April 6, 2009
Volume XXV, Issue 12
Come to the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA
The DCIA urges you to attend our fourth annual day-long P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA. This seminal industry event will take place in Santa Monica, CA on Monday May 4th in conjunction with Digital Hollywood Spring, which this year more than ever is becoming THE mainstream Hollywood conference.
With Internet ad spending at a new all-time high, the 2009 P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA will focus on peer-to-peer (P2P) analytics - usage data, trends, metrics, etc. - that P2P-based services and other industry participants offer to content providers and enterprise customers. The DHS agenda features increased participation by reality-TV executives, reflecting the growing dominance of this genre on television.
Pre-registration rates, which save attendees up to $360, end April 27th. To register, please call 410-476-7964 or click here. To extend the reach of the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA to those unable to travel to Los Angeles, the DCIA and Abacast will produce a live interactive webcast of the event.
ARTISTdirect Acquires MediaSentry
ARTISTdirect, an industry-leading digital media technology company, this week announced its acquisition of the MediaSentry unit of SafeNet, by ARTISTdirect's wholly-owned subsidiary MediaDefender. The announcement was made by ARTISTdirect CEO Dimitri Villard.
MediaSentry is a leading provider of business and marketing intelligence services for digital media measurement, encompassing a large network of intelligent monitoring agents and proprietary databases that track, verify, measure, and report on digital media consumption activity. MediaSentry also provides the world's largest entertainment and media companies with the most effective means available to globally detect, track, and deter the unauthorized distribution of their digital content.
The MediaSentry Services portfolio provides clients with powerful, end-to-end solutions designed to meet specific content protection, intelligence, and distribution needs. With a global infrastructure spanning the most prolific P2P networks, as well as emerging communities and user-generated content (UGC) sites, MediaSentry is dedicated to helping content owners not only understand but also leverage today's largest base of online consumers.
MediaDefender's existing P2P services deliver unparalleled copyright enforcement capabilities that significantly reduce the ability of infringers to access copyrighted material.
"The combination of MediaDefender, the leader in online copyright infringement prevention with MediaSentry, the leader in business and marketing intelligence derived from P2P channels, creates a true powerhouse in the field of intellectual property (IP) protection," said Dimitri Villard, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ARTISTdirect.
"This acquisition will enable MediaDefender to dramatically expand its effectiveness by providing customers with a wide range of options to meet the constantly evolving challenges in copyright protection and enforcement."
Artist Direct Internet Group controls some of the Internet's leading consumer music and entertainment information properties. Its flagship website is the premier destination for all things related to music and film and their artists. Through its rich, multimedia repository of contextually relevant information and entertainment, the company creates deep connections between artists and fans that deliver benefits to both the entertainment consumer and the entertainment industry.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Given The NPD Group's startling report this week on teen music consumption, the unprecedented online pre-release Wednesday of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and now, MediaSentry's acquisition by ARTISTdirect, the subject matter of our 2009 P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA conference could not be more timely.
Our focus will be on data gathering and analytics in the P2P marketplace, ranging from the persistence of copyright infringement in file-sharing traffic to the Internet's fastest growing area: P2P-based commercial distribution of download and streaming licensed content.
In our view, the advancement of digital distribution business models will benefit tremendously from a deeper understanding of the changes now taking place in P2P and cloud-computing deployment and usage.
NPD, a leader in market research for the entertainment industry, reported that among teens (ages 13-to-17), music CD purchasing in 2008 declined 26% - and paid digital downloads fell 13% - compared to 2007. The number of teens borrowing music, either to rip to a computer or burn to a CD, also fell sharply - by 28%. There was also a 6% downturn in the quantity of tracks downloaded from file-sharing networks.
This was contrasted with sharp jumps in teen usage of online listening sources. Listening to music on social networks, for example, saw a large increase - from 26% in 2007 to 46% in 2008.
NPD's entertainment industry analyst Russ Crupnick postulated that the surprising revelations of fewer teens purchasing digital music could reflect a larger shift in the ways teens are interacting with music online.
"The music industry still hasn't recovered from declining CD sales, and now they are being challenged anew by slowing digital sales among teens," said Crupnick. "Perhaps the next wave for teens comes when just listening to music replaces acquiring actual files, which might end-up creating new revenue streams, such as brand- and ad-supported music. It might also put a premium on selling downloads, merchandise, and show tickets directly to teen fans." And this is exactly what a host of new and emerging P2P services are proposing and offering.
Meanwhile, in his NY Times article on the unauthorized pre-release of "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," Brian Stelter noted that, "The troubling leak occurred at a time when media companies are working harder than ever to curtail digital piracy of content. Hollywood studios spend millions of dollars to track every step of the film production process to avoid such potentially costly leaks."
He went on to quote Eric Garland, CEO of P2P monitoring firm BigChampagne, regarding this unprecedented occurrence. Garland, who will keynote at the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA, said, "We've never seen such a high-profile film - a film of this budget, a tent-pole movie with this box-office potential - leak in any form this early."
TorrentFreak reported that the leak was comprised of "at least three different 'workprint' versions, one reported to be a few minutes longer than the others, but all missing special effects."
Despite unfinished editing, this highly anticipated motion picture, scheduled for theatrical release on May 1st, propagated widely and quickly online. BigChampagne reported that digital copies of the film were downloaded hundreds-of-thousands of times within 24 hours of the initial leak.
Garland opined that the leak "could theoretically depress box-office receipts for the film, but that online viewers would be only a tiny percentage of the total audience. The 'other fear is bad word of mouth,' he said. As twisted as it may seem, 'you would rather have a very high-quality version of the film leak than a premature working version, because it's not your best work."
The pattern of online redistribution - along with interdiction, containment, and enforcement efforts; as well as associated blogging, twittering, and online critiquing - has now generated an important data trail that will provide valuable learning to industry participants at all levels, as will be discussed at the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA.
And finally, the news of ARTISTdirect's acquisition of MediaSentry, as reported in the preceding article, was indicative of an important industry trend. ARTISTdirect.com receives over 3 million unique visitors per month while the ARTISTdirect Network, a family of related websites, draws more than 12.4 million monthly unique visitors.
ARTISTdirect itself exemplifies how valuable P2P analytics can be to the development of strategies for commercial distribution online, and it is this important connection that will be thoroughly explored at this year's P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA.
Featuring hit videos, streams, free downloads, breaking news, in-depth interviews with musicians, actors, filmmakers, and film-score composers, a huge database filled with biographies and discographies plus hard-to-find information, as well as CDs, plus concert and movie tickets for purchase, ARTISTdirect has become a valuable resource for anyone with an appetite for finding new and interesting content about their favorite artists and their music and films.
These and related subjects will be covered in depth at the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA coming in just a few weeks on May 4th. To sponsor or exhibit, please contact Laura Tunberg at 310-415-0330. For DCIA Membership and conference speaker information, please contact Karen Kaplowitz at 888-890-4240.
The P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA is being held in conjunction with Digital Hollywood Spring, and registration for both events yields a substantial savings. For more information, please click here. Pre-registration rates, which save attendees up to $360, end April 27th. To register, please click here. Share wisely, and take care.
Online Music Service Business Model Uncertainty
Excerpted from Business Weekly Report by Peter Burrows
I'm a huge fan of online subscriptions, particularly music services. I realized just how much I've come to rely on such services this weekend, when I briefly considered giving away boxes of hundreds of CDs I stored in my attic soon after I began paying my $15 monthly fee for unlimited streaming access a few years back.
It was a shock to look at all those CDs, and feel nothing - none of the love I used to feel when buying, playing, or admiring them as they took up space in my crowded home-office. Now, all I care about is having access to music. So long as that's the case, I could care less about owning it - whether on CD or as a digital download.
Evidently, I'm not alone. This week, market watcher NPD released the latest evidence that tomorrow's customers - today's teens - are less interested in owning music. Rather, teens are flocking to streaming services.
But there's a big problem: Most of these music services aren't making money. Pandora seems to be in relatively good shape (pending negotiations over royalty rates for online radio), but SpiralFrog recently went under. iMeem is up for sale, bankers tell me. But although it has raised more than $50 million in funding, these sources say it may not be worth more than $10 million. There are rumblings that even MySpace Music, despite huge popularity, hasn't nailed the business model yet.
Which raises the question: How can consumers commit completely to a cloud-based way of life when it comes to media? Over the years, this was one of the main arguments I heard from Apple, as to why subscriptions were a lousy deal for consumers: Because if a service provider went out of business or decided to jack-up prices (or start charging for what had been free), consumers may be left with no music library at all.
In the past, I discounted this argument, on the assumption that market economics would ensure the survival of good services. Increasingly, that assumption feels flawed. Given the dire straits of Rhapsody owner Real Networks (its market cap of $307 million is less than its $370 million in cash), who knows what will happen to the subscription service I now rely on every day.
And it's not just music. Consider Kodak's recent decision to start charging for storage on its Kodak Gallery photo-sharing site.
Of course, unprofitable or struggling businesses need to figure out how to make money, and that will likely involve more paid services. But they must also think about the overall online user experience - which includes giving consumers a migration path should they need to radically revamp their terms of service. In the long run, Kodak would be better served by giving an out to customers who don't want to pay up, say, by agreeing to transfer their pics to another photo site or back to their PC hard-drives.
As for my CDs, they're staying in the attic for now.
P2P Streaming Helps Fight Unauthorized Downloads
Excerpted from The Quietus Report
New figures seem to show that music streaming sites like P2P-based Spotify are helping to curb what had been a rising tide in unauthorized downloads and file sharing.
A survey conducted by The NPD Group reported that, in the US, those aged between 13 and 17 acquired 19% less music in 2008 than they did in 2007, whether that was through buying CDs, paid-for downloads, or file-sharing networks. Use of streaming services, however, was up from 34% to 52%.
Spotify has not yet been launched in the US, and its rapid rise to prominence in the UK could be seen as a sign that the number of people streaming free music on the web, rather than downloading it for keeps, will increase again in coming months.
Reimbursing labels with funds raised through ads and paid-for membership schemes, could it be that Spotify has hit on a winning formula for the future of music distribution?
Spotifying a Niche in the Download Market
Excerpted from TelecomTV One Report by Leila Makki
Spotify, the new proprietary P2P streaming music service, has signed a deal that will see it selling MP3 tracks in direct competition with Apple's iTunes Store.
Founded in Sweden in 2006, the subscription and ad-supported music streaming service has a catalog of six million tracks. It hedges its business model bets by allowing users to enjoy streamed playlists interrupted by advertisements for free.
Alternatively, if that's too hard to bear, users will soon be able to pay 9.99 pounds per month to listen to the content ad-free. Only the ad-supported service is available currently.
Launched in the UK in October 2008, London-based Spotify has now hit the one million member mark, of which a quarter are in the UK.
It allows instant listening to specific tracks or albums with almost no buffering delay. Users can browse music by artists and albums, or create and share playlists. The streamed music cannot be used outside the application, but a link will now provide listeners with direct access to purchase the tracks. From the online music store, 7digital, European users will be able to download MP3s by clicking on the song as they listen to it.
"Spotify went into this thinking it was going to be a premium subscription business," said Mark Mulligan, an analyst with Forrester Research. "The problem is that what's proven to be the successful part is the free bit."
The download service has not yet confirmed the cost per download, but media reports are claiming tracks could sell for as little as 50 pence, with albums priced at 3 pounds.
Spotify's buying option will initially go live in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain; with Sweden, Norway, and Finland, to follow in a couple of weeks. At first, only individual songs and albums will be available to buy, but the company hopes to eventually expand the offering so that entire playlists can be purchased.
MTV Networks Rocks the Cloud with Open APIs
Excerpted from Cloudslam Report
This week, MTV Networks announced that it's expanding the delivery of video feeds and opening its application programming interfaces (APIs) to consumers and partners via cloud computing - interesting possibilities.
The network has come a long way since the days of Nina Blackwood and Mark Goodman, to be sure, but what exactly is it looking to gain? Ostensibly, reliability and scalability.
To help in this endeavor, MTV Networks has selected Sonoa's ServiceNet. It's deploying ServiceNet between its various service providers and consumers to manage its service policies. Using Sonoa's dual-plane architecture, which separates data processing from control tasks, the service policies will be seamlessly applied at network speed. In theory, this provides high concurrency with extremely low latency.
Real deal? Good plan for MTV? Frank Kenney, Research Director for Applications Strategy and Governance at Gartner, opined that "MTV Networks is a great example of how industry leaders are leveraging the cloud to innovate distribution models and consumer experiences." Andrew Toy, MTV's VP of Mobile and Syndication Technology, was nice enough to answer a couple of questions.
How serious is MTV about leveraging cloud computing?
Andrew Toy: MTVN is very interested in exploring the use of cloud computing to help us deliver our digital experiences to as wide a range of audiences as possible, while at the same time keeping tight control of our infrastructure and costs.
What benefits does MTV hope to see from utilizing cloud computing?
Andrew Toy: Cloud computing brings out that opportunity to scale our infrastructure and product in an extremely flexible fashion, which enables us to provide a level of agility and functionality to the business that we have not been able to do using traditional methods.
What is the vision for MTV's cloud computing infrastructure over the next five years?
Andrew Toy: By leveraging a hybrid strategy, which combines the security of traditional infrastructure with the flexibility and scalability of distributed cloud, MTVN feels it will be able to provide best-of-breed content distribution services to both its consumers and distribution partners.
It sure seems like MTV intends to take full advantage of cloud computing to become a more open company through new APIs and cloud-based services for both partners and consumers. It's good to see an established company, especially a media outlet, out front like this.
The Five Pillars of Cloud Computing
Excerpted from SYS-CON Media Report by Dave Malcolm
Cloud computing is getting tons of press these days. Everyone has a different perspective and understanding of the technology, and there are myriad variations on the definition of "the cloud."
James Staten of Forrester Research describes it as a pool of abstracted, highly scalable, and managed compute infrastructure capable of hosting end-customer applications and billed by consumption. Let's take it a step further and examine the core principles, or pillars, that uniquely define cloud computing.
Pillar 1 - Cloud computing requires a dynamic computing infrastructure. The foundation for the dynamic infrastructure is a standardized, scalable, and secure physical infrastructure. There should be levels of redundancy to ensure high levels of availability, but mostly it must be easy to extend as usage growth demands it, without requiring architecture rework.
Pillar 2 - Cloud computing is service-centric. In most cases, users of the cloud generally want to run some service or application for a specific, timely purpose; they don't want to get bogged down in the system and network administration of the environment. They would prefer to quickly and easily access a dedicated instance of an application or service.
Pillar 3 - Interacting with the cloud requires some level of user self-service. Best-of-breed self-service provides users the ability to upload, build, deploy, schedule, manage, and report on their services on demand. Self-service cloud offerings must provide easy-to-use, intuitive user interfaces that equip users to productively manage the service delivery lifecycle.
Pillar 4 - Best-of-breed clouds enable self-management. This is accomplished by leveraging the following capabilities: a provisioning engine for deploying services and tearing them down, recovering resources for high levels of reuse; mechanisms for scheduling and reserving resource capacity; capabilities for configuring, managing, and reporting to ensure resources can be allocated and reallocated to multiple groups of users; and tools for controlling access to resources and policies for how resources can be used or operations can be performed.
Pillar 5 - Finally, cloud computing is usage-driven. Consumers pay for only what resources they use and therefore are charged or billed on a consumption-based model. Cloud computing platforms must provide mechanisms to capture usage information that enable chargeback reporting and/or integration with billing systems.
In summary, all of these five pillars are necessary in producing compelling value, which includes savings on capital equipment and operating costs, reduced support costs, and significantly increased service agility. All of these in turn enable the improvement of profit margins and marketplace competitiveness.
New Payment Model for Recorded Music
The payment model described in a new report from Generator Research, which is not a rental model, is based on collecting payments from consumers when they play their songs.
This new approach would mean that the nature of the cash flow for a record label would more closely resemble that of a music publishing company. Under the new model, consumers would be able to obtain digital song files for free, but they would pay each time they listened.
Those who listened a lot would pay the most while occasional listeners would pay the least. Payments would be collected by retailers who would sell music service accounts on a pay-as-you-go or subscription basis.
The size of the user's personal music collection would be unimportant and users could own as much music as they wanted.
The new payment model is based on an assumption that music would be provided without DRM while consumers and third-party developers would be free to copy and share digital music without restrictions.
Central to the new pricing model is an assumption about how much consumers would be willing to pay to listen to their music. Therefore, the report begins by using three different approaches to define a viable price range for 'listening time."
Taking the perspective of a record label, the report then presents the results of a financial modeling exercise that identifies the differences between the new payment model and the traditional model, where consumers pay to acquire music.
Revenue, cash flow, and a range of other important metrics are included in two separate financial models where all the key assumptions are clearly explained and supported using primary data sources and consumer research. Please click here to view the contents.
Google Offers Links to Free Music Downloads in China
Excerpted from NY Times Report by David Barboza
Trying to gain ground in one of the few markets where it is behind, Google said Monday that it had begun to offer in China links to free music downloads, a service it does not offer anywhere else in the world.
Google executives said they were responding to the phenomenal popularity of free music downloads in China and were acting legally by forming an alliance with the music industry, including Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group, Universal Music, and the Warner Music Group.
Google said it hoped the demand for music downloads would raise its profile in China, which has already overtaken the United States as the world's biggest Internet market with nearly 300 million users. It is also aiming to gain market share against its chief rival here, Baidu, the country's dominant search engine.
"This is a huge leap of faith for us," Kai-fu Lee, the President of Google Greater China, said. "We hope this will move the landscape to a legal model."
The deal, which was announced at a news conference in Beijing, is significant for Google and the global music industry because Chinese consumers spend so much time searching for and downloading unlicensed music, often to use as mobile-phone ring-tones.
Richard Ji, a technology analyst at Morgan Stanley, called the agreement a milestone for cooperation between portals and the music industry. He also said that music and video downloads would grow even more important with the release of more 3G multimedia offerings.
Baidu, which has about 62% of the Chinese search engine market, has grown partly by offering music search services and linking to sites that offer free downloads of music.
By comparison, Google - which until now has not offered links to free music downloads - has only about 28% of the search engine market in China, according to Analysys International, a Beijing research firm.
Saying they are losing a great deal of money in China, the big global music companies have sued Baidu in a bid to stop it from linking to websites offering unlicensed music downloads. But Baidu has defended itself, saying it is simply offering search links. The cases are pending.
The International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI), which represents some of the biggest music companies, estimates that 99% of the online downloads of music in China are unauthorized.
TPB Adds Feature to Share Torrents on Facebook
Excerpted from PC World Report by Jeremy Kirk
The world's most notorious search engine for audio and video content on the web has added a feature that links it with the popular social-networking site Facebook.
The Pirate Bay's (TPB) site has been upgraded to let those users with Facebook accounts share torrents, which are small information files that enable the downloading of content via the BitTorrent P2P file-sharing network.
Clicking the "Share on Facebook" button brings up a window where a user can share the torrent with his/her friends. If other Facebook users have BitTorrent-compatible download clients, their programs will launch and begin downloading the media.
TPB's move will surely aggravate the movie and music industries, which maintain that the Swedish search engine indexes mostly content under copyright, which is then distributed without authorization. TPB has not heard complaints from either Facebook or entertainment industry trade groups, said Peter Sunde, who helps run TPB.
In order to let users share more content, Facebook publishes several bits of code that publishers and users can integrate in their own websites that allow for content-sharing on Facebook.
Facebook's terms-of-use says that users are prohibited from uploading material that violates another party's intellectual property (IP) rights. Facebook said if it receives proper notice, it will remove or disable the content and terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.
Since a torrent doesn't actually contain any of the media, but merely coordinates the download, it remains to be seen how Facebook will deal with those torrents which link to copyright-restricted material.
TPB has recently been adding other features in addition to the Facebook button. Last week, it announced a subscription virtual private network (VPN) service called IPREDATOR that is due to launch this week. The service, which will cost 5 euros per month, is intended to provide more anonymity when browsing the web.
MiniNova Helps Musicians Monetize Torrent Downloads
Excerpted from The Inquisitr Report by Steven Hodson
Everyone has pretty well heard of The Pirate Bay (TPB), but MiniNova is right up there as one of the largest BitTorrent sites on the web. MiniNova has been working with independent artists for some time now through its content distribution platform. However the problem has always been for the artists and labels to be able to monetize torrent downloads.
According to a post at TorrentFreak, this is something that MiniNova will be changing. In a move to encourage even more artists to use its service and possibly prove to labels that BitTorrent is a valid alternative marketplace, MiniNova has launched an addition to its distribution service.
Starting this week, artists, in just a few clicks, can add links to CDs, concert tickets, and other merchandising products that they want to sell alongside torrent download links.
The new feature integrates a link to products in the artist's MyShopify store, as the record label Beep! Beep! has done with one of its latest releases. The label even gives MiniNova users a 20% discount for helping out with seeding.
According to the label, the reason it has decided to give all its albums away for free is simple: "Because it's only fair not to pay for something you haven't heard yet."
"In our opinion, torrents are an excellent way to present you with our music. That's why Beep! Beep! and MiniNova have teamed up. We like the fact that you're taking the effort to get to know new music. In fact, we'd like to thank you for downloading and seeding our music by giving you a discount on our hard-copies."
This cool feature puts MiniNova a definite step above TPB.
Disney Hits Out at Web Video Restrictions
Excerpted from C21 Media Report by Adam Benzine
Disney CEO Bob Iger has warned that restricting the viewing of video content online could lead to a public backlash and be viewed "as anti-consumer and anti-technology."
Iger was speaking after Disney earlier this week announced it would be making some shows from ABC and ESPN available free-to-air via YouTube. It also came as speculation continues to mount that the Mouse House is set to acquire a stake in YouTube's ad-supported rival Hulu.
"Preventing people from watching any shows online unless they subscribe to a cable TV service can be viewed as anti-consumer and anti-technology," said Iger at The Cable Show 2009 conference in Washington, DC.
"That's something we would find very difficult to embrace."
He added that the company's founder, Walt Disney, "viewed technology as a friend and not a foe," and added, "at Disney, we believe that technology inspires artists to create at higher levels, but artists also challenge our technologists to provide them with the tools. That's exactly what we must continue to do. Technology can pose all types of threats to existing businesses, but look at it as a means to maximize opportunity."
Iger pointed to the initial opposition to TV when radio was in its prime and the movie studios' fights against the VCR as examples.
"None of that stopped it or prevented those businesses from taking maximum advantage of those new platforms. You can't slow the pace of technology - the challenge is to prosper from it," he said.
Will Telecoms Morph into Cloud Computing Providers
Excerpted from ZDNet Report by Larry Dignan
A lot of chatter this week focused on connecting devices to everything, but one pilot would turn telecom companies into cloud computing providers. The big question: Would enterprises go for it?
According to CNET News, telecom providers on four continents - North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia - are running pilots with dumb terminals connected to the cloud. Roughly speaking, telecom providers would build a system where your log-in information would be recognized on the network and power the virtual desktop.
Sound familiar? It is. It's thin-client 2.0. It's an enterprise role for netbooks. And it's not totally a bad idea.
What this pilot shows is that long-pitched concept that the network is the computer. Telecom providers are increasingly offering services - content delivery networks (CDNs) and security to name a few - so it's not a stretch to see them offering the computing horsepower, too.
Telecommunications providers are in a clear position to be cloud providers, too, but the details and execution will be crucial. The other nagging concern: Even with the popularity of netbooks, users still like to have full-featured, not-so-dumb laptops.
The Message and the Movement
Excerpted from BBC News Report by Bill Thompson
History is littered with manifestos, the public statements of principles and intentions that announce policies, revolutions, or ambitious visions in politics and the arts.
Every political party produces one in advance of an election, and significant manifestos from history include the Communist Manifesto of 1848, the Futurist Manifesto of 1909, and Andre Breton's Surrealist Manifesto of 1924.
This last opens with the glorious claim that, "So strong is the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life - real life, I mean - that in the end this belief is lost."
In the Internet age, we've had the Cluetrain Manifesto, various "Internet" manifestos, and of course John Perry Barlow's famous "Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace," which tells the governments of the world that, "You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather," and is a manifesto in spirit if not title.
The great manifestos demonstrate a clarity of thought and expression that can galvanize public opinion, reinforce political movements, and create new cultural modes of expression, often because they are strikingly expressed and written in language that motivates and inspires.
Who could fail to be moved by the Futurists' claim that, "The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity, and revolt;" or Cluetrain's twelfth thesis: "There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products."
And now we have a new manifesto for the modern age of distributed computing. The "open computing manifesto" was launched this week with the support of some very large computer companies including Cisco, AT&T, Sun Microsystems, and Telefonica, as well as over 50 other players in this growing market, all under the leadership of IBM.
It outlines a set of principles that should underpin the growth of online services and utility computing as we shift from running software and storing data locally to an approach like the one we have developed for electricity, generated at large power stations for use wherever it is needed.
The release of the manifesto shows that vendors are starting to think about the need for open standards to underpin distributed services. Although Google, Amazon, Salesforce, and Microsoft, four very big players in the area, are notably absent from the list of supporters, and Steve Martin from Microsoft was very critical of the manifesto and the closed way in which it was put together even before it was published, they are all likely to sign up in the near future.
We're still at a very early stage in moving data and services from our desktops, laptops, and local servers into computing utilities, and it's clear that Google Apps, Microsoft Azure, and even Amazon's S3 and EC2 services, are still very immature offerings, which will change greatly in the coming months and years; so thinking about standards now could help greatly in the future.
There is always a danger that early standardization in rapidly developing areas simply serves to limit innovation and make it possible for the companies that have lagged behind in their adoption of new models to catch up on a standards-enforced level playing field.
This is the view usually taken by Microsoft when they decide to offer a non-standard service, or extend an existing standard in ways that will only work properly with other Microsoft software. Even so, locking users into poor standards can be just as bad as locking them into single vendor solutions, and much as I support open standards I can see the need to hold off on the standards-setting process long enough to decide how they should operate.
However, it is equally dangerous to allow proprietary solutions to dominate for too long, as they force customers to stay with existing vendors and limit creativity and innovation simply by restricting the number of players in the field. Balance and good timing matter.
What we need at this stage is a statement of principles that will resonate with the vendors, the users, and the standards body.
We need a document that conveys the excitement of the new computing model while offering a clear path towards future standardization around agreed principles. Only that way will we ensure that the cloud computing market is characterized by open competition, diverse offerings from multiple players, and a commitment to customer service, with a clear path for future development based on open standards.
Sadly the open cloud manifesto fails on all of these grounds, offering only a collection of principles that almost anyone would consider obvious, and written in the sort of language that graces too many corporate websites, opening with the claim that, "The buzz around cloud computing has reached a fever pitch".
I wasn't expecting something on the lines of Marx's "a specter is haunting Europe - the specter of Communism. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter," but any journalism student could do better.
Surely it is hardly necessary to note that "cloud computing standards organizations, advocacy groups, and communities should work together and stay coordinated, making sure that efforts do not conflict or overlap," or to argue against duplicating or reinventing standards.
In the end, this particular manifesto reminded me rather too much of the posters carried by the priests in the sitcom "Father Ted" when they are protesting against a film the church has declared blasphemous. "Down with this sort of thing," shouts Ted, with Dougal behind him going "Careful now!" - a weak offering that lacks real conviction and fails to convince.
Collecting Underpants in the Cloud
Excerpted from OS News Report by Thom Holwerda
The technology world is all aflame about "cloud computing," and how businesses are supposed to move all of their stuff into the cloud, or die. Or something. In my eyes, "cloud" is simply a different name for the Internet, and cloud computing is simply a different and fancier name for what most Internet users have been doing for ages.
Even Wikipedia doesn't really seem to have a clue as to what "cloud computing" actually is, and its definition is just a different way of describing the use of web applications - something we've been doing for a long time, with online mail clients, Facebook - and even things like BitTorrent and P2P networks.
With all the talk of cloud computing, I can't help but see the similarities between the cloud hype and the dot-com boom. In other words, the classic Southpark underpants gnomes still apply.
Technology & Business interviewed Microsoft Australia's Director of Developer and Platform Evangelism, Gianpaolo Carraro, about cloud computing and Microsoft's upcoming Azure platform.
The interview delves deeply into what Azure actually is. Microsoft will build a number of data centers around the world where developers of cloud applications can rent server space to host their applications. Imagine, if you will, Facebook dismantling its own servers, and renting server space at Microsoft.
That's about all the interview makes clear about cloud computing. The rest has more to do with the technical aspects or Azure; for instance, while Azure infrastructure is built around .Net, people are free to use Java or PHP as well. We also learn that it will take about twelve months before Azure emerges out of beta.
I've read a number of articles on this whole cloud computing thing already, but I simply don't see how it is anything other than a new buzzword to describe something we've had for ages: applications that do not run on your desktop, but on a server or network somewhere. That's something we've been doing for ages, but I guess the marketing value of the term "web application" ran out.
Carraro states that, "There is no doubt that Microsoft is a big believer in the cloud." That kind of makes sense. Microsoft initially missed the Internet and Web 2.0, but sees an opportunity to grab a piece of that pie now that its name has changed. Clever.
Obama: Stop Filling Administration with RIAA Insiders
Excerpted from Wired News Report by David Kravets
Nearly two dozen public interest groups, trade pacts, and library groups urged President Barack Obama on Thursday to quit filling his administration with insiders plucked from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
The demands came a week after the Justice Department, fresh with two RIAA attorneys in its No. 2 and No. 3 positions, announced the administration's support of $150,000 in damages for each music track downloaded without authorization via a P2P file-sharing program. The administration, moreover, has just declared as classified the inner workings of a worldwide intellectual property (IP) trade pact. And Hollywood is urging Obama to embrace Internet filtering as the content industry seeks to cut Internet access to repeat copyright violators.
Still, Obama has yet to fill the all-important role of copyright czar, a new cabinet-level position approved by Congress late last year. Other unfilled vacancies dealing with IP rest in the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO), the United States Trade Representative, and the State Department.
Groups such as Public Knowledge, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), the Wikimedia Foundation, and among others, the American Library Association (ALA), are demanding that Obama look outside the content industry when filling up his administration.
"In selecting these officials, we ask you to consider that individuals who support overly broad IP protection might favor established distribution models at the expense of technological innovators, creative artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and an increasingly participatory public," the 19 groups wrote Obama Thursday.
"Overzealous expansion and enforcement of copyright, for example, can quash innovative information technologies, the development and marketing of new and useful devices, and the creation of new works, as well as prohibit the public from accessing and using its cultural heritage."
The groups are: American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), American Library Association (ALA), Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), Consumers Union, EDUCAUSE, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA), Essential Action, Home Recording Rights Coalition (HRRC), Internet Archive (IA), Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), NetCoalition, Public Knowledge, Special Libraries Association (SLA), US Public Interest Research Group, and Wikimedia Foundation.
Chilling Effect in Sweden?
Excerpted from Digital Music News Report
Swedes are notorious for their file-sharing ways, and Sweden is among the most piracy-prone regions of the world.
But despite a typically pro-swapping sentiment, Internet traffic in Sweden appears to be dipping in the wake of a new anti-piracy law. Traffic monitoring firm Netnod reported a 30% dip in traffic on Thursday, just one day after the passage of a law that reduces some of the anonymity associated with trading.
The law - dubbed IPRED (Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive) - compels Internet service providers (ISPs) to reveal the identities of alleged infringers, if a court deems that wrongdoing has occurred.
But is this chilling effect for real? A closer look reveals dips in volume, but not total users, suggesting some possible shifts in behavior - including reductions in the amount of uploading.
Sweden is home to The Pirate Bay (TPB), and public sentiment typically sways towards free media acquisition and distribution. That raises questions on the longer-term effects of the reported slowdown.
In the United States, similar rules related to identity have existed for years, though users have shown little regard for enforcement threats.
Coming Events of Interest
Digital Media MBA Career Event - April 14th in New York, NY. Digital Media MBA and Columbia Business School (CBS) are hosting a career event and cocktail reception at the The Gansevoort Hotel in New York City's meatpacking district.
Les Rencontres - April 15th-16th in Montreal, Canada. The fourteenth annual meeting of the music industry sponsored by ADISQ in Quebec for professionals from the world of recorded music. The event gives industry players the opportunity to discuss defining issues including new media, regulatory framework, and new business models.
LA Games Conference - April 28th-29th in Los Angeles, CA. Focused on business, finance, and creative developments in the games industry, including mobile, online and console markets, and the increasing intersection of Madison Avenue and Hollywood with the industry.
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA - May 4th in Santa Monica, CA. The fourth annual P2PMSLA, the DCIA's flagship event, featuring keynotes from industry-leading P2P and social network operators; panel discussions covering P2P usage, analytical tools, relevant trends, and future opportunities; valuable workshops; networking opportunities; and more.
Digital Hollywood Spring - May 5th-7th in Santa Monica, CA. With many new sessions and feature events, DHS has become the premiere digital entertainment conference and exposition. DCIA Member companies will exhibit and speak on a number of panels.
Streaming Media East - May 12th-13th in New York, NY. The number-one place to see, learn, and discuss what is taking place with all forms of online video business models and technology. Content owners, viral video creators, online marketers, enterprise corporations, broadcast professionals, ad agencies, and educators.
World Copyright Summit - June 9th-10th in Washington, DC. The international forum that brings together all those directly involved in creative industries to openly debate the future of copyright and the distribution of creative works in the digital era. WCS is organized by CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers.
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