May 18, 2009
Volume XXVI, Issue 6
Vuze to Go Portable Edition Launches
Excerpted from TechWhack Report
Vuze has announced a portable edition of its BitTorrent client. Vuze, which was previously called Azureus, was already one of the most popular BT clients in the market when the arrival of uTorrent expanded this category.
"Vuze to Go" is the portable edition of Vuze, for which the company is charging $9.99.
Vuze has collaborated with Ceedo for this version, as it required a virtual operating system to run the application on systems where Java was not available.
Vuze said that they simply could not provide this application for free because, "We've invested in creating a portable solution that has an entirely different ease-of-use relative to any other solution in the market. We believe that if we're solving a real problem in an elegant way, our users will be willing to pay for it."
Check out Vuze to Go.
Leaf Networks Licenses Groundbreaking P2P Software
Leaf Networks this week announced a licensing agreement with NETGEAR for its P2P VPN technology that enables ReadyNAS users to remotely access their network-attached storage devices through the ReadyNAS Remote application from anywhere as if they were on their local area network (LAN).
"There are three things that set ReadyNAS Remote apart from any other form of remote access - first, it's simple to set-up - there are no complicated router set-ups to deal with; second, with ReadyNAS Remote, you simply drag-and-drop files with Windows File Explorer or Mac Finder - there's no need to learn or start a different file manager, or deal with a clunky web interface; and lastly, all file permissions and share security settings are retained - just like you were on a LAN," explained Alex Win, Senior Director of Technical Marketing at NETGEAR.
The ReadyNAS Remote application is currently available on several ReadyNAS platforms in its latest firmware and the client application is available for Mac and Windows devices.
"Network-attached storage is one of many perfect embedded applications of Leaf Networks P2P VPN technology," said Jeff Capone, Leaf Networks CEO. "In the near future, this technology will allow for transparent, secure, and private remote access to many other hardware devices and software applications."
Leaf Networks licenses its technology to hardware and software vendors. Several new hardware and software applications which leverage Leaf technology are slated for release and introduction this year.
Leaf Networks also makes its basic P2P end-user application available as a free download on its website.
Cucku Uses Skype for Encrypted Back-Up
Excerpted from Internet News Report by Alex Goldman
The alternative to backing up data to a remote data center is storing it on the PC in the adjacent cubicle at work or on a family member's computer at home, says Rob Ellison, CEO of back-up software provider Cucku, a company whose name is pronounced like the bird.
Local back-up has two major advantages over remote back-up, said Ellison. The first advantage is that it does not use up bandwidth quotas, which are common in Europe and could soon be arriving in the US.
The second advantage is time: it can take advantage of the full speed of the local network which likely exceeds any connection to the Internet, especially the meager upstream that most home users and many small businesses deal with.
A third advantage of Cucku is that it encrypts the data on the PC before transmitting it over the Internet, which may make it more secure than other options. Transmitting the data over the proprietary Skype protocol adds an extra layer of encryption.
However, one key drawback seems to be the space that would be taken up on others' hard drives. Ellision told Internet News that he hasn't seen users complaining about this, but admitted that some may be buying extra hard drives to handle the back-ups.
The product is available free for back-up to one location. Anyone backing up multiple PCs on one computer or backing up to multiple PCs has to pay a license fee.
This week, the company is releasing version 2.0 of the product. A new Cucku Pro allows CLI interaction and scheduled back-ups for small business users.
In the future, the company will move beyond Skype, implementing a proprietary P2P protocol and also allowing direct-connect port forwarding for local back-ups.
However, the company is benefiting from being a part of the Skype ecosystem. It is listed in the Skype Shop. "We are one of twenty applications certified interoperable with Skype," said Ellison.
He added that Skype benefits from Cucku, too, as 50% of its customers who don't already have Skype have installed it to use Cucku.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Congratulations to Dan Rayburn and the entire 2009 Streaming Media East team for a very successful conference this week in New York.
We are especially grateful to P2P panelists Doug Pasko, Senior Technologist, Verizon Communications and Co-Chair, P4P Working Group (P4PWG); Christy Thomas, VP Corporate Strategy & Business Development, Velocix; Barry Tishgart, VP, Internet Services, Comcast; and Rob Green, Managing Director, Abacast.
According to Streaming Media, P2P technology continues to be a topic of intense controversy in the streaming media industry. Will the efficiencies that P2P promises be realized, or will complications in fulfilling this vision prevent P2P from realizing its full potential? Which of the many P2P, peer-assisted, hybrid content delivery network (CDN), and cloud computing entrants will be most successful? What other attractive new CDN architectures are emerging?
Doug noted that P2P has become a core tool in the tool box for broadband content distribution. It has gained emphasis as the need to use bandwidth more efficiently has become increasingly important with growing demands based on the volume of rich media delivery. Getting to the edge of the network is critical, delivery quality is paramount, reducing the amount of infrastructure that must be maintained is important - and hybrid solutions may be the optimal approach.
Winning players will work with carriers to improve quality, added Doug. As the CDN market matures, it will also become useful to focus on the overall ecosystem and work with the carrier community to determine what architectural shifts will work best. More disruptive changes will be in store as the mobile space becomes increasingly integrated with landline Internet delivery.
Christy explained that Velocix is a next-generation CDN embedded in the core of the network. P2P has become part of the value chain as ISPs look at ways to more intelligently use their network resources and, in particular, get more benefits from the upstream side. Content providers need to be shown the best way to distribute their properties.
Meanwhile, solutions providers must offer more than just P2P; they need to offer a complete set of services for different types of content and audiences and circumstances, continued Christy. What are also emerging as important considerations are the management of connections between national networks and the leveraging of underlying networks with P2P economies of scale.
Barry regards P2P as one tool to use as broadband networks work to bring content closer to the edge and make its delivery friendlier for consumers. While initially P2P promised cost efficiencies, what has supplanted pure P2P is hybrid P2P optimized for interworking with servers located near customers.
Reporting, control, authentication, and infrastructure to remove unlawful content will be the necessary attributes of winning content delivery solutions. Closed and hybrid P2P will have to prove themselves against competing alternatives, Barry observed.
Success parameters also include mapping CDNs so that content is delivered near end-users to reduce congestion and help ensure high quality. Broadband operators still have enormous investments to make in bringing fiber closer to the home. What will matter most ultimately is having the best business models for content delivery.
Rob noted that P2P has evolved into a complimentary tool for CDNs, where originally it was thought of as a competitor. He would like to see more broadband operators adopt P2P as a standard tool.
One of the obstacles that still needs to be addressed is that P2P typically requires a client installation. P2P should probably be regarded as two different solutions for two different audiences and footprints: 1) file download P2P; and 2) live streaming P2P; and, Rob added, live streaming P2P is being increasingly used by broadcasters.
Winning users of P2P will be P4P-compliant and be able to support both on-demand and live content delivery - as well as feature very lightweight installs or find alternatives. The hybrid P2P model was born more out of practicality than anything else. It no longer makes sense to only offer unicast.
Audience questions addressed alternatives to P2P client installations, net neutrality issues, ISPs bringing CDN services in-house, challenges regarding peer utilization, and asymmetry of the last mile. This subject matter continues to be highly dynamic as the digital revolution advances, creating many new opportunities while also disrupting old models.
While much of this week's DCINFO by necessity is dedicated to studies and breaking developments on legal and regulatory fronts, there are two articles I heartily recommend - your time permitting: The Globe and Mail's How the iPod Changed Everything and Computer World's Hotspots in the Online Video Underground. Share wisely, and take care.
Interactive Marketing to Grow 11% to $25.6 Billion
Excerpted from Online Media Daily Report by Mark Walsh
Forrester Research predicts that interactive marketing spending will hit $25.6 billion this year - up 11% from $23.1 billion in 2008, despite being flat, as marketers shift money from traditional media to digital channels.
Through 2014, Forrester predicts that interactive marketing will grow 17%, led by social media, projected to grow 34% to $3.1 billion.
Mobile will follow, increasing 27% to $1.3 billion; display advertising, 17% to $16.9 billion; search, 15% to $31.6 billion; and e-mail, 11% to $21 billion.
Please click here for the full report.
White House Wants Cloud Computing
Excerpted from Federal Computer Week Report by Doug Beizer
Cloud computing will play a major role in modernizing the federal government's technology infrastructure, according to a White House document published this week with the administration's 2010 budget request.
White House officials want agencies to launch pilot projects that identify common services and solutions and that focus on cloud computing, according to the Analytical Perspectives document released with the budget request.
Cloud computing refers to an arrangement in which an organization pays a service provider to deliver applications, computing power, and storage via the web. Under the White House's plan, several agencies could access a common application from the cloud.
Cloud computing pilot projects would address the risks and new policies required to implement the emerging technology, the document states. Securing a traditional data center in the walls of an agency is different from securing a cloud computing network where computer servers are often owned and operated by a third party, it said.
"The federal community will need to actively put in place new security measures which will allow dynamic application use and information-sharing to be implemented in a secure fashion," according to the budget document.
One pilot project would be for end-user communications and computing and would examine how to provide secure provisioning, support, and operation of end-user applications across a spectrum of devices. It would also address the needs of teleworking and a mobile workforce.
Another pilot project would look at enterprise software as a service (SaaS), according to the document. The project may examine how to deliver financial management applications, for example, to several agencies via the cloud. The document does not say when these projects would begin.
Moving to cloud computing would require an initial investment but should result in savings in the future, according to the document. "Expected savings in the out years, as more agencies reduce their costs of hosting systems in their own data centers, should be many times the original investment," the document states.
Cisco Unveils Cloud Computing Platform
Excerpted from The Industry Standard Report by Jim Duffy
Cisco Systems this week unveiled a platform for service providers that's designed to serve as a foundation for delivering cloud computing services.
Called Cisco Unified Service Delivery, the system combines Cisco's CRS-1 core Internet router, Nexus 7000 data center switches and its new Unified Computing System (UCS), which integrates blade servers with switching, storage access, virtualization, and management. As part of the Unified Service Delivery launch, Cisco will roll out new higher-speed modules for the CRS-1 to extend data center computing techniques, like virtualization, across the WAN for service provider peering and interconnect applications.
Cisco says the platform will optimize Cisco-supplied service and IP network elements and resources for consistent security, quality, and customer experience for voice, video, and data, at reduced operational costs. Traditional approaches - ostensibly, combining Cisco switches and routers with servers and storage from incumbent data center vendors - do not quickly nor cost-effectively accommodate growth in new services profitably, Cisco says.
At first blush, the Unified Service Delivery system appears to be more packaging than innovation, designed perhaps to stimulate demand for Cisco's UCS blade server system in service provider data centers. But the meat of the announcement is in the new modules for the CRS-1, which Cisco says optimize the Internet core router for data center applications.
The modules include two new 10Gbps line cards and a 40Gbps forwarding processor designed specifically, Cisco says, to extend virtualization from the data center through the core IP network. The CRS-1 modules allow permit providers to virtualize traffic and network operations on a per-service or per-customer basis with a smaller Cisco CRS-1 footprint, Cisco says.
This system design allows service providers to accelerate service delivery and quickly adapt to changing network or customer requirements.
Rival Juniper unveiled its own service provider virtualization scheme earlier this year with the introduction of the TX Matrix Plus and its combination with the Juniper Control System 1200 control plane scaling system.
Security for the Unified Service Delivery platform is enabled through the Nexus 7000 switch and shared management capabilities between the CRS-1 and Nexus. The system supports virtualization software through the UCS, which has a strong VMware component.
Citing data from Synergy Research, Cisco says a unified service delivery platform can offer double the power efficiency of a traditional data center configuration, and two-to-seven times the operational savings over a four-year period for unified communications voice and virtualized video.
Pricing for the new CRS-1 modules starts at $30,000. Cisco said availability was still to be determined.
PUMP is a Great P2P Video Application, and Then Some
Excerpted from Washington Post Report by Robin Wauters
File-sharing service VIPeers has released an upgraded version of its P2P media discovery and sharing tool PUMP, as reported by TechCrunch France. PUMP is touted as the "iTunes for video," but it's much more than that and rather similar to apps like Miro and Joost.
PUMP is a desktop application that lets you search for and download the Flash versions of videos from a variety of services, including YouTube, Dailymotion, BitTorrent search engines Mininova, Jamendo, LegalTorrents, and Google Torrent, and the results are presented in orderly tabs. You can even opt to include any other search engine you think is missing from the list.
Videos can be played in practically any format and shared from within the interface on a multitude of social networks like Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed. The app even doubles as a full-fledged web browser and podcasting tool thanks to the ability to import RSS feeds into the system.
It makes for easy management and discovery of videos, but what I really dig about the service is that it's able to sync and convert content from both your imported iTunes and local PUMP libraries to your iPhone, iPod Touch, or other mobile phones. It's also a full-fledged BitTorrent client, which is not surprising considering VIPeers is also the company behind torrent-sharing client Podmailing.
The downsides: only available for Windows Vista and XP for now (it also uses IE for browsing), an uninspired UI and a bit of a memory drain. But don't let that spoil the fun.
US Drops to 4th Place in Unauthorized File Sharing
Excerpted from Home Media Magazine Report by Chris Tribbey
Fewer copyright infringements are taking place via file-sharing applications in the United States, dropping it to fourth place in terms of unauthorized file sharing worldwide, according to a new report from anti-piracy company BayTSP.
The report - "Online Trends & Insights - 2008" - found huge surges in unauthorized file sharing in Spain, Italy, and France, with BitTorrent leading the way as the most popular file-sharing application for protected content.
BayTSP put together the report using data from its clients, including studios, sports franchises, software companies, record labels, videogame publishers, and pay-per-view broadcasters.
"BitTorrent and eDonkey are optimized for large file distribution and, despite the growing popularity of streaming video, are still where the majority of copyright infringement takes place," said BayTSP CEO Mark Ishikawa. "The US, which topped the list of countries with the most infringements in 2007, dropped to No. 4."
Comcast, Road Runner (Time Warner Cable), and AT&T each had more than 1 million infringements on their services, while all of the top 10 international Internet service providers (ISPs) had more than 2 million infringements each.
The California-based company says it identifies more than 16 million online copyright infringements each day, and sends out more than 1 million "takedown" notices for its clients each month.
P2P Study: Licensing Music Exchanges Will be Lucrative
Excerpted from The Register Report by Andrew Orlowski
A study of P2P music exchanges revealed this week suggests that the ailing music business is shunning a lucrative lifeline by refusing to license the activity for money.
Entitled The Long Tail of P2P, the study by Will Page of performing rights society PRS for Music and Eric Garland of P2P research firm BigChampagne aired at The Great Escape music convention. It's a follow-up to Page's study last year which helped debunk the myth of the "Long Tail."
Page examined song purchases at a large online digital retail store, which showed that out of an inventory of 13 million songs, 10 million had never been downloaded, even once. It suggested that the idea proposed by Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson, who in 2004 urged that the future of business was digital retailers carrying larger inventories of slow-selling items was a Utopian fantasy.
The P2P networks are harder to quantify, but apparently show a similar pattern, where most of the action - and profit - is in the "Head." Each Top 100 CD on The Pirate Bay (TPB) averaged 58,000 downloads a week, for example. Lady GaGa's "The Fame" was downloaded 388,000 times in a week from TPB alone.
Like its predecessor, the new study also finds that downloads follow a log-normal, rather than a Pareto (or "power curve") distribution as Anderson envisaged. The Wired man had guessed the shape of the Internet - and picked the wrong shape.
The gap between bestsellers and the rest is widening, Page and Garland conclude, a pattern seen with movie and TV consumption, too. The authors cite one knock-on effect for live music promoters, who say bands fourth or fifth on a bill are relatively worse off than they were ten years ago. So much for the Internet as the great leveler: you literally got lost in the noise. But why does popular taste follow this shape?
For Andrew Bud, who worked on last year's study, the answer is simple. "An obvious answer is that it's through people chatting to each other and seeing the music talked about in the media. That's what culture is. So the fact we're seeing the log-normal distribution here may point to the power of culture on people's choices. Chris Anderson's hypothesis of a Pareto power law would be much more about random, individual choices - people alone with their computers. So perhaps, this debate of 'thick versus fat' is really about the power of culture in determining demand."
Page says that once the nature of the digital market is understood, we can build businesses that reward composers and songwriters. Instead of enforcement, the study implies that copyright holders should view P2P file sharing as a new kind of broadcast medium, one which should be licensed. A legitimate market, in other words. "If sellers sell it, it might never be bought. But if the swappers offer it, at least one person will likely take it," the authors point out.
Polls suggest many music fans would gladly pay for such a service. The University of Hertfordshire last year found over 80% interested in voluntarily paying for services which offered exchanges of sound recordings, and a survey of music fans in Sweden - home of TPB - found that over 86% would cough up: over half the sample would pay up to £12 a month.
The world's first voluntary P2P service was due this spring from UK cable giant Virgin, but the ISP suspended the initiative late in the day due to record company nervousness.
Although they are loathe to acknowledge the "try before you buy" aspect of P2P, labels are well aware of it - and understandably want their most popular investments (artists who are played dozens of time at home) to command more than somebody whose song may be downloaded, hoarded, and never listened to once.
That's a tough nut to crack, and since consumers won't stand for intrusive play counting technology, is probably solved by pricing reform. But it's not a problem the major labels want to address. This week the music business renewed its emphasis on enforcement rather than income growth.
The World is Going Flat-Rate to Monetize File Sharing
Excerpted from Intellectual Property Watch Report by Volker Grassmuck
A landmark study by the Institute of European Media Law (EML) found that a levy on Internet usage legalizing non-commercial online exchanges of creative works conforms with German and European copyright law, even though it requires changes in both. The German and European factions of the Green Party who had commissioned the study will make the "culture flat-rate," as the model is being called in Germany, an issue in their policies.
The global debate on a new social contract between creatives and society is getting more pronounced by the day. Two models are emerging: a free-market approach based on private blanket licenses and voluntary subscriptions, and a legal license approach based on exceptions in copyright law and mandatory levies, which now has been proven legally feasible and appropriate by the EML study.
"When in politics one is confronted with two options that both don't work, one should look for a third one," said Helga Trupel, Green MEP and Vice-Chair of the Committee for Culture and Media in the European Parliament, at the press conference on April 3rd in Berlin where the legal feasibility study by the EML was introduced.
"In my view, two positions don't have a future," continued Trupel. "One is the 'everything for free' attitude towards creative works on the Internet. It does not answer the questions of how to appropriately remunerate authors in the digital age and how a knowledge society based on creative content can reproduce itself. But I am equally opposed to the French model in which, without judicial due process through a new government agency, after two warnings users' Internet access will be suspended. This is, in my view, not an appropriate response to the technological revolution."
On May 6th, the European Parliament voted on an amendment to the Telecoms Package that clearly rejects the French three-strikes model and confirms the fundamental right of access to the Internet.
The French "Olivennes" or "three-strikes" model, as it is known, is not an acceptable solution, said Trupel. "Instead, we have to devise a new social contract for solving the issues raised by this revolution. It means finding a new balance of interests among authors, consumers, and the affected industries, including the ISPs."
Her colleague Grietje Staffelt, Green MP and media-political speaker of the federal parliamentary faction of Bundnis90/Die Grunen, said the main advantages of a culture flat-rate in her view are that it would decriminalize P2P users, remunerate creatives, and relieve the judicial system and the ISPs from mass-scale prosecution. It would do so, she continues, in a way that ensures the basic rights enshrined in German constitutional doctrine of a citizen's right to informational self-determination and of the privacy of telecommunications.
Please click here for the full report.
Veoh Vindicated in Infringement Suit
Excerpted from Onlin Media Daily Report by Wendy Davis
Former Disney chief Michael Eisner and other investors in the peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) service Veoh are off the hook for good in a lawsuit brought by Universal Music Group (UMG).
US District Court Judge Howard Matz in Los Angeles had earlier dismissed the case against the investors, but the move was "without prejudice," which left Universal free to tweak its copyright infringement complaint and refile it.
Universal re-drafted its complaint, prompting the investors to again ask Matz to throw out the case against them. Last week, Matz quietly granted the investors' motion and dismissed the case "with prejudice," meaning that Universal can no longer attempt to hold Eisner's The Tornante Company and other Veoh backers liable.
Matz rejected Universal's argument that the investors should have proactively tried to prevent copyright infringement on Veoh. In a 15-page opinion, Matz wrote that Universal had not proven that the financial backers had an obligation "to preempt the possibility of infringement by requiring the operating company they are funding to implement automatic or manual filtering systems that reject or remove copyrighted content."
Universal sued Veoh for copyright infringement in 2007, alleging that the service "built its business on the back of others' intellectual property (IP)" by enabling users to view and share infringing clips. Last year, Universal also sued Veoh's investors, including Tornante, Shelter Capital, and Spark Capital.
Veoh argues that it isn't required to pre-screen users' clips to make sure they don't infringe copyright. The company contends that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA) "safe harbor" provisions immunize it from liability as long as it takes down infringing material upon owners' complaints. In January, Matz ruled that Veoh is eligible for safe harbor protection, but has not yet decided whether the site will prevail on the claim.
House Panel's File-Sharing Investigation Misguided
Excerpted from NextGov Report by Jill Aitoro
A House Committee pushing the Justice Department (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to prosecute those who use file-sharing services to download sensitive information would do better to convince agencies to stop employees from downloading the popular applications to their high-security work computers in the first place, government information technology (IT) professionals said.
In an April 20th letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform expressed concern about "the significant risk posed to American citizens and entities from the accessibility of sensitive private and government information on P2P file-sharing networks."
The Committee also sent letters requesting updates about efforts to curtail risks associated with the technology to Jon Leibowitz, Chairman of the FTC, and Mark Gorton, Chairman of the Lime Group, which owns the most widely used P2P file-sharing application, LimeWire. A Committee-sponsored investigation revealed that LimeWire software permitted access to files containing confidential information belonging to government agencies and the public.
The software, known as P2P, allows computer users to exchange files, most commonly songs and video clips, directly from other computer users who have downloaded the file-sharing software. But some P2P applications, if not configured by the user properly, can also share other folders on a computer user's hard drive, which could have documents that contain sensitive and private information.
The Committee cited an episode where blueprints and the avionics package for the President's helicopter were found on a file server in Iran, and tracked the loss of the information back to a defense contractor in Bethesda, MD.
But the Committee should shift much of the blame from file-sharing companies to agencies, said former government IT managers. "The onus of responsibility and blame doesn't land totally on the agencies," said Alan Balutis, Director of the Business Solutions Group at Cisco Systems and a former Chief Information Officer at the Commerce Department. "I would also take action against the employees who allowed this to happen, and use this as the basis for training or retraining on what one is supposed to be doing and not doing" to protect sensitive information.
Michael Jacobs, who served as Information Assurance Director at the National Security Agency until his retirement in 2002, said even those who downloaded the sensitive information may not be culpable. "This is not like a hack. No one is intruding into your network to get the information," he said. "You're providing an avenue in for files to be discovered by P2P programs, and legitimately accessed. Where are the grounds for prosecution? There aren't any."
"Anyone who would utilize these programs with their office computer, who could expose sensitive and/or classified material, is breaking any number of existing rules and protocols," Balutis said.
He added that new regulations are not the answer; instead federal agencies and private organizations must strictly enforce existing policies, guidelines, and standards with employees and partners.
Jacobs said any agency storing sensitive information should not allow employees to download P2P software on their work computers and should scan its systems regularly to check for file-sharing software. "The problem is not solved technically or legislatively," he said. "It's solved through policy, policy enforcement, and discipline."
The committee has investigated inadvertent file sharing on P2P networks before. At a hearing in July 2007, Lime Group's Gorton promised to modify the company's software to help prevent the sharing of confidential information. In his letter response to the Oversight Committee, Gorton detailed the steps that LimeWire has taken to do that.
In any event, Congress may not have the authority to compel companies to rewrite their software, said Bruce McConnell, former OMB Information Policy Chief. "Government regulation of Internet service providers (ISPs) to control information exchanges by citizens can be difficult to achieve in a constitutional manner," he said. "It may be preferable to go after the people who illegally possess the content."
Drivetrain Rejection Highlights App Store Approval Flaws
Excerpted from Macworld Report by Dan Moren
If there's a specter that haunts Apple's App Store like the ghost of Jacob Marley, it's the institution's mysterious approval process. Yes, we've discussed it before at length, but that doesn't mean we're about to stop now. The latest app to find itself in Apple's crosshairs is a program called Drivetrain.
Drivetrain is an iPhone app that lets you remotely control Transmission, a desktop BitTorrent client that runs on OS X. Aaron Scott of Drivetrain developer Maza Digital told Macworld that Apple's rejection letter for the app denied it on the grounds that "this category of applications is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights."
Scott, however, contends that Drivetrain does nothing unlawful. The application isn't itself a BitTorrent client; it just provides an iPhone-native front-end for remotely managing Transmission. Transmission already includes a web interface for remote control, so perhaps Apple should take a close look at its shady Safari application.
Futhermore, while Apple has said in the past that it wouldn't allow applications that fall under the heading of unlawful, that's not quite what Apple's saying here - rather, the company's rejection describes BitTorrent apps as "often used" for infringing purposes. In which case, you might as well ban the iPod app because you could use it to listen to infringing music, the YouTube app because it could be used to watch infringing videos, and Safari because you could use it to view infringing text and images. Yes, BitTorrent has infringing uses - but it also has perfectly legitimate purposes as well, such as distributing freely available software like Linux and content licensed under the Creative Commons system, such as the yearly music downloads from the South-by-Southwest (SXSW) festival.
If that's not enough to stick in your craw, there's the issue of consistency. The latest version of an iPhone RSS application called Trackr (iTunes link) allows you to queue torrents for downloading on your home machine, running either the uTorrent or Transmission BitTorrent clients, and it's been available on the App Store for around a month. If Apple's process is well-regulated, that update shouldn't have made it into the store.
At its iPhone 3.0 event last March, Apple said that 96% of submitted applications are approved. That's all well and good, but what about the 4% that aren't? While many of these are probably in actual violation of Apple's stated rules, there are still plenty of examples like Drivetrain and Tweetie where the rules appear to verge on the haphazard. The opacity of the process means there's just no way to know.
Maza Digital's Scott said that he had already resubmitted Drivetrain with no changes. While previous experiences suggest that the application has a good chance of making it through the second time around, in some ways that's just as worrying, since it displays the very lack of consistent rule application that makes the approval process such a nightmare for developers to navigate.
UK ISPs Refuse to Play Internet Copyright Cops
Excerpted from Ars Technica Report by Nate Anderson
The UK government is finalizing its approach to dealing with online copyright infringement. Internet disconnections have been publicly taken off the table, but UK creative industries are now lobbying hard for disconnection as the report nears completion. ISPs argue that better licensing and business models would do a better job of solving the problem.
Warnings just aren't good enough. That was the message delivered at a London conference this week by a group of UK creative industries, which are demanding that ISPs start disconnecting users accused of repeated online copyright infringement. But the response from ISPs was clear: the creative industries can just shut their collective pie-hole until they do a better job of licensing legal content.
This week's push for tougher "graduated response" penalties is politically timed to put pressure on the government's soon-to-be-released Digital Britain report. That report will shape government policy on issues like graduated response, and early drafts have so far been in keeping with the government's current approach - Internet disconnection is off the table as a penalty.
Previous UK studies have shown that a mere warning (which strips away the veil of anonymity that many Internet users believe they enjoy) is sufficient to stop the vast majority of unauthorized file sharing. The UK music business has essentially endorsed this approach in the past, signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the UK's largest ISPs which saw warning letters sent to suspected infringers. But, with the government poised to set policy in this area soon, the music and movie businesses have decided that there's no harm in aiming for what they really want: mandated disconnections, like those just passed in France.
The thinking here seems to be that warnings would have an effect if backed by the threat of disconnection, but once every file-swapper in the UK knows that no penalties would follow the letters, effectiveness would plummet.
But the ISPs aren't going quietly into that dark night. In a statement, the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) said that it agreed with creative industry calls for "the safe and secure delivery of legal content." Getting access to this content remains difficult, though, and ISPA notes that "Internet companies remain extremely frustrated by the ongoing difficulties in securing licensing that is needed to offer consumers legal alternatives through new models of online content distribution. It is our view that legislation on enforcement should only be introduced on the condition that the rights holder industry commits to significant licensing reform." Please click here for the rest of the report.
No Settlement in RIAA v. Jammie Thomas
Excerpted from Wired News Report by David Kravets
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on Tuesday failed to settle the infamous Jammie Thomas case, setting the stage for a retrial of the nation's only file-sharing case to have gone before a jury.
Thomas' lawyer, Brian Toder, and RIAA lawyers met privately in a Minnesota federal court for two hours haggling over the case. No conclusion was reached. Thomas has maintained she would never settle. A retrial is set for June 15th.
"What they wanted to do, my client did not want to do," Toder said in a telephone interview. He declined to disclose the RIAA's financial demands.
A Duluth jury in 2007 dinged Thomas $222,000 for infringing 24 songs on the Kazaa file-sharing program. But months later, US District Judge Michael Davis declared a mistrial, saying he falsely instructed the jury that copyright infringement amounted to merely making available copyrighted works on a file-sharing program - regardless of whether it was proved anybody else downloaded the content.
Davis ruled it was unclear whether jurors found Thomas liable because she made the songs available or downloaded them from another open shared-folder. The RIAA, in arguing against a mistrial, said the distinction did not matter. Toder successfully argued that the error was so egregious that a new trial was warranted.
The RIAA has sued more than 30,000 individuals on accusations of copyright infringement. Most have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars.
Among the few who fought their lawsuit was Thomas, the only one to go to trial. But jurors didn't buy her theory that she was the victim of hacks and cracks via her WiFi connection.
After four days of trial, a jury spent five minutes behind closed doors concluding her liability. Panelists haggled for a few more hours while affixing a damages award. Some wanted to fine her $150,000 per purloined track, the maximum amount under the Copyright Act.
The RIAA announced last year it was discontinuing its 5-year-old litigation campaign. That said, the RIAA continues suing or negotiating settlements with people associated with IP addresses it had detected file sharing from as late as August.
Under its new anti-file sharing campaign, the RIAA is lobbying Internet service providers (ISPs) to discontinue service to repeat copyright scofflaws.
RIAA v. Fans: The Lawsuit Stink That Just Won't Quit
Excerpted from Digital Music News Report by Alexandra Osorio
The RIAA is officially ditching its policy of suing individual swappers, though the lingering stink just won't quit. Instead of walking away cold-turkey, the label trade group is still pursuing older cases.
On Wednesday, the RIAA was unable to settle its longstanding case against Jammie Thomas (Capitol Records v. Thomas), a defendant stirring serious legal questions surrounding evidence-gathering techniques. A retrial was ordered to proceed after an unsuccessful settlement conference.
Thomas initially plodded through a jury trial before getting saddled with charges topping $222,000. Then, things changed, as US District Court Judge Michael Davis reconsidered the admissibility of evidence submitted by the RIAA. Davis noted that Thomas was found making songs available to others, but had not been found to actually be sharing the songs outside of an RIAA-administered inducement.
And so the story plods along, but why is the RIAA soldiering on? Is it that important to prove a point, or win an ego match? Or, more importantly, worth the legal bills that the major labels are saddling? Indeed, that is a question assuming increased importance, especially as other cases - most notably Sony v. Tenenbaum - continue, and label balance sheets worsen.
France's Anti-Piracy Bill Foreshadows Shifty Rumblings
Excerpted from San Jose Mercury Report by Larry Magid
The French National Assembly passed an anti-piracy bill Tuesday that sets a very dangerous precedent.
The "Creation et Internet" bill, which passed the lower house of France's Parliament by a vote of 296 to 233, is a "three-strikes-you're-out" act that would suspend Internet access to anyone caught three times downloading or sharing copyrighted files. The law would not need a trial or court order to be enforced.
The proposed law, also approved by France's Senate by a vote of 189 to 14, would create a new government agency called HADOPI (Haute Autorite pour la Diffusion des Oeuvresm, which roughly translates to "high-ranking authority for the diffusion of works") which would be responsible for enforcing the law and sending notices to people accused of sharing unauthorized media files.
People suspected of file sharing would receive two warnings and would have their Internet access suspended from two months to a year on the third notice. They would also be placed on a list that would prevent them from signing up with other Internet service providers (ISPs).
The measure, which was supported by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, is in direct contradiction to a bill passed by the European Parliament last week that prohibited European governments from terminating Internet access without a court order. It may also be a violation of the European Convention of Human Rights, according to the Financial Times.
The fact that Internet access could be suspended without trial tempts me to joke that the law is "downright un-American" (it's also downright un-European), but that would be a bit too smug because it could happen here.
There have been proposals from some in the entertainment industry to enlist ISPs to create a similar "graduated response" to alleged copyright violators.
Until late last year the RIAA's strategy for dealing with alleged copyright violators was to slap them with a lawsuit. But in December, it announced that it would abandon that practice in favor of working with service providers to apply pressure to customers accused of copyright violations.
Although it's hard to find online references to exactly what sanctions the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has in mind, the organization's CEO Mitch Bainwol, told a Congressional committee in May 2008 that his organization is encouraging "ISPs to work with the content community to adopt effective marketplace solutions to digital copyright theft, saying that, "RIAA and our member companies have been engaged in constructive discussions with a number of ISPs about ways to address the piracy problem, including mechanisms like graduated response policies."
Graduated response is generally regarded as a euphemism to a series of warnings followed by sanctions including slowing down, limiting, or even suspending or terminating service.
There have been press reports that AT&T's Internet service division has agreed to participate in such a "graduated response" program, but the company says that while it is taking some steps to curb piracy on its network, it has denied any intention of terminating or suspending service for people accused of copyright violations.
Verizon, which is also a major ISP, has repeatedly said that it will not participate in such a program.
What bothers me about the French bill and those "voluntary" proposals that are floating around here in the United States is that they could impose a severe sanction without benefit of a trial.
Taking away someone's Internet access can result in denying them the ability to make a living, to study, to purchase airline tickets, or to obtain health information. It can even limit their ability to express themselves, which makes it a possible First Amendment issue.
Perhaps there are times when Internet access should be denied for committing a crime, but I don't want to leave an incredibly punitive decision like that to a company, an industry association, or a government bureaucracy. A sanction that harsh should only be made by a judge or jury after the accused gets a chance to confront the accuser and put up a defense.
Coming Events of Interest
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.
Digital Media Conference - June 25th in Tysons Corner, VA. With 500+ participants, DMC at the Ritz-Carlton attracts the best and brightest from the Washington, DC region and beyond for a packed day of in-depth discussions and networking focused on the the business issues impacting digital media companies.
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.
PopKomm - September 16th-18th in Berlin, Germany. With more than 843 exhibitors from 52 countries, PopKomm is one of the leading international conferences and expos for the music and entertainment businessed worldwide.
New York Games Conference - September 30th in New York, NY. Join games industry leaders - including leading video game publishers and developers, carriers, portals, technology companies, advertising execs, venture capitalists, lawyers, analysts, and many more.
Digital Hollywood Fall - October 19th-22nd in Santa Monica, CA. With many new sessions and feature events, DHF has become the premiere digital entertainment conference and exposition. DCIA Member companies will exhibit and speak on a number of panels.
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