April 20, 2009
Volume XXVI, Issue 2
Don't Miss the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA
Sign-up now to attend the fourth annual P2P
MEDIA SUMMIT LA coming in just two weeks to Santa Monica, CA on Monday May
4th.
The focus of this day-long conference will be P2P analytics - usage data, trends,
metrics, etc. - that P2P-based services and other industry participants offer
to content providers and enterprise customers.
With The Pirate Bay
(TPB) court verdict just handed down in Sweden, the 2009 P2P MEDIA
SUMMIT LA could not be more timely.
Keynote speakers include Eric Garland, CEO, BigChampagne; Mitchell Edwards, General Counsel & CFO, BitTorrent; Rick Sizemore, CEO, MultiMedia Intelligence; Jim Kott, Co-President, Abacast; Kevin Kuzas, former VP & General Counsel, Comcast Interactive Media; Joey Patuleia,
Co-Founder, Brand Asset Digital; Rex Wong, Founder & CEO, DAVE Networks; Clark Siegel, Partner, Hughes, Hubbard, and Reed; Adam Fisk, Founder & CEO, LittleShoot; Paul Hoffert, Founder & CEO, Noank Media; and Travis Kalanick, Founder, Red Swoosh.
The P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LA will take place at Loews
Santa Monica Beach Hotel in conjunction with Digital
Hollywood Spring.
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.
Social Networking Meets P2P File Sharing on GigaTribe
Excerpted
from IT World Canada
Report
GigaTribe is a
free, encrypted, and private
P2P software community that limits file sharing to GigaTribe users who
are part
of their own self-governed network.
To
use GigaTribe, you first download and install the software. Then you
convince your friends, family, co-workers, etc. to do the same. You
can't
exceed 1,000 contacts. There are no file size, uploading, or
downloading
limits.
The
basic service is free to use, and GigaTribe also sells an upgrade version
for $29.95
per year that adds remote access to your hard drive, unlimited
simultaneous
downloads, and password-protected folders. The software is currently
Windows-only. A Mac version is scheduled for release in September.
To
make it easier for users to expand their personal "tribes," a new GigaTribe
Inviter Tool will automatically invite friends from other
social networking
accounts - Facebook, LinkedIn, and Flickr - to use GigaTribe's service.
The
Inviter Tool also works with web-based e-mail accounts Yahoo!, Gmail,
and
Windows Live.
GigaTribe
has a social networking strategy and is planning to release GigaTribe
software
applications embedded within other social networks.
While
the service is handy for sharing personal videos that are too large for
e-mail
or social networking profiles, it also provides small businesses the
opportunity to set up a no-cost virtual private network (VPN) for
co-workers
and clients.
Why File Sharing Will Save Hollywood & Music
Excerpted from Wired News Report by Eliot
Van Buskirk
To hear some tell it, file sharing gutted the music industry by
encouraging
people to gorge themselves on free, unauthorized content. Indeed,
unless
Friday's verdict against The Pirate Bay
(TPB) is overturned, four Swedes will
spend a year in jail and owe millions of dollars to entertainment
companies for
operating a file-sharing network.
Nonetheless,
sites like TPB taught - and continue to teach
- valuable lessons to the content industry. Even as music labels and
movie
studios try to sue P2P networks out of existence, these same networks
have been
preparing music labels and movie studios for the emerging social-media
world,
in which sales form only a small slice of the revenue pie, and what
really
matters is who likes what, and who pays attention to them.
Facebook,
MySpace, iMeem, YouTube, and other social media
sites - which the labels now recognize as a major part of their revenue
streams
going forward - incorporate several aspects of Napster and other early, rogue file-sharing networks: buddy lists, user
uploads,
filtering content by user, viral marketing, ad-supported content, and
the
potential of mining valuable data. The complete DNA of social media was
right
there, from the very start of P2P.
And even in
the early days, the labels were intrigued by
the vast pools of user data available on networks like Napster and Kazaa, although they
were reticent to take
advantage of it.
"It was more
than just stigmatized," recalls
Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne,
which measures the popularity of media on file-sharing networks. "They
feared that to even look at or inquire about what was happening in the
file-sharing universe would somehow compromise their unflinching stance
that
this was unauthorized."
But as the
initial furor over P2P died down, labels began
monitoring file-sharing networks through BigChampagne and other
services. The
data they find there continues to help them in any number of ways, from
choosing which leaked song to use as the single, to where a band should
tour
based on the IP addresses of its fans, to figuring out which artists
should
perform on the same bill.
Please click here for the rest of this report.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Congratulations
to Executive Director Solange Drouin and her entire team at l'Association Quebecoise de
l'Industrie du Disque
(ADISQ) for a highly stimulating, superbly executed, and well
attended Les
Rencontres
2009.
We
are especially grateful to P2P panel "Remonter le Torrent" moderator
Benjamin Masse, VP Digital Content, Nexio;
and fellow panelists Anthony Hemond, Analyst, Union
des
Consommateurs; Jean-Philippe Mikus, Partner, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin;
and Richard Pfohl,
General Counsel, Canadian
Recording Industry
Association (CRIA).
Benjamin
began by noting that "torrent" is an apt name to associate with the
file-sharing phenomenon, which is like a rapidly moving "river" on
the Internet; and, to extend the metaphor, the first question he put before
the panel was whether we need "dams."
We
provided an overview of the P2P industry, citing substantial progress
in
commercial development for the benefit of all participants in the distribution
chain
led by DCIA Member companies, particularly
in P2PTV, peer-assisted hybrid content delivery networks (CDNs), P2P caching, cloud
computing, enterprise P2P deployments, and live P2P
streaming
applications.
Nevertheless,
according to various measurement firms, the industry's greatest
conundrum is
that while more than 90% of today's P2P companies do not permit
copyright
infringement, more than 90% of consumer usage of P2P still involves
infringement.
Anthony outlined the global regulatory and legal activity in
this space,
which DCINFO readers may access here. He also noted that Canadians are
relatively heavy users of file-sharing software for music, with as many
as 70%
regularly using P2P, and up to 90% occasionally using P2P.
Jean-Philippe
noted that the P2P and torrent models have been disruptive to
established
distribution structures in many ways on a global basis, including not
only with
respect to legal issues, but also regarding their impact on local
culture.
Specifically,
one of the effects of "eliminating the middleman" with decentralized
P2P is that a layer of distributors - who could provide links directly
to the
Quebec culture in a variety of ways, for example - is missing from the
new infrastructure.
It
is evident given consumer acceptance of P2P that rights need to evolve
to
accommodate new technologies, but beyond purely legal aspects, the
cultural
aspects should also be considered.
Richard
expressed the view that Canada's copyright law is neither strong enough
nor
sufficiently clear to be effective in today's increasingly digital
music-consumption environment, and that this causes confusion in the
online
marketplace.
For
instance, CRIA is being sued by isoHunt,
a torrent tracking site, in British Columbia, which is the opposite of
what
would be expected were Canadian copyright law adequately updated.
In
addition, this inadequacy has limited the number of licensed online
music
offerings that have entered Canada, making it untenable for
subscription
services to launch, for example.
He
also observed that in Sweden, with the passage of the new iPRED
anti-piracy
law, Internet traffic dropped by 30%, but licensed music downloads
doubled.
In
response to Benjamin's next question about how P2P can be used
constructively
by the music industry, we gave examples of licensed offerings.
QTRAX just last week
launched its fully
licensed ad-supported P2P music service in the US; the LimeWire
Music Store is experiencing sharp revenue growth and Lime Engine is developing a
new
revenue stream for rights holders. And Spotify is gaining traction in seven European markets for its hybrid P2P
streaming
service.
We
also pointed to the Isle
of Man (IOM)
P2P music initiative, which is scheduled to launch an
initial market trial
this summer, featuring the regulation and monetization of currently
unauthorized non-commercial online music sharing - and featuring an
important
local culture fund component.
Jean-Philippe
indicated that a combination of several factors was needed to develop a
thriving digital market, including a critical mass of authorized P2P
content,
because dilution with massive accessibility to unlicensed tracks must
be
overcome.
Richard
agreed licensed P2P music services were commendable, but said he would
quibble
with certain aspects of the market trial involving monetization of
unlicensed
music.
Anthony offered that the reality of consumers exchanging music files online must
be a
driver for decisions, and that methods to generate and share revenue
with
content creators should be the paramount consideration. He underscored
the
importance of this in Canada, with its relatively higher levels of
unauthorized
content redistribution than in other markets.
Jean-Philippe
added that the law also needs to be made more efficient as an
enforcement
mechanism. Richard continued in this vain, re-emphasizing 2004
OECD statistics regarding disproportionately high unauthorized file sharing in Canada
as a
result of a lack of clear copyright protection on one hand, and a
paucity of
licensed online music offerings on the other.
We
underscored the need for more licensed music offerings, particularly in
the P2P
space, as well as additional experimentation with revenue generating
approaches. There needs to be additional work done more on the
"carrot" than the "stick" side of the equation for there to
be meaningful progress.
Richard
retorted that the "stick" needs to be strengthened, hypothesizing
that if the US Supreme Court MGM v. Grokster decision had gone the
other way,
unauthorized file sharing would have skyrocketed in the US more
dramatically
than the steady growth that it has experienced in the wake of Grokster.
Anthony
argued that even with what had been intended to be a stronger, clearer
legal
regime - the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) - in retrospect
this,
too, may have been a mistaken approach, as opposed to a monetization
system
with an opt-out for non-consumers of music.
Richard
lamented that in Sweden The Pirate Bay
(TPB) had launched the iPREDator
anonymizer service for five euros per month to counter the iPRED law,
and that
there was even a Pirate Party political movement there, which is the
third
largest party in Sweden.
Anthony
noted that iPREDator had gleaned 130,000 users as it came out of the
box; and
we questioned whether a better solution might have been to monetize
file-sharing music consumption for the same five euros per month, where
the
lion's share of such revenue, rather than none of it, would flow to
content
creators and rights holders.
Benjamin's
final question postulated that the Internet, at the end of the day, is
a
virtual interpretation of reality, and he cited the Nine Inch Nails
inspired
and commercially successful use of P2P as part of its market mix and
asked what
other such initiatives could be done in the future.
Jean-Phillip's
closing remark was that human nature will play an important role in
new
approaches and business models; and this must be given due
consideration for
practical results to be successful.
Richard
ended by decrying the fact that, in aggregate, Canadian record sales have
plummeted more than 50% since Napster and that Canadians are consuming
more
than their fair share of unlicensed music. What is needed are original
approaches to this problem that put the content creators and rights
holders
back in control.
We
agreed that original approaches must be encouraged and gave examples of
some of Nettwerk Music Group's world-leading
efforts with multiple new digital revenue sources to increase both
average
revenue per user (ARPU) and total revenue per property (TRPP).
Anthony
concluded with the comment that many new revenue streams are possible
with P2P
that have not yet been exploited. Share wisely, and take care.
BitTorrent: Legal Nightmare or Future Business Model?
Excerpted from OUP Blog Report by Michael
Carrier
A
Swedish court on Friday found four operators of the
high-profile website The
Pirate Bay (TPB) guilty of assisting in
making copyrighted content available and sentenced each to a year in
jail and
roughly $900,000 in fines.
At issue is
the revolutionary BitTorrent protocol, which allows users
to easily download large files such as movies by breaking up the files
into
many pieces. The availability of pieces from numerous sources speeds up
transfer as compared to retrieving the file from one source.
Information on
these pieces is provided by small files called "torrents," which are
indexed
and tracked on TPB's website. Many of the downloaded files are
copyrighted.
The court
found that the defendants were liable for
"making available" copyrighted works, which occurs when the "work is
transferred to the public." The court also concluded that the
defendants
"provided a database linked to a directory of torrent files, making it
possible
for users to search for and download torrent files as well as to
provide
functionality through which the users who wanted to share files could
have
contact with each other by sharing the service tracker function."
To be clear,
TPB does not directly infringe copyright
holders' rights. It does not even host copyrighted material on its
website. And
it is far from the only website engaging in much of the activity for
which it
was punished. Numerous search engines, for example, can be used to
locate
torrent files. But rather than focusing on the merits of the court's
decision,
which could have far-reaching consequences for search engines,
individuals, and
any others "making available" copyrighted materials, let me focus on an
even
larger issue: the difference between litigation and innovation.
The
entertainment industry is effective in litigating. But
if it was as effective in innovating, there might be less need for
litigation.
Copyright
holders have reacted with alarm to new
technologies for quite some time. John Philip Sousa bemoaned the
introduction
of the player piano, which would lead to "a marked deterioration in
American
music." Jack Valenti warned that the market for copyrighted movies
would be
"decimated, shrunken, and collapsed" by the VCR. And the recording
industry,
lamenting a decline in CD sales, sued numerous P2P file-sharing
services.
Please click here for the rest of this
report.
Licensed Music Downloads Soar in Sweden
Excerpted from CD Freaks Report by Jared
Newman
A
new Swedish law against unauthorized file sharing seems to have the
desired
effect for copyright holders, as licensed music downloads have doubled
since
the law's passage.
Digital content provider inProdicon said sales have jumped 100% since the iPRED law went into effect.
InProdicon
provides half of Sweden's licensed music downloads. "I don't know if this is only because of iPRED, but it is
definitely a sign of a major change," Managing Director Klas Brannstrom
said.
The iPRED law, enacted two weeks ago, requires Internet service
providers
(ISPs) to hand over their customers' IP addresses in cases of suspected
unauthorized file sharing. The courts decide whether there's sufficient
evidence for disclosure. A day after the laws took effect, Internet
traffic in
Sweden dropped by 30%.
The company won't release hard numbers, and believes last week's
results won't
be the norm. Downloads have been growing steadily anyway, by 20-to-30%
per
year. Brannstrom said Swedish artists created the majority of the
downloaded
music.
Hypebot suggests that the forthcoming release of iPREDATOR - a domain masking
service
from BitTorrent tracking site The Pirate
Bay (TPB) - could reverse the trend, pointing to statistics that 80%
of the 130,000 beta registrants are from Sweden.
Still,
authorized and unauthorized file sharing may not be directly related.
If a
consumer is willing to use workarounds to share unlicensed files, it
is doubtful that the same person will also start spending
money in
reaction to tougher laws.
It's more likely that Swedish music fans are giving licensed venues a
try.
Whether they stick with them remains to be seen.
Ethical & Social Implications of Emerging Technologies
Excerpted from VNUNet Report by Bernd Stahl
Facebook has just turned five and
is already one of the most
popular websites in the UK and elsewhere. Social networking sites have
brought
huge benefits to their users, allowing them to stay in contact with
friends,
acquaintances, and business partners around the world.
But, as the
recent row over the ownership of files and
entries in Facebook has reminded us, such advantages often come with a
price
attached. The ownership of material put up on these sites, and the
acceptable
use of it, is unclear.
There are
plenty of stories of employers checking such
sites for pre-employment screening. People are getting married and
divorced
because of Facebook activities, and there have been virtual and real
murders
caused by social-networking activities. Five years ago, we did not even
consider
the existence of Facebook; now it raises many important questions.
Facebook and
other similar sites are by no means the only
technologies that have become popular, but which raise ethical issues.
Another
example is the legal action surrounding the file-sharing site The Pirate
Bay (TPB). This site uses BitTorrent technology to facilitate the exchange of files. Its opponents argue
that it
provides the opportunity to infringe intellectual property; its
advocates
believe it to be an important tool for the exchange of information.
What these
examples have in common is that they show how
new and emerging technologies, as well as novel applications of more
established technologies, have the potential to raise considerable
ethical and
social questions. For many of these questions, we do not have
particularly good
answers. It is part of the nature of such problems that they need to be
discussed broadly in society for a consensus to emerge on how best to
address
them.
A team of
researchers based in universities and businesses
across Europe is starting to do this under the European-funded ETICA research
project. One important
aspect of this research is that it aims to establish contact with a
wide range
of developers and users of new technologies, because these groups will
have the
best understanding of emerging technologies, their applications, and
the
ethical and social issues.
The project
team invites everybody who shares an interest
in these issues to visit its website and contribute to the discussion.
Harmony at Last on Downloads
Excerpted from Financial Times Report by Tim
Bradshaw &
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson
After
a decade of discord between the music and technology industries, this
week
brought some rare signs of unity.
Apple,
whose iTunes store dominates the licensed digital music market, agreed
that labels
could charge more for hits than the fixed 99 cents price it had clung
to,
allowing Universal Music to charge $1.29 for "Poker
Face," the latest Lady Gaga hit, for example.
In
another sign of optimism, QTRAX,
which
offers free downloads to users willing to watch advertising, launched
in the
US, 15 months after its initial announcement.
The
developments show, however, that the music industry has yet to settle
on a
solution to the double-digit declines in CD sales. Instead, its digital
focus
is narrowing and changing as audiences group around a few large sites,
and
labels realize that songs alone may no longer be enough.
Apple's
dominance and a slowdown in paid downloads have prompted labels to
encourage
alternative business models. When QTRAX first announced its launch,
labels
hoped that the scourge of unauthorized P2P websites could best be
tackled by
creating free licensed alternatives, subsidised by advertising.
Since
then, however, the enthusiasm for "ad-supported" start-ups has waned
as recession-hit advertisers become less willing to experiment; and
other
free-to-consumer models such as Nokia's "Comes with Music" mobile
phones emerge.
Marketing
executives expect pressure to increase on the ad-supported niche, which
is
crowded with competitors such as iMeem, Pandora, and Spotify.
"The
ad-funded model does have a long-term future in my opinion but it is
early days,
and we are in the rut of a recession so advertisers are reverting to
the safe
options for now," says Paul Frampton, UK Managing Director of MPG, the
media agency.
Abacast's Green Selected as 2009 Streaming Media All-Star
Abacast, the
industry leader in
peer-assisted hybrid content delivery network (CDN) services, has
announced
that Streaming Media has named its Managing Director Rob Green as one
of the
most innovative, influential, and important players in the online video
arena.
The
2009 All-Star team consists of some of the most prominent people in the
history
of the streaming media industry including such names as Reed Hastings,
CEO of
Netflix, and Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Brightcove.
Mr.
Green, who serves as a Board Member as well as a Managing Director for
Abacast,
has been a significant contributor in the CDN space with achievements
that
include being part of the executive team that sold Nine Systems to
Akamai as
well as conceiving and building the CDN certification program for
Microsoft. He
is a valuable asset to Abacast as well as the entire streaming industry.
"Rob's
industry experience has helped Abacast tremendously in formulating our
industry
leading hybrid CDN strategy," said Jim Kott, Co-President of Abacast. "We couldn't be happier
for Rob. He's worked
hard, and he's definitely earned this distinction."
"I
am thrilled to receive this award. It is an honor to be recognized for
my work
and I continue to be excited about the industry in general and Abacast
in
particular," said Rob Green.
Quantcast's Groundbreaking Online-Advertising Service
Quantcast this week announced
the launch of Quantcast
Marketer, providing advertisers with a revolutionary solution that
generates
insights from online consumer interactions associated with their brand
and
greatly improves their ability to pursue web-wide audience-based media
planning
and buying.
The free
service, which was previously available in
private beta to over 40 top marketers, allows marketers to tag and
directly measure
all web-based media they control - ad campaign impressions, search
activity,
brand website content, and specific purchase or conversion events. Going
beyond
raw impression and conversion counts available from standard web
analytics
packages, Quantcast Marketer allows, for the first time, a
comprehensive
understanding of demographic and interest-based characteristics of
audiences
through the entire marketing funnel.
Quantcast
Marketer has undergone extensive field testing
over the past six months through a rigorous beta program that included
clients
and agencies such as Lenovo, Scottrade, Kia, Virgin America, Razorfish,
Neo@Ogilvy, and others representing a broad spectrum of industry
categories
including consumer packaged goods, financial services, and education.
Quantcast
Marketer builds on the widespread adoption of
the Quantcast Publisher program, whose participants now comprise a wide
swath of
the industry's leading media companies including publishers such as
Time Inc.,
NBC Universal, CBS, MTV Networks, and Fox Entertainment. Quantcast
observes
over 160 billion new census-level media consumption events every month
across
millions of Quantcast Publisher media assets. With visibility into the
media
habits of over 200 million US internet users, Quantcast has an
unmatched
vantage point to characterize audiences and help marketers understand
their
customers and connect with media owners that can deliver the right
audience.
"The digital
media industry has been talking about
the promise of scalable, audience-based brand planning and buying for a
decade," said Konrad Feldman, Co-Founder & CEO of Quantcast.
"Quantcast Marketer finally empowers advertisers with the ability to
understand who their key customer groups are and, most importantly,
discover
where they can be found at scale across the web."
Quantcast
Marketer is now available to all marketers. To
find out more about the service please click here.
Kindling for Collaboration: SoundCloud Gets $3.3 Million
Excerpted
from Digital Music News
VCs may be playing it ultra-conservative, though funding rounds still
exist for
music-related start-ups. Earlier this week, ad-supported
radio play Goom announced a $16 million round, a
seemingly-impossible feat.
But Goom is not alone. On Wednesday, Berlin-based SoundCloud announced a 2.5 million euro
($3.3 million) series A, fueled by Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures.
SoundCloud,
which officially launched in October 2008, is
a collaborative environment for musicians. The company allows
professionals to combine music elements from anywhere, a concept that
replaces
the traditional studio experience or more cumbersome collaboration
tools like
shared storage accounts or e-mail.
At present, the company boasts 100,000 registered users. The
company was
first conceived in 2007, and fueled by angel investors. The
Doughty round
is the first institutional injection.
Skynet's Distributed Computing Platform - Download This!
Excerpted
from First Showing Report by Alex Billington
The ongoing Skynet Research viral for Terminator Salvation has been expanding every day, but so far nothing big has happened.
Sure, a few
weeks ago a Resist
or be Terminated
Website was discovered, and they've been trying to take down
everything
Skynet-related since, including the security
cameras. But when is Skynet going to take over the world and
bring about
judgment day?
Well, a
reader named "Deck Films" sent me an
e-mail today with a link to a website with a download for Skynet's
Distributed Computing Platform (DCP) - a downloadable application that links in with every
other DCP computer
around the world.
"DCP is a
volunteer system for grid computing that
enables Skynet Research to tap into the processing power of computers
around
the world." It sounds kind of like SETI@home or Folding@home (for those of you who know
what those are), but for Skynet, and obviously this means one day
they'll be
taking over all of our computers (and the world).
You can
download Skynet's DCP application from this
link. It's located on a
Warner Brothers website because
I'm sure they have some crazy policies regarding actually downloading
software
and you have to agree to the terms of service to even get it to begin
with - so
don't do this at work.
Once you
launch the application, it shows you two primary
views, one of the entire world with little yellow dots indicating where
each
computer that is connected to Skynet's DCP is located. You can also
click on
the odd yellow/green graph in the lower left corner and it brings up
another
new display with more information. Also found in the lower right corner
a
section that says "Input
Code" and a space
for 9 characters. We're guessing there is some code that can be entered
here,
but I have no clue where to find this or what'll happen when you put it
in. Any
ideas? If you're into this viral, I'd suggest you download
this right away!
We
really have no clue what all this means or where it's going, but it's really
starting to get quite interesting. An actual application that is
installed on
everyone's computers? I wonder if
they
really are planning a complete Skynet takeover just before the film's
release
in late May?
Octoshape Recognition for Disruptive P2P Streaming
For years, Octoshape has
been shaping the streaming
media business. The driving force of Octoshape has been a constant
striving to
provide P2P streaming solutions that match the ease and quality of TV
combined
with the benefits of Internet services.
As Octoshape
continues to expand, its
list of achievements is also growing. In the past, live streaming
coverage of
the Eurovision Song Contest (the largest non-sporting event in Europe)
was hard
to come by as traditional streaming solutions struggled with the scale
of the
event. But for three years Octoshape has been serving a premium P2P
streaming
experience to worldwide audiences, offering higher quality to a larger
audience
each year.
In the US,
streaming from major national
events implied frequent outages and buffering. And, due to the massive
internet
traffic during the inauguration of Barack Obama, even regular web
surfing could
be a slow and unstable experience. Despite these conditions, the
Octoshape
P2P powered stream ran without issue for the duration of the event, and
in the
process allowed a major US news outlet to set an online streaming
record for a
simultaneously connected audience.
And in Asia,
Octoshape has powered
several large-scale streaming events such as the Olympics in HD and
many other
high-profile sporting events.
The successful
deployment of Octoshape
around the globe has now earned recognition from the technology and
streaming
industry. Octoshape is proud to have received the Red Herring 100
Europe award
and earned a spot on the Streaming Media Dream Team 2009.
PeerApp Patent for P2P Distribution & Acceleration
PeerApp,
a pioneer in carrier-class intelligent media caching and Internet video
delivery, has been awarded a key patent from the European Patent Office
(EPO)
for technology that enables P2P content distribution and acceleration.
European
Patent No. 01978794.4 is for a "Method and
System for Accelerating Receipt of Data in a Client-to-Client Network."
The invention outlines an advanced P2P acceleration solution that
enables
network operators to manage and accelerate P2P traffic. The solution
uses P2P
caching to automate millions of download/streaming sessions and
terabytes of
storage, as well as ensure transparency and manage DMCA Section 512b
compliance.
PeerApp Chairman & CEO Robert Mayer said, "This
patent is the latest recognition of our technical leadership and
innovation.
There's a lot of debate and confusion about how to prevent P2P traffic
from
overwhelming broadband networks. PeerApp has the only viable solution
that's
based on patented and proven caching technology and allows a network
operator
to satisfy user demand without incurring massive network upgrades."
"Network
operators now have a single solution for
optimizing digital content delivery over broadband and wireless data
networks.
Our P2P caching technology works side-by-side with our HTTP caching
technology,
enabling our solution to deliver everything from BitTorrent to
YouTube to RapidShare. It
even supports Microsoft software updates. Over the past three years, we
have
improved service quality for millions of broadband subscribers and have
saved
network operators millions of dollars," Mayer said.
PeerApp Chief
Technology Officer (CTO) Alan Arolovitch
added, "Our patented technology and architecture have enabled us to
implement a
single network caching element to support all varieties of media
traffic and
online services. Using our product, a network operator can instantly
adapt to
changes in traffic patterns and in the popularity of new applications
and
services without deploying multiple point solutions."
The legality
of P2P and media caching is guaranteed in
Europe under Article 5(1) of the Copyright Directive, which provides a
mandatory exception to the reproduction right under copyright laws. The
directive exempts temporary acts of reproduction (such as those used by
PeerApp's UltraBand system) where such processes "are transient or
incidental
and an integral and essential part of a technology process" to enable
transmission among third parties.
Mininova Passes 8 Billion Torrent Downloads Mark
Excerpted from Hard OCP Report
TorrentFreak reports that popular
torrent site Mininova just passed the 8 billion download
mark. Like The Pirate
Bay (TPB),
Mininova has not escaped the baleful eye of the anti-piracy courts and
the site
founders have a court date set in May. Wow, 8 billion downloads. That's
a lot of
Linux distros!
In the
meantime, Mininova continues business as usual in
its new offices. Lately it has been emphasizing the authorized use of BitTorrent currently employed by hundreds
of independent filmmakers and musicians.
In March, the
site released a new feature that aims to
help artists to not only distribute, but also monetize their works.
Four Convicted in Sweden in Internet Piracy Case
Excerpted
from NY Times Report by Eric Pfanner
A Swedish
court has convicted four men linked to an
Internet file-sharing service, The
Pirate
Bay (TPB),
of violating copyright law, giving the music and movie industries a
prominent
victory in their campaign to curb online piracy.
The court
found on Friday that the men - the three
founders, Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, and Peter Sunde, as
well as
Carl Lundstrom, who provided financing - had aided copyright
infringement by
operating the site, which provides links to thousands of songs, films,
video
games, and other material, and helps users download them.
They were
each sentenced to a year in prison and were also
ordered to pay 30 million kronor (about $3.6 million) in damages to
leading
entertainment companies.
Internet
users and media companies have been following the
case closely because of the size of TPB - it is estimated to have more
than 20
million users worldwide - and the defiant stance of its operators. The
trial
this winter took place amid a carnival atmosphere in Stockholm, with
bands
playing outside the courtroom and Twitterers tweeting away.
John Kennedy,
chief executive of the International
Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), one of the groups that
had
supported the case against TPB, said the decision "sent a strong
message about
the importance of copyright."
"We are
satisfied that the court has clearly said that
what they were doing was wrong," Mr. Kennedy said.
In the near
term, the decision may have little effect on
the day-to-day operations of TPB; the defendants have vowed to continue
running
the service as they appeal.
Mr. Kennedy
said music and movie industry groups planned
to file additional litigation to try to get the site shut down. He said
that
while he expected the defendants to "hand over the baton" to others,
that might
be more difficult.
Over the last
decade, media companies have won a series of
court victories around the world against file-sharing services like Napster, Kazaa,
and Grokster.
But
unauthorized copying remains a big problem, in
particular for the record business. The music industry federation
estimates
that 95% of music downloads involve pirated work.
Mark
Mulligan, an analyst at Forrester
Research, said the decision Friday would not result in a
"meaningful"
decrease in piracy. Internet users are turning to new ways to share
music,
including streaming and messaging services, which are harder for
copyright
owners and enforcement officials to detect.
But he said
the ruling was "good PR" for the music and
movie industries.
"There's a
lot of value out of it, even though its value
is not going to be a meaningful reduction in file sharing," Mr.
Mulligan said.
"They have to be seen to be doing something, in the same way that
customs
fights drug trafficking - as a deterrent."
Mr. Mulligan
said the decision could encourage more music
listeners to turn to services that provide "free" digital music
legally, as part
of a broadband subscription or with the support of advertising.
"The best way
to fight free is with free," he said.
The decision
could also help alter perceptions of Sweden
as a haven for piracy. A new law that took effect this month makes it
easier
for copyright owners to pursue illegal downloaders through the courts.
Figures
from Netnod, which operates Internet exchanges in Sweden, show that the
volume
of Internet traffic plunged as the law took effect - suggesting,
analysts said,
that some file sharers may have been deterred.
TPB could not
be reached for comment on the decision. On
the site, a notice was posted calling the decision a "crazy verdict."
"But as in
all good movies, the heroes lose in the
beginning but have an epic victory in the end anyhow," it said. "That's
the
only thing Hollywood ever taught us."
TPB is one of
the largest so-called BitTorrent trackers, which facilitate
downloads of large digital files by enlisting the help of other
computers.
The
defendants had maintained that they were innocent
because they did not actually host any of the copyrighted material on
their
servers.
As the media
industries battle pirates in court, they have
also been lobbying for tougher legislation against unauthorized file
sharing,
but with limited success.
In France
last week, the National Assembly rejected a
government proposal to cut off the Internet connections of persistent
copyright
pirates, in a surprise vote. President Nicolas Sarkozy has said the
government
will reintroduce the measure at the end of the month.
Why The Pirate Bay Verdict Doesn't Matter
Excerpted from Billboard Business News
Report by Glenn Peoples
Against the backdrop of this week's decision in the lawsuit against
torrent
tracking site The
Pirate Bay (TPB) is the harsh reality that victories against unauthorized file sharing
may
change the shape of P2P, but they will do little to solve the
industry's
greater problem of transforming itself for the digital era.
No quick impact will be seen because an immediate appeal is likely. In
weighing
the likely long-term impact of a decision against TPB, one should
consider the P2P
market after the 9-0 US Supreme Court decision in the landmark Grokster case. In
that decision, the
Supreme Court looked beyond possible non-infringing uses of its
technology and
focused on Grokster's business model. The court said that a party who
distributes a product with the "object of promoting its use to infringe
copyright is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third
parties
using the device, regardless of the device's lawful uses."
After the Grokster decision, economist Tyler Cowen predicted no impact on
file sharing and the
possibility that innovation may be stifled. The Electronic Frontier
Foundation's
(EFF) Fred
von Lohmann predicted "a new era of uncertainty for America's innovators."
University of Chicago Law Professor Douglas
Lichtman called the decision a "hollow victory" for content
owners:
"MGM
won on paper today, but my first reading of the opinion makes me wonder
whether
the victory will have any bite outside of this specific litigation.
Intent-based
standards, after all, are among the easiest to avoid. Just keep your
message
clear - tell everyone that your technology is designed to facilitate
only
authorized exchange - and you have no risk of accountability. As the
opinion
makes clear, evidence of unreasonable product design can be considered
only if
there is also smoking-gun evidence of intent. Indeed, even outlandish
design
decisions are off limits without the relevant precursor."
Law professor and blogger Michael
Geist commented on the industry's fight against P2P: "While
the
unanimous verdict left the industry calling it a '9-0 shellacking,' the
reality
is that many file-sharing services will be pleased with the decision as
it
provides them with a roadmap to avoid future liability."
Without legal challenges, P2P would look much different than it looks
today.
Uncertainty, and fear of lawsuits, may have taken the luster off the
unauthorized file-sharing model, but entrepreneurs - some well funded, some not -
have not
been dissuaded in creating new services.
Please
click here for the rest of this report.
Other Torrent Sites Are Ready to Replace TPB
Excerpted
from TechCrunch Report by Erick Schonfeld
Despite some
early fumbling by the prosecution, a judge in
Sweden handed down a guilty verdict Friday in the case against The Pirate Bay (TPB),
the popular BitTorrent search site.
The four founders, who still seem to think this is a big joke, each
face one
year of jail time and a $3.6 million fine. The site will continue to
function
for now as they appeal the decision.
Even though
TPB does nothing more than point to other
places on the web where people can find torrent files, including
both
authorized and unauthorized downloads of music, movies, and other
content, the
court ruled that TPB assisted in wholesale copyright infringement.
Nobody should
really be surprised by this ruling. In the
past, companies such as Napster and Grokster got into trouble in US courts for
similar types of "vicarious infringement" and "inducement" to infringe.
The music
industry still spends an inordinate amount of
money on legal fees (although it has come down from the $140 million it
used to
spend annually, not counting whatever it cost the RIAA to go after
those 35,000
file sharers before they decided that was not a cost-effective policy).
And it
will continue to spend money going after big sites where file sharers
congregate.
That is the
stick part of its carrot-and-stick business
model. They are still trying to figure out what the carrot will be, but
increasingly it looks like licensing ad-supported streams on the web.
In the
meantime, people will continue to download or
stream free music wherever they can. Even if TPB is ultimately shut
down, there
are already plenty of other torrent tracking sites ready to take its
place. One
of them, Mininova, tracks nearly as many torrent files (1.13 million versus 1.7 million
for TPB)
and already has more web visitors. According to comScore, Mininova had
26.2
million unique visitors worldwide in February, versus 14.6 million for
TPB; and
even old-school torrent-tracker Torrentz had 13.7 million and has been running neck-and-neck with TPB in terms
of
visitors. Other estimates put TPB users at 20 million.
Regardless of
what happens to TPB, torrent freaks have
plenty of other options and always will. If the music industry really
wants to
fight unauthorized file sharing, it needs to work on planting more
carrots.
Court Bars RIAA Trial Webcast
Excerpted from Wired News Report by David
Kravets
A
federal appeals court on Thursday barred the webcasting of live
courtroom
proceedings of a Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
file-sharing
trial.
The 1st US
Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that the
Massachusetts trial judge that authorized the webcast was "palpably
incorrect" in concluding that streaming coverage of the case was
allowed
in that state.
It would have
been the first time an RIAA file-sharing
hearing would have been broadcast. The RIAA, which has sued 30,000
individuals,
objected to the webcast, saying it could be "readily subject to editing
and manipulation."
Cara
Duckworth, an RIAA spokeswoman, said the record
labels were "pleased with the first circuit's decision in this matter
and
now look forward to focusing on the underlying copyright infringement
claims in
this case."
The case
concerns Boston University student Joel Tenenbaum
whose attorney, Harvard University Professor Charles Nesson, is
challenging the
P2P file-sharing lawsuit and the constitutionality of the Copyright
Act, which
allows penalties of up to $150,000 per infringed music track.
"We are
disappointed by the first circuit's decision
and maintain that Joel is being denied a constitutional right to a
public trial
in the age of the Internet," Tenenbaum's defense team wrote on its
website, Joel
Fights
Back.
Profs Protest Massive P2P Damage Awards
Excerpted from Ars Technica Report by Nate
Anderson
Statutory
damages in the US can be claimed by copyright
holders in lieu of actual damages, and they range from $750 to $30,000
per
infringement - or up to $150,000 when the infringement is "willful."
These huge
ranges, and the lack of useful guidance on how
to implement them, have led to both wildly
inconsistent damage awards
and huge penalties for small crimes. Here's how two leading copyright
professors sum up the problem, drawing on the Jammie Thomas P2P case in
Minnesota:
"Actual
damages in the Thomas case were arguably about $50. Given the
defendant's lack
of innocence, the jury had no choice but to award Capitol Records at
least $750
per infringed work (which would have totaled $18,000)."
Recent
rulings have "exacerbated the potential for
excessive and arbitrary awards when skillful lawyers are able to
persuade
juries to become outraged about infringing conduct."
So how do we
fix the system? Pam Samuelson and Tara
Wheatland, both of the University of California, Berkeley, have some
suggestions.
First,
though, they provide a thorough recap of the
statutory damages provision in US copyright law, currently ensconced in section
504(c) of
the US copyright code. The law gives little guidance about application,
and
"as a result, awards of statutory damages are frequently arbitrary,
inconsistent, unprincipled, and sometimes grossly excessive."
The authors
aren't opposed to the idea of statutory
damages, which were designed to provide relief in cases where it was
quite
difficult to quantify the actual losses suffered by the copyright
holder. They
also don't object to using statutory damages in a punitive fashion.
"Awards are sometimes quite modest in close cases," they write,
"approximate actual damages in other cases, or are enhanced by modest
amounts
(e.g., 2 or 3 times actual damages) in somewhat egregious cases and
somewhat
more (e.g., 8 to 10 times actual damages) in more egregious
infringement
cases."
But ending up
on the hook for up to $150,000 just for
swapping a single song on a file-sharing network? Craziness - and far
too
likely to be used against regular people.
"In today's world, where the
average person in her day-to-day life interacts with many copyrighted
works in
a way that may implicate copyright law," says the paper, "the dangers
posed by the lack of meaningful constraints on statutory damage awards
are
particularly acute."
The Jammie
Thomas case, in which Thomas was fined $222,000
by a jury for uploading a few dozen songs, stands out as an example. In
that
particular case, the authors argue, "jury instructions should have
asked
the jury to consider more carefully the relative reprehensibility of
Thomas's
conduct and the reasonableness of the ratio of harm that this defendant
caused
these plaintiffs to a proper award aimed at deterring and punishing
her, but no
more." (The $222,000 verdict was thrown out over one of these jury
instructions, in fact, and the case is currently moving toward a
retrial this
summer).
And MP3.com,
a service that ripped nearly 5,000 CDs, put
the results on its servers, and offered them over the Internet to users
who had
already purchased copies on CD, had to pay $118 million, based on
statutory
damages of $25,000 per disc. The verdict came down "despite the absence
of
any evidence of actual harm to the plaintiffs or profits to the
defendant," and is another example of how being the target of a single
copyright infringement lawsuit can now endanger the livelihoods of both
individuals and businesses.
The authors
provide pages of suggestions for reforming the
system, privileging awards that are small multiples of damages
suffered. They
also argue for more
judicial discretion in one direction: down.
"We also think
courts
should have the power to lower statutory damage awards below the $750
minimum
in the current statute when an award based on this minimum would be
grossly
disproportionate to the harm caused," they write, "as in the P2P
file-sharing cases."
Finally,
when Congress eventually turns to overhaul
copyright law again, Samuelson and Wheatland have a final suggestion.
"Congress might even want to reconsider whether statutory damages are
serving a truly useful purpose in copyright law, given that the rules
of
evidence about proof of damages and profits are much less rigorous now
than
they were when statutory damages were first created and given how few
other
countries have statutory damage regimes."
Coming Events of Interest
CloudSlam '09 - April 20th-24th. This virtual conference is the world's premier cloud computing event, covering technology, business models, industry experiences, legal aspects, research, development, and innovations in the world of cloud computing.
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.
Structure 09 - June 25th in San
Francisco, CA. A world-class roster of speakers break down how to put cloud computing to work. Cloud computing's movers and shakers go beyond theory to discuss how they have leveraged cloud computing in their businesses.
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