't single out P2P file sharers, so they're devising ways to manage bandwidth availability that are application agnostic.
Anyone who's used popular P2P applications such as BitTorrent, Gnutella, or LimeWire has probably been plagued by network slowdowns that make sharing heavy media files a time-consuming endeavor.
However, a consortium of technologists at the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA), has found a way to alleviate Internet network congestion created by P2P applications. In fact, this new technology will soon exit the testing phase.
Most broadband providers will tell anyone who will listen that users of P2P applications use a disproportionate amount of network resources as they send and receive massive video files and other rich media content over the Internet.
"Something like 5% of our customers can be using between 50% and 66% of the capacity of Comcast's network," Charlie Douglas, a Comcast spokesperson, told the E-Commerce Times.
The same holds true for New York-based Verizon Communications. "No matter what the capacity of a network, there are points where people have to share capacity," Paul Brigner, Executive Director of Internet and Technology Policy, told the E-Commerce Times. "Depending on the applications being used, some users take up a disproportionate share of the network."
One might then ask, why not simply build a faster network with more capacity instead of restricting users?
"The congestion problems wouldn't be solved by building a bigger pipe," Douglas said. "In Japan, where they have all-fiber networks and 100 megabits per second speeds, they are still experiencing heavy congestion. You can't build your way out of it."
The broadband providers' initial response to these network traffic snares was to temporarily limit the network capacity available to P2P users when severe congestion occurred.
However, that didn't sit well with privacy advocates who felt that broadband providers had no business monitoring what paying subscribers were doing on their networks.
The FCC was asked to look into the matter and eventually ruled that it wasn't legal for ISPs to delay P2P file-sharing requests for any reason. That forced ISPs to look for another solution.
"The new technique we're migrating to is application agnostic," Comcast's Douglas said. "We'll be using new technologies that will identify when an area of the network is reaching congestion, usually at the 70% utilization rate."
When that happens, Comcast will target the heaviest consumers of network resources - without monitoring the specific type of application being used - and slow down their Internet capacity to about 70% for a period of around 15 minutes.
"So, a 6 megabits per second customer will be brought down to 4.2 megabits per second for about 15 minutes, or until the period of congestion passes," Douglas said. "We haven't seen a need for any period longer than 15 minutes yet."
A similar technology is in use at Verizon. "Our network management is application agnostic," Verizon's Brigner said. "We don't do what they call 'deep-packet inspection.' We don't look for specific types of applications or activities."
New York-based Pando Networks develops commercially deployable P2P delivery technologies. One of its customers is the NBC television network.
"We help companies like NBC deliver large video files," Pando Networks CEO Robert Levitan said.
Pando and a consortium of technologists at the DCIA - including Yale University and companies such as Abacast, AT&T, BitTorrent, Cisco Systems, Comcast, GridNetworks, Kontiki, LimeWire, Telefonica Group, and Verizon - have formed the P4P Working Group (P4PWG) to come up with a solution to the congestion problem created by P2P users.
"We've tested a new set of protocols on the networks at Verizon and Comcast that help reduce the stress on their networks and increase delivery speeds," Levitan said. "It's been proven. The results show that these new protocols can route P2P traffic in a much more efficient way."
In mid-March, Verizon announced test results that showed that large files can be moved over the Internet more quickly and efficiently using a new P2P file transfer system.
The new P2P protocol guides the selection of file sources and network pathways rather than letting the selection happen randomly, or using criteria that don't maximize efficiency, according to the company.
Comcast performed similar tests using P4P protocols this summer, Levitan said, and the results were even better than those demonstrated on Verizon's broadband network.
Pando Networks' Robert Levitan and Comcast's Barry Tishgart will deliver keynote addresses at the P2P & VIDEO CONFERENCE.
MediaMelon's VON Improves Online Video Profitability
MediaMelon this week announced the availability of the MediaMelon Video Overlay Network (VON), an application-layer software-enabled network to significantly improve the profitability of online videos for content distributors and their service providers while also enhancing the consumer viewing experience.
"Online video publishers and content owners who want to expand their audience are often faced with increased bandwidth costs which often exceed the revenues that could be generated from those videos. A common scenario is that as the size of the online audience increases, either bandwidth requirements increase or consumers are provided with a less-than-high-quality viewing experience", said Kumar Subramanian, MediaMelon CEO.
"MediaMelon's technology allows publishers to generate profitable online videos, even ad-supported models, by simultaneously reducing distribution costs and increasing revenue opportunities."
The MediaMelon VON network integrates several leading edge technologies such as multi-sourcing and adaptive streaming to improve the efficiency and visual quality of online video.
MediaMelon's unique Dynamic Content Assembly technology sources content from multiple locations and assembles in real-time the content for viewing, even on a slow network.
Its new Predictive Forward Caching technology allows portions of videos to be intelligently pre-cached based on a variety of parameters helping publishers to reduce costs and improve the viewing quality for their users. MediaMelon's ability to selectively source content from sub-networks geographically close to the viewers reduces transit costs.
Also, its use of multiple protocols such as HTTP, RTP, RTSP, and P2P, decreases bandwidth costs while enabling instant and smooth playback of video content.
MediaMelon's technology has been integrated with leading content management systems, such as ThePlatform and content delivery networks, such as Velocix.
MediaMelon also has partnered with leading advertising platforms, such as Adap.TV and Panache, to provide video publishers with instant monetization options.
"MediaMelon's innovations in predictive forward-caching and multi-protocol delivery within standard video players, together with the highly scalable and robust content delivery network from Velocix, enables our joint video publishing customers to deliver professional-quality videos, in a secure and reliable manner anywhere around the world", said John Dillon, Chief Marketing Officer at Velocix.
MediaMelon's CEO Kumar Subramanian and Velocix's CEO Phill Robinson will deliver keynote addresses at the P2P & VIDEO CONFERENCE.
Flood of Content Predicted for HD Video Streaming
Excerpted from HDTV Biz News Report
While more operators are beginning to offer HD video-on-demand (VOD) services, live streaming video continues to pose infrastructure and bandwidth problems.
Alex Mashinsky, CEO of DigiMeld, one of the first people to realize the Internet's great potential for voice, is now just as excited about the possibilities it offers for video. He said the demand for real-time streaming of video was going to grow rapidly as high quality Internet content was increasingly watched on HDTVs rather than PCs.
"We are moving to a world where services from the Internet do not look any different from cable TV," he said. "There's going to be a huge flood of content flowing to this environment, moving away from watching video on a laptop for five minutes at a time."
Mashinsky said that while it was easy to get 16 million Americans to watch the same TV channel at the same time, it was impossible to do that with half-a-million viewers on the Internet.
"Voice was the first wave on the web. The second wave is video," he said from DigiMeld's mid-town Manhattan headquarters. "But while everyone is focused on it, we have not really solved the scalability issue.
He used the example of Oprah Winfrey's attempt to stream live on her website, a move which caused the site to crash when more than 300,000 viewers logged-on.
Video demands a lot of bandwidth and Mashinsky said traditional unicast and CDN solutions were limited in meeting the challenges of efficiency and scalability.
"If you can address those two things, you would have linear streaming and on-demand streaming of movies and other things on a much larger scale than today."
"Amazon, Netflix and Blockbuster have all launched streaming services but they are not launching new movies and having one million people watching at the same time. They rely on many people watching different things."
Mashinsky said China was way ahead of the US in live streaming technology, something it demonstrated during the Olympic Games when PPLive streamed live to 1.6 million concurrent online viewers.
He said DigiMeld had used a team of former PPLive programmers to develop its grid-streaming technology that enabled massive numbers of viewers to watch content concurrently.
It has tested the intelligent streaming solution with NASA Television, including a live Internet broadcast trial of a shuttle launch to more than 100,000 live concurrent video streams.
Essentially, the software harvests viewers' unused uplink bandwidth to relay stream data and offload the stream traffic from the media servers. The company says this optimizes the overall load balance of the network.
Unlike traditional CDNs or multicast network solutions, the DigiMeld solution allows each viewer in the grid-streaming network to simultaneously retrieve, view, and share streaming video data with other viewers within a safe and encrypted network.
This approach differs from P2P file-sharing firms such as BitTorrent, which download an entire video file to a viewer's hard drive.
Mashinsky said DigiMeld only stores a portion of the streamed content in a viewer's evanescent memory during viewing. This slice of video is continuously overwritten by newly-arriving streams, enhancing efficiency of network bandwidth and increasing copyright protection, including digital rights management (DRM).
He believes grid-streaming is much more scalable because when the number of concurrent viewers explodes, the viewers will offload most data. Mashinsky said grid-streaming also puts less strain on media servers, while enhancing the quality of service (QoS) when the number of concurrent viewers is huge since more viewers can share data with each other.
Digimeld's CEO Alex Mashinsky will be a featured speaker at the P2P & VIDEO CONFERENCE.
Ultramercial Solves Ad Skipping & Blocking Online
Cross-platform advertising innovator Ultramercial has tackled a huge problem for advertisers: the intentional skipping and blocking of commercials by viewers both online and on television.
Ultramercial's patented solution leverages both human engineering and computer engineering. "It's a two-part solution," said Ultramercial's CEO Dana Jones.
"Part one is human behavior. We dramatically change the value proposition between the viewer and the advertiser. The viewer gets a huge immediate upside from spending 30-seconds with the sponsor. This is usually free access to normally restricted content like premium TV shows, games, upscale financial reports, even Wi-Fi access at airports and hotels."
"We tell the viewer that the advertiser is paying their way in. It's up to the viewer to choose the ad in an honest upfront proposition that makes the advertiser's presence crystal clear," added Jones.
"Part two involves our technical deployment," said Jim Smith, Ultramercial's Chief Technology Officer.
"We are integrated into the backend of each of our partners' sites. We keep their content or services sequestered until the viewer has completed our commercial. Of course we're very respectful of the viewer. We offer an 'Exit Early' choice to leave the ad, which provides the viewer the option to purchase the content or to be taken back to the content partner's home page with no special privileges."
"As far as ad blocking software is concerned, if a viewer specifically blocks our ads, they'll simply not get the content that's waiting for them after the ad," continued Smith. "By turning off the blocking software, viewers can jump right back in. What's cool is that virtually no one blocks our ads."
How badly do people want to block or skip regular ads, both online and on TV?
Consider this: AdBlock Plus, a free plug-in for Firefox browsers that does away with web-based ads, has been downloaded 26,687,252 times, with new converts being added at more than 250,000 a week, according to Firefox's website.
On the TV side, as many as 85% of consumers who own a DVR, skip 75% or more of ads today, according to an Oliver Wyman consumer study conducted this year. With DVR penetration currently at 23% and expected to hit 37% by 2012, according to IPG's Magna Global, this is a serious matter.
Yet the truth is that advertisers underwrite the entire cost of most media. Widespread ad-skipping and ad-blocking is already wrecking havoc, with Nielsen now measuring time-shifted viewing habits where viewers often fast-forward through the commercial breaks.
"Our solution for the advertiser is to only charge when a viewer chooses to engage with their commercial," Jones added.
"Since we measure individual ad starts and all other engagement activities, our cost-per-engagement pricing takes all the worry out of blocked, skipped or ignored ad inventory."
Ultramercial's ad model has been adapted by dozens of web properties, from The Economist to ABC.com and ABCNews.com, and has moved into mobile with Virgin Mobile's Sugar Mama program and into mobile Wi-Fi access at leading airports such as Denver International.
The company is now building a similar Cable TV 2.0 solution, around a second patent currently pending at the USPTO.
"This is the next logical step for TV. Our solution offers a guaranteed two-way engagement for the advertiser, with all the capabilities of our Internet solution, like offering more information inside the ad, even offering the ability to purchase a product," added Jones.
But what about the willingness of viewers to interact within the format? "Making the relationship between the viewer and the advertiser honest and active has produced interactive metrics that are astonishing," said Janelle Amrhein, the company's Director of Ad Sales, West Coast.
"Our average click-through rate across all our partners for the first three quarters of 2008 is 4.03%, with viewers spending an average of 77 seconds per commercial, when they need only spend 30 seconds."
"The truth is that Ultramercial viewers are glad they have our option," said Jones.
"Giving 30 seconds of your time to an advertiser is far more appealing than spending money to access the Internet at an airport, or buying a new premium TV show. Our repositioning of the advertiser as the provider of quality content and services encourages viewing instead of skipping or blocking our ads. And with hundreds of millions of completed engagements, it's clear our model is working."
Ultramercial's COO Paul Grusche will be a featured speaker at the P2P & VIDEO CONFERENCE.
Fiber-to-the-Home Market Growing Fastest in US
Excerpted from Broadband Properties Magazine Report
According to Fiber-to-the-Home Council (FTTH) data, the United States currently ranks third in global FTTH households (3.3M), but experiences the highest rate of growth of any country in terms of new connections year-over-year. According to Joe Savage, President of the FTTH Council North America, FTTH is now the "broadband platform of choice.'"
The catalyst of the FTTH market, according to Infonetics Research, is the gigabit passive optical networking (GPON) segment. Between Q4 2007 and Q1 2008, manufacturers increased revenues, on average, by 33%. According to additional published research from Gartner, broadband penetration in the US market is expected to grow from approximately 54% to 77% by 2012.
The gain is attributed to aggressive deployment by Verizon's FiOS initiative, strong word-of-mouth consumer support, and the abandonment of antiquated dial-up connections that are still active in an estimated 10% of American homes.
Dial-up connections are dropping by as much as 10-15% a year. The success of Verizon FiOS and the highly-competitive consumer market for fiber connections will translate into an industry surge not seen since the wide adoption of DSL and cable modems. A surge that will drive a widespread change-out of customer premises equipment, from dial-up and DSL modems to PON Optical Network terminals.
Video, Bandwidth, and Online Advertising
Excerpted from eMarketer Report by David Hallerman
Video data is the prime mover behind massive increases in Internet bandwidth usage. According to Cisco Systems, video currently generates more traffic in the US than was transmitted across the entire Internet backbone in 2000.
By 2012, as Cisco puts it, "Internet video will be nearly 400 times the US Internet backbone in 2000."
To be sure, the Internet is not about to collapse due to the video boom, nor will it slow down to an unbearable crawl. However, additional costs are involved. In response to this stupendous traffic growth, various ISPs - such as Comcast and Time Warner - are looking to limit their customers' bandwidth usage through techniques such as monthly download caps (often called throttling) and differentiated service tiers.
This budding trend in Internet broadband pricing means that unrestricted service plans might become a thing of the past. As might be expected, consumers see little to like about such changes.
In a recent IDC survey for Zeugma Systems, a company that makes equipment for broadband networks, 81% of US consumers said they dislike the idea of ISP service changes that would eliminate unlimited broadband.
Further, only 5% of respondents said unequivocally that those who use more bandwidth should pay more, while 51% indicated they would try to change service providers if their ISP imposed bandwidth caps.
How might changing ISP business models shape all of online advertising?
When people have to pay additional fees for extra bandwidth or are threatened with slower service, they will likely think twice before watching "optional" video. Additionally, knowing they are paying based on the bandwidth they use, consumers might resent all forms of Internet advertising, since those ads will consume some of their metered service. That would especially be true for video ads.
In particular, the current increase of high-quality, long-form video content - TV shows and full-length movies - the types of high-bandwidth content necessary for substantial online video ad growth, would hit major roadblocks under changed ISP service plans.
Vuze Takes Gamble with New Client
Excerpted from NewTeeVee Report by Janko Roettgers
Vuze introduced version 4.0 of its BitTorrent client this week in an effort to both win back hardcore P2P users and broaden the overall user base of the file-sharing protocol.
Vuze 4.0 features a completely revamped interface, a new subscription mechanism, as well as the option to search third-party torrent sites like MiniNova. The application continues to offer access to Vuze's own content platform, albeit in a slightly less in-your-face kind of way. The content platform, now called Vuze HD Network, is also shifting directions.
Vuze 4.0 is an interesting piece of software, if only because it shows how difficult it is to monetize P2P. Competitors like BitTorrent have tried and failed to convert users into paying online video customers. Vuze is now taking a gamble by going back to its roots, hoping to convince both its users and content owners to give free and ad-supported P2P-downloads a chance.
It's risky - but it may just be the only thing that works.
Vuze's transition from an open-source application called Azureus to a P2P-powered online video platform hasn't been without challenges. The platform initially launched as Zudeo in December 2006, then re-branded as Vuze, and the Azureus moniker got lost somewhere along the way. The original Azureus user base was confused by these moves. Quite a few abandoned Vuze for clients like uTorrent and Transmission.
Torrentfreak reported earlier this year that uTorrent is now installed on more than 13% of all PCs, whereas Vuze only has a market share of about 5%. Vuze used to be in the lead as little as 18 months ago.
Vuze CEO Gilles Bianrosa said that his company wants to make up for those losses with a new interface that is supposed to make both beginners and experienced users happy. "The world of BitTorrent is a very fragmented ecosystem," he said, adding that many users would go to torrent search engines to find content, acquire the .torrent meta file from another site, download the content with an app and finally play it with a separate player.
Vuze wants to simplify this experience by offering to search torrent sites and play video files right within its client. Advanced users can also subscribe to search results and automatically download periodic content.
Granted, subscriptions like these are not entirely new. In fact, Vuze has been offering RSS-based subscriptions through plug-ins for a while, but the new client adds an interesting social component to it.
Users can decide to anonymously share their subscriptions with the rest of the Vuze community in a way that is a little bit like those customer-generated book lists on Amazon. Search for a file on Vuze, and you'll see if the file is part of any subscription, complete with the offer to subscribe as well.
That's a clever way to utilize implicit social behavior, and it could help to get expert and novice users to cooperate.
Vuze's hope is that this newfound utility will help to grow its user base, and that those users will eventually embrace the Vuze HD Network as well. The content platform used to be a mix of user-generated videos and content from TV networks that oftentimes was only available for cash. Bianrosa said that the company is now moving away from lower-quality videos, with the goal to eventually just feature DVD-quality and HD content.
The company has lost some of its bigger partners in recent months, with both the BBC and Starz now completely absent. Bianrosa attributed that to a second shift, away from for-sale titles and towards ad-supported content. Apparently not everyone is willing to make that switch, but Bianrosa believes that it's the right way to go if you want to monetize P2P. "We are targeting a user base that really doesn't like to pay for things."
"People are already searching such BitTorrent sites," said Bianrosa, adding that with Vuze there was at least a chance to expose them to licensed content as well.
Of course, this argument goes both ways: If you want to reach experienced P2P users with legal offerings side-by-side with other search results on an easy-to-use platform, you inadvertently also risk exposing novice users to unlicensed content. That's a risk that BitTorrent wasn't willing to take, which is why its content store failed. Vuze has definitely learned a lesson from failures like this - let's just hope content owners have as well.
Babelgum Orders Wildlife Web Series, Names CTO
Excerpted from C21 Media Report
P2PTV service Babelgum has commissioned factual specialist Off the Fence to produce a natural history series about extinction, with the support of the World Wildlife Fund.
"Extinction Sucks" is the second project to come out of Babelgum's digital studio, fifteen-million dollar fund for original online content launched in April with the feature-length environmental documentary "Oil Sands" from Insomnia Media Group.
Separately, Babelgum promoted its chief technical architect Egidio Corsini to be its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO).
The company is now also hiring general managers for each of its five key content areas.
Online TV Provider PPS.tv Raises $20 Million
Excerpted from Digital Media Wire Report by Mark Hefflinger
PPS.tv, an online TV service in China that counts over 100 million monthly users, announced that it has raised $20 million in new financing, led by LB Investment with participation from Ceyuan Ventures and Qiming Venture Partners.
Founded in 2006, PPS.tv says it counts 6,000 sets of channel programs, which attract a combined monthly view time of over 60 billion minutes.
Content partners include CCTV, ESPN, FIFA and the NBA. PPS was also the first site to be authorized to webcast the Beijing Olympics, as the premier partner of official Olympics site CCTV.com.
P2PTV Service Joost Reboots as Hulu Clone
Excerpted from NY Times Report by Brad Stone
The world probably does not need yet another website where it can waste precious time watching old episodes of "I Dream of Jeannie," clips from "The Daily Show," and the Michael Jackson MTV oeuvre.
But that is exactly what Joost, the much-hyped P2PTV service, is set to give us.
On Tuesday, Joost re-launched as a Flash-based online P2P video hub with free, ad-supported television shows and films - or, in other words, a clone of Hulu, the popular website jointly owned by NBC and Fox.
Joost was created two years ago by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the creators of Skype and Kazaa. Unlike the Flash video sites Hulu and YouTube, where video can be watched with a web browser, Joost originally required users to download a software application, which many people abandoned after installing.
It has been over a year now, but Mike Volpi, a former Cisco executive, has finally completed some painful but necessary renovations at the company. He dismissed nearly half the 180-person staff, closed offices in Paris, Milan, and Rome and now runs Joost largely out of New York City.
In addition to new youth-oriented social networking features, which allow users to share their favorite programs with friends, the new Joost will feature full-length shows from CBS, Viacom, and the Warner Bros. Television Group. Among the offerings: the "Friends" archives, "CNN: America Votes," 18,000 music videos, shows from MTV and VH1 like "The Hills," classic sitcoms like "Diff'rent Strokes" and a selection of movies, including "Jerry Maguire" and "Men in Black."
Most of that material can be found elsewhere on the web. To really compete with Hulu's deep library and YouTube's sheer volume of user-generated video, Joost will have to build its own trove of find-it-nowhere-else material. Mr. Volpi is betting that he can do that by positioning Joost as an alternative Internet partner for media companies who fear Google and worry about giving more momentum to Hulu.
"If you are a principal content owner aside from NBC and Fox, do you really want one website that controls all professional TV?" Mr. Volpi said. "Everybody who is not NBC and Fox is encouraging us to do a good job and be a player in this market."
For example, Joost will carry clips from "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report." So does Hulu, but Mr. Volpi thinks Viacom could reconsider its Hulu deal once it expires later this year.
Joost was also close to signing a deal with Lorne Michael's production company, Broadway Video Enterprises, to bring "Saturday Night Live" clips to the site, according to Mr. Volpi. But NBC appears to have scuttled that deal at the last moment. SNL clips also appear on Hulu and NBC.com.
"We'll just keep hanging around the rim to see if we get a break," Mr. Volpi said.
Canada Gives Thumbs Up to P2P Networks
Excerpted from Tom's Hardware Guide Report by Tuan Nguyen
Jack Layton, leader of the National Democratic Party (NDP), a major political party in Canada, fully supports P2P networks. Layton says that P2P networks are part of innovation and should not be regulated by government bodies.
According to Layton, "Big corporations are moving to threaten net neutrality. This is very, very dangerous and we have put the whole issue of net neutrality right into the heart of our campaign platform and I urge you to visit ndp.ca to see what we're saying about it."
Net neutrality has become a hot topic, one that even Barack Obama has talked about in his US Presidential campaign on a very serious level.
"Just as we don't favor two-tiered healthcare, we don't favor two-tiered Internet either. What we want to see is the Internet used as a public tool for exchanging ideas; and if we don't fight to preserve it, we could lose it," says Layton.
Many consumers are frustrated already with the way Internet connection packages are sold. For example, while connection speeds are increasing, ISPs are finding more ways to put a cap on what customers can download and how much.
Net neutrality is one topic that certainly will get hotter with the results of this year's election.
BayTSP Appoints Paramount Exec as VP, Prod Dev
BayTSP, the leading provider of online intellectual property (IP) monitoring, enforcement, and measurement services, has named John Salter as Vice President of Product Development. Salter will be responsible for overall product and services development in addition to overseeing the company's computing, network, and storage infrastructure and managing the IT, Systems operation Center, and Data Control teams.
Salter had a 21-year career in IT at Paramount, leading a variety of infrastructure, engineering and operations teams. He also spent two years coordinating Paramount's Internet anti-piracy efforts.
"John's longtime IT experience, combined with his studio perspective on Internet piracy make him an ideal choice to lead our new product and service efforts," said BayTSP CEO Mark Ishikawa. "We've been working in the anti-piracy space longer than anyone else and as the industry transitions to using digital fingerprinting and watermarking to identify content online, John's longtime experience will help keep us on the cutting edge of technology and in developing services to help our clients monitor for, measure and monetize their IP online."
Salter's primary focus will be to expand the capabilities of BayTSP's Content Authentication Platform (CAP). CAP employs multiple digital fingerprinting and watermarking technologies to identify content on user-generated content (UGC) sites like YouTube, DailyMotion, and the growing number of Asian sites, like Youku and Tudou in China and Nico Douga in Japan.
The CAP system scans and identifies client content on over one million minutes video on UGC and other video hosting sites daily by combining the best of video and audio fingerprinting technologies into a single tool.
BayTSP has been providing IP monitoring and enforcement services to the entertainment industry - focusing on P2P networks - since 1999. In addition to monitoring for copyright infringing content, the system also provides measurement and monetization systems to track viewership and deliver metadata that allows for highly targeted advertising to appear with each video clip.
President Bush Approves Copyright Czar Bill
Excerpted from Portfolio Report by Sam Gustin
By signing an aggressive copyright protection bill this week, President Bush has handed a victory to the powerful forces that lobbied for its passage: Hollywood, the recording industry, and major media companies currently battling what they see as the scourge of digital piracy.
But how much will the new law, the PRO-IP Act, actually do to combat digital piracy? Is it the silver bullet the music business needs to save an industry that is shrinking by hundreds of millions of dollars per year? My answers: Not much, and no.
The bill, which triples copyright damages and gives the government the right to seize property used to commit intellectual property theft, e.g. laptops, is at the center of what Larry Lessig, the noted intellectual property lawyer, calls "the copyright wars."
Perhaps most controversially, the bill would also create a new "copyright czar" to oversee the nation's efforts to combat piracy. The Justice Department actually opposed that provision, arguing that a copyright czar would undermine its authority.
Writing on TechCrunch, Eric Schonfeld quipped that the new copyright czar would likely do as much good as the President's drug czar has done in combating narcotics traffic and use. I agree.
And that's the real problem with these types of authoritarian laws. They further drive black-market activity underground. For nearly a decade the recording industry and law enforcement groups have been waging a series of running battles against unauthorized music file-sharers. And yet such digital file-sharing remains rampant, by some estimates, ten times as large as the legal online music market.
"The war on P2P file-sharing is a failure," Lessig wrote in the Wall Street Journal this week. "After a decade of fighting, the law has neither slowed file sharing, nor compensated artists. We should sue not kids, but for peace, and build upon a host of proposals that would assure that artists get paid for their work, without trying to stop 'sharing.'"
Pro-business groups hailed the bill's passage, which they describe as necessary to combat criminal activity that costs $250 billion and 750,000 jobs per year, despite the fact that those figures have been thoroughly discredited.
"By becoming law, the PRO-IP Act sends the message to IP criminals everywhere that the US will go the extra mile to protect American innovation," said Tom Donahue, President and Chief Executive of the US Chamber of Commerce.
John Engler, President of the National Association of Manufacturers, called the bill a "shining example of a bicameral, bipartisan effort to advance legislation to protect our consumers, jobs and businesses from intellectual property piracy and counterfeiting."
Mitch Bainwol, head of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) described the bill as "music to the ears of all those who care about strengthening American creativity and jobs."
Opponents of the bill said it simply adds more ammunition to the quixotic campaign to crack-down on digital piracy.
"There are already lots and lots of penalties for copyright violations," said Art Brodsky, a spokesman for Public Knowledge, a D.C.-based activist group which opposed the bill. "They've got all the tools they need."
QTRAX Licenses Universal Music Group International
Excerpted from Wired News Report by Eliot Van Buskirk
Although P2P networks are as legal as e-mail, much of their traffic involves the distribution of copyrighted music without protection. QTRAX has long sought permission to offer a P2P-style network by leveraging Usenet as a secondary back-end for its centralized music service. Until today, it had succeeded only in licensing the official catalogs of EMI and Universal Music Group (UMG) for US users - not including the "gray area" music that's available on file-sharing networks.
Today represents another step forward in the long march of QTRAX, "the world's first free and legal peer-to-peer music service." The company has secured licensing from UMG's international division to allow that label's music to be distributed in Europe, Asia/Pacific, South America and Africa, a QTRAX representative told Wired via telephone on Tuesday.
Securing any sort of license from the labels for QTRAX's legalized "P2P" service has been a brutal and lengthy ordeal. But getting international licenses can be as difficult or more, thanks to a music industry that still thinks of the world as being divided into discrete sections. This step forward represents another piece of the QTRAX puzzle falling into place. The company surely hopes that the coming months will bring similar deals from the remaining two major labels, as well as representatives of indie labels and artists.
As we wrote back in May, the service lets users share DRM-protected music. The DRM is there to help prevent songs from slipping onto unauthorized networks, but also to establish the play counts QTRAX will use to figure out how much to pay artists, labels, and publishers. Ads are displayed during the search and download processes, and users have the option to purchase music and merchandise through the service.
The company's goal is to offer every single one of the 25 million or so songs that are available on file-sharing networks, including live, rare, and remixed tracks. As the last few months have shown, the licensing issues surrounding such a scheme present significant difficulties.
In addition, the DRM concerns associated with offering an unlimited amount of free subscription track downloads could prevent the service from being available on Apple computers.
Obstacles remain, but considering what QTRAX could become - a legal way to download music from a catalog over three times bigger than iTunes for free and play them on supported portable devices - we'll be keeping our eye on this one.
LimeWire Adds Social Networking Features
Excerpted from Wired News Report by Eliot van Buskirk
The file-sharing software LimeWire, with "80 to 100 million reasonably regular users," is one of the biggest forces in music distribution and still faces a lawsuit from multiple record labels. But now that the majors have made deals with MySpace, YouTube and other content networks, LimeWire hopes to offer the sort of licensed P2P service that the original Napster could have become. One move in this direction is a new personalization feature that lets people share music and other content only with specific friends.
"LimeWire was started, unbelievably, about eight years ago now and the world has changed so much since then," LimeWire Chief Operating Officer Kevin Bradshaw told Wired. "Let's try to remind everybody about what the roots of P2P actually are, and why ordinary folks really believe that this will be something of value to them. It's not all about lawsuits and horrible stuff, there's also some great technology going on here as well."
The first order of business, says Bradshaw, is highlighting the "P" in "P2P" by adding social networking features first to the LimeWire application itself. Web- and mobile-based social networking features could follow.
"P2P activity has always been social, it's just been anonymous and social," said Bradshaw. The new features will let LimeWire users "personalize what they might wish to share with whom and how they might wish to be informed about the sharing activities of known and trusted colleagues and friends."
No existing features will disappear as part of the changes, he says, and users will not be required to use any of the new personalization features. Instead, "it's really just putting a layer of personalization on top of this thing that already exists."
"This is what P2P was meant to be, and that was just a great, simple, uncomplicated, enjoyable way to share things that you care about with people that you care about," added Bradshaw. "I have a 65-year-old mother in Scotland, and the idea of asking her to sign up with SnapFish and to log in, and the upload process, it's still a very complicated thing for ordinary people. Imagine a situation where she would have an installation of LimeWire. I could just drop pictures into a folder on my hard drive and they would automatically appear on her drive."
Eventually, he says, such sharing could be possible even when one user is offline by caching shared directories. Other companies have tried to launch similar privacy-enabled sharing networks, but they lacked LimeWire's installed base. And when you're talking about a social network, installed base is everything.
Introducing trusted identities into the system could also offer a way for private groups to share content with each other without worrying about lawsuits or downloading bogus files. This could come at the expense of catalog comprehensiveness, but the trade-off is that friends will be able to keep tabs on each other's music collections more easily.
As for that pesky lawsuit, the labels accused LimeWire of contributing to infringement in a legal brief, according to Fortune: "The undisputed facts confirm what everybody (certainly every teenager and college student) already knows: LimeWire's eponymous P2P software is good for one thing and used for one thing - massive infringement of sound recordings each and every day."
But if people start using LimeWire to share baby photos with their parents privately, as Bradshaw himself apparently plans to do, the label's stance that LimeWire's main purpose is to infringe copyright could ring hollow.
Limewire CEO George Searle's official statement on the matter is that rather than suing Limewire and other non-traditional music distributors, the RIAA labels should work with them.
"The endless stream of lawsuits filed by the major record labels hasn't done anything to help the music consumer, nor has it put a single penny into the pockets of artists, songwriters, and publishers," said Searle. "Litigation isn't a good digital business model. We're confident in our position and in the eventual outcome of this lawsuit, and we look forward to the day we can work together with the entire music industry to help expand its reach and deliver more to the consumer."
Artists See a Future with BitTorrent
Excerpted from TorrentFreak Report
The music industry is changing. While the record labels are desperately trying to protect the revenue stream from album sales, a new generation of artists is starting to realize that they are better off when they give away their music for free. By now, we're all familiar with the industry's view, but what drives these artists?
Giving away music for free might not sound like a very solid business model to most people, but it is. Most artists make most of their money from concerts and merchandise, not so much album sales. Even more so, the key to success are the fans, and what better way to introduce people to your music by giving it away for free?
A whole new generation of artists, most of who grew up with Napster, Limewire, and BitTorrent, are starting to utilize the power of file-sharing networks. This year alone, thousands of albums were released online for free, and this number is growing at an increasing rate. The possibilities are endless. Some artists use sites like Jamendo, others go for mainstream BitTorrent sites like The Pirate Bay and MiniNova, and yet another group prefers niche BitTorrent communities such as What.cd.
The Pragmatic is such a band. Today, the five-member band, which was founded in 2006, has released the album "Circles" on BitTorrent and Rapidshare. Andre, one of the band members, who plays an analog synthesizer from the early 80s, explained to us why they chose to give away their music for free.
"With this first release we really wanted to try out giving it out for free and just see what happens," he said. "Bands like Radiohead and NIN come out and release stuff for free and have success, but that's largely because of their already established careers. They've built that up the traditional way and they've reaped the rewards of that, but their success in file-sharing is more of a perk of that status."
"Growing up, every musician dreamed of that big shiny record deal, but I don't think it's relevant anymore. Labels have had to sober up and re-think what their roles are. It used to be about music, and I think file-sharing has brought that to their attention. By releasing it for free, I guess we could be losing money, but in the long run I think we're hopefully making fans."
Similar to most other people, Andre is part of a generation that grew up with file-sharing. It is part of the music industry now, and it exposes people to more music than they would ever hear on mainstream radio. It is probably not what the RIAA wants to hear, or will ever admit, but music is more popular than ever thanks to file-sharing.
Andre agrees. "Fans go to shows, buy merch and support bands for all the right reasons. I think that our generation grew up with an almost insatiable need for more and more music. I know I did. I've downloaded lots of albums I loved and bought physical versions. I've downloaded plenty of albums I hated and deleted. I can't begin to count how many bands I know and love because of Napster/Soulseek/Bittorrent. File-sharing was never really about stealing music, it was about finding music you loved."
"Labels will complain and sue their very core audience just to make a dollar. I can't blame them, it's the way they've built their companies. Change scares them, especially when they don't control it. I honestly believe that I wouldn't be a musician today if Napster hadn't appeared. I think Napster fostered the incredible current musical culture and nobody gives them credit for it. I find it very hard for an upcoming artist to get any exposure without being willing to promote their music on P2P networks."
The clash between artists and labels, and the ever increasing piracy statistics are forcing the big labels to rethink their business models. Now BitTorrent has the power to promote artists based on their music, not on the advertising budget. It is hard to deny that the music labels are in a crisis, however, music itself is more alive than ever before.
DCINFO Editor's Note: See also "Do I Look Like a CEO?" in Business Week and Reasons why Outlawing P2P Isn't Good for Everyone: a Musician Speaks.
ECOFEST Serves Salsa, Spoons, and Al Smith
Excerpted from Ecofest Report by George Lewis
As I do every year, I spent the last Sunday in September at ECOFEST- a large New York exhibition featuring all that's new and exciting in the "greening" of the world. This year marked ECOFEST's twentieth anniversary.
While it's always fun observing the interesting mix of exhibitors and people who attend, I am always drawn to the live performances at the band shell that dominates the exhibition area in Lincoln Center's Damrosch Park. Noteworthy, I find the stage during the festival is Solar powered. These guys walk the walk too!
This year I was pleased to discover that Al Smith of Blacksmith would be closing out the show. Event producer Nancy Callahan introduced him after reading a message from Senator Hillary Clinton and then an unexpected surprise statement which Al brought with him from Presidential candidate Barack Obama. Both statements congratulated ECOFEST on 20 years of increasing environmental awareness.
After that it was "show time"! Al went to work as a one-man-band, churning out his signature brand of "Country Rock Inspiration & Blues" (CRIB) music. Strumming a Godin synth guitar and backed by live sequenced rhythm tracks, he belted out two opening numbers "Sweet Home Chicago", and Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin On?" - but with a twist! Members of Dance Manhattan Studios took the stage to jump-start the party with their Salsa, Swing, and free-style dancing!
The party was officially on as the dancers (led by "Mad Hot Ballroom" star Rodney Lopez) channeling the Temptations, aligned themselves behind the microphones adding backing vocals with their dance moves. Smith next had us all singing along to his rendition of Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" and then chanting the chorus to his rock anthem "Credit Is Due!"
With the energy levels rising with each song, not even Mother Nature would allow her overcast sky to keep the crowd from grooving and joining in the festivities!
The show took a surreal turn during the song "Oye Como Va" as special guest Mary Poppins came out of nowhere, spoons in hand, and strutted towards the microphone to give an incredible "spoons" solo! As Al sang and soloed over the vamp, I must admit Mary Poppins' syncopated "spoons" added an interesting dimension to the Carlos Santana classic.
Amidst the festive atmosphere, Smith slowed the pace down a bit with his original ballad of "The Artist & His Lady" a touching story about a couple's resolve to fight against adversity. "They say he's a dreamer, but she's a believer - the artist and his lady."
For the finale, Smith dug deep into his bag of tricks and pulled out a classic Wilson Pickett medley of "Midnight Hour" and "Land of 1000 Dances" (the "Nah, na na na nah" song) which pushed the crowd over the edge, as Smith's soulful yet funky delivery had them up and moving to the driving beat!
He was now in a zone, as the audience lost itself in a scene of soaring guitar solos, gyrating dancers, spoon popping and phat rhythm tracks. A parade of cameramen even took to the stage to record and capture the experience.
All in all, Al Smith (and friends) gave ECOFEST another exciting and memorable performance, sending the crowd home enthused, energized and anticipating his next Ecofest appearance.
That's a good thing, because if he keeps rockin' like this, we may have to shell out the big bucks to see him elsewhere. "Happy Anniversary!" to all the good stewards of the earth.
Blacksmith is a DCIA Content Group Member.
Coming Events of Interest
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.
DDEX Conferences – Digital Data Exchange (DDEX) Implementation Conferences on October 23rd, 28th, and November 6th in New York, NY; Santa Monica, CA; and Paris, France respectively. Automation of B2B data exchange for digital content markets. Registration required.
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.
International CES - January 8th-11th in Las Vegas, NC. With more than four decades of success, the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) reaches across global markets, connects the industry and enables CE innovations to grow and thrive. CES is produced by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the consumer technology industry.
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