July 27, 2009
Volume XXVII, Issue 4
Kazaa Rises from the Dead
Excerpted from Sydney Morning Herald Report by Asher Moses
The Kazaa peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing service is back from the dead three years after it was shut down by the music industry in a $150 million lawsuit. But the software looks entirely different this time around, with users paying for their music instead of trading tracks without authorization.
Kevin Bermeister, who was behind much of the technology in the original Kazaa, is leading the re-launch of the new service through his company, Brilliant Digital Entertainment. Bermeister is based in Sydney and the company has offices in Los Angeles and New York.
Working with him is Michael Speck, who ran the music industry's case against Kazaa as the head of its anti-piracy arm, Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI).
"Only one-in-twenty music downloads gets paid for, and no legitimate operator has been able to change that - until now," said Speck.
The new Kazaa, announced this week, will initially be available in the United States, and Bermeister said he is expecting it to be available to Australians within six months. In the US, customers pay $19.98 a month and can download as many songs as they like.
"People have been enamored with the ability to rebel and break through and get stuff for free, but I think sentiment is changing and people are going to shift towards a quality legal product," Bermeister said.
He acknowledged that there was a plethora of competition in the digital music retail space, but said the Kazaa brand was a major selling point as consumers were "intrigued to go back to a brand that they spent a lot of time with and lived with for so many years."
He said one of the key features of the new Kazaa is the ability of people to pay for the service through their monthly phone bill.
People will also be able to upload and share their home videos.
Bermeister appears to have the support of the music industry, with all four major record labels and a number of independent labels signing up to provide the service with a one-million track catalog at its relaunch.
"If Kazaa stands up as a legitimate digital music service, which ensures that creators and content owners are appropriately remunerated for their rights, then of course we support it," said Marianna Annas, General Manager of MIPI.
LimeWire 5.2 Lets You Share with Facebook Friends
Excerpted from Zeropaid Report
LimeWire v5.2 has officially launched and it adds new features and functions that make it worth a second look from file sharers who may have left the popular P2P program for applications like BitTorrent.
It now allows you to import contacts from Facebook, Gmail, and other domains and thereby create lists of people with whom you want to share content like music, games, videos, pictures, software programs, etc.
LimeWire 5.2 makes file sharing with friends much easier, especially with those who are less than tech savvy when it comes to P2P. It requires they run LimeWire, too, of course, but it doesn't require elaborate set-ups like port-forwarding, etc.
Simply start-it-up, log-in, drag-and-drop files to share, select who you want to share with, and you're done.
More than anything, it makes for a safe and secure way to share content with family and friends.
The Facebook feature also means you can communicate via the social networking site about a particular song or album you heard and really liked for example, and then make it available to those who want to check it out for themselves.
Stay tuned.
Asus Uses BitTorrent to Boost Software Downloads
Excerpted from TorrentFreak Report
Asus, a leading computer product manufacturer, has recently started to offer BitTorrent powered downloads to its customers. With BitTorrent, the company says it can speed up downloads and get software to its customers in less time.
BitTorrent is without doubt the fastest and cheapest way to distribute large files online. Still, there are only a handful of multinationals that use the technology - computer manufacturer Asus is one of them.
With net income of close to a billion dollars in 2008, Asus is one of the big players in the computer business. It is also no stranger to BitTorrent, as it's been making BitTorrent-supported hardware for years, including the first BitTorrent router.
Recently. the company decided to embrace BitTorrent even further, and use it to boost the download speeds on the tens of thousands of downloads it offers on its website. It is currently enabled on all larger downloads listed on the official website.
"In order to speed-up software download process, ASUSTek is now implementing BitTorrent DNA technology. Through this technology, the software you need can be delivered to you in less time," Asus informs its customers.
Consumers looking for drivers or software will now see a P2P download link next to the regular HTTP download. When the P2P link is clicked, Asus explains the process to first-time users, after which they will be asked to download the BitTorrent DNA client.
DNA stands for BitTorrent Delivery Network, and was developed by BitTorrent, Inc. The software runs in the background on users' computers and uses BitTorrent to speed-up regular downloads, which means that customers will share the files they've downloaded with people who are downloading the same content.
It is good to see that billion dollar companies are interested in, and willing to take advantage of BitTorrent. In the end it comes down to a classic win-win situation for both parties. Consumers get faster downloads and Asus realizes a reduction in bandwidth costs.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Follow-up work is continuing from the US House of Representatives' Energy & Commerce Committee's May Legislative Hearing on HR 1319, "The Informed P2P User Act," introduced in March by Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) along with Congressmen John Barrow (D-GA) and Joe Barton (R-TX), and we are very grateful for the support of industry participants in that ongoing and productive effort.
The bill is intended to help protect Internet users against inadvertently sharing confidential data via file-sharing software applications, a goal we fully support.
P2P has evolved greatly in the ten years since Napster first introduced the term "P2P File Sharing" to the general public. Today, DCIA Member companies more-and-more use P2P for the delivery of authorized entertainment and corporate communications content where rights-holders, rather than end-users, introduce files or live streams for online delivery.
Pure "File-sharing" programs, which by definition feature user-generated content (UGC), are becoming, in fact, an increasingly narrow subset of P2P.
The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform also held a hearing on this topic in July 2007, and is now apparently expending substantial government resources as well on this matter, including extensive investigatory activities, a letter-writing campaign in April of this year involving federal agencies and the private sector, and now a separate hearing of its own on this same subject scheduled for this week.
Meanwhile, in addition to proactively and constructively addressing concerns related to the original language in HR 1319, as noted below, the industry is now also awaiting feedback from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Inadvertent Sharing Protection Working Group (ISPG) compliance report submissions, which will provide critical guidance on what more is needed for file-sharing software firms to be fully responsive to this issue.
In fact, Commission input will be invaluable to both the HR 1319 redrafting effort and also the next steps to be taken by the ISPG.
It would be extremely helpful at this juncture for the House of Representatives to determine which Committee should have jurisdiction on this rather narrow topic to facilitate productive collaboration. It's clear just from the mismatches in timing of deliverables that such coordination is not currently taking place.
Holding an additional hearing on this same issue before the FTC publishes its report on industry self-regulatory work-to-date to respond to this issue, which is imminently pending, and before the Committee which has introduced a legislative measure focusing on it completes its redrafting process, which is ongoing, seems questionable to us.
By way of background, within weeks of the 2007 hearing, the DCIA established the ISPG. Over several months, we recruited participants among leading P2P and other tech-sector companies and engaged with FTC staff to address issues associated with unintended publishing of confidential data by file sharers.
This effort began by providing demonstrations for FTC staff of how current file-sharing programs work in terms of users uploading material for distribution. It continued through an iterative process involving private sector and regulatory participants to develop a program of voluntary best practices - for file-sharing-software developers - to protect users against inadvertently sharing personal or sensitive data.
This program was announced in July 2008. Its summary, included in our written testimony, begins by defining terms relevant to 1319, such as "recursive sharing," "sensitive file types," and "user-originated files." It then outlines seven steps that are required to be in compliance: 1) default settings, 2) file-sharing controls, 3) shared-folder configurations, 4) user-error protections, 5) sensitive-file-type restrictions, 6) file-sharing status communications, and 7) developer principles. The principles address feature disablement, uninstallation, new-version upgrades, and file-sharing settings.
In August 2008, the DCIA announced that compliance monitoring would begin in December to allow developers time to integrate required elements of the ISPG program into their planned upgrades and new releases. Compliance monitoring resulted in reports from top brands that use P2P for downloading, live streaming, open-environment sharing, and corporate intranet deployments, and for both user-generated and professionally produced content.
Specifically, seven leading representative P2P program distributors submitted detailed reports to FTC staff in February 2009. In March, the DCIA prepared and submitted a summary. We also noted that software implementations of the popular BitTorrent protocol typically require users to conduct a deliberate conversion process from whatever native file-format their content is in to a torrent file before it can be published, thus minimizing this risk of user-error.
The entire report plus data tables of individual company submissions are in our written testimony, but here are highlights: all respondents now have clearly-disclosed install default-settings that only permit sharing files downloaded from the network. They do not share user-originated files by default; 100% provide complete uninstallation of their file-sharing software that is simple to do and explained in plain language - for example, by using the standard "Add/Remove Program" in Windows; and 6 of out of 7 - all where this item is applicable - now offer a simple way to stop sharing any folder, subfolder, or file, by using easily accessed controls.
In April 2009, Energy & Commerce Committee staff invited the DCIA to participate in redrafting HR 1319. We formed a DCIA Member sub-group to conduct this work. This process is now underway and we will continue to coordinate this effort with staff.
Among our greatest concerns was that the bill as originally drafted would have unintended consequences. Applying its requirements to numerous products, services, and companies would have been burdensome and counter-productive and, as constructed, the bill would have unnecessarily burdened US-based technology firms with innovation-freezing constraints, while being unenforceable against overseas competitors whose software is available to US consumers.
Of great concern also was how it might stifle yet undeveloped new and potentially very useful and valuable software applications.
On the other hand, the DCIA has committed to industry self-regulation through the ISPG to address the subject matter of the bill and is making substantial progress. We still believe that formalized requirements - for compliance with that process - will be the most effective approach to achieve the stated purpose of the bill and, most importantly, provide maximum benefit to consumers.
In any case, we look forward to continuing to work with both Congressional Committees and the Commission on these issues in a productive manner that will benefit all constituencies, and appreciate that HR 1319's original sponsor is very committed to fast-tracking this legislation. We strongly support the intent of the measure, and have actually exceeded it with the ISPG principles. Share wisely, and take care.
Hewlett-Packard Researchers Unveil Browser-Based P2P Darknet
Excerpted from eWeek Report by Brian Prince
Two researchers from Hewlett-Packard have developed a browser-based P2P darknet that allows users to share files and communicate anonymously.
Traditionally, darknets are defined as closed, private networks used for secure communications and file sharing. Typically, users need to download an application to a PC to join.
However, HP security pros Billy Hoffman and Matt Wood are planning to demonstrate at Black Hat USA, held July 25th-30th, how advances in web-browser technology make it possible to develop a darknet that can be accessed by any platform with a browser - be it a PC or an iPhone.
The researchers have dubbed their creation "Veiled." The darknet works with any HTML-5 browser. Once users visit the URL, they automatically join the darknet. With settings such as Internet Explorer 8's InPrivate browsing, there would be no sign that the person had visited the site.
Shared files are encrypted, fragmented, and redundantly stored locally across members of Veiled. In addition, articles or web pages can be published anonymously into Veiled with hyperlinks to other documents stored within the network.
There is some concern that darknets can be misused. For example, the presence of applications such as Freenet or WASTE on a user's computer can set off red flags for airport security inspectors analyzing laptops. Wood, senior security researcher with HP's Web Security Research Group, acknowledged as much, but argued that darknets can be used for legitimate purposes as well, such as anonymous whistle-blowing.
"One of the things we're building into Veiled is the ability to do distributed file storage, which will allow someone that does want to disclose a file or something in a reasonably secure and distributed way to join the darknet, upload the file and then close his browser and never be associated with that file again," Wood explained.
"Then what if someone else wants to retrieve this file? I type in the identifier that someone told me about, and then I can retrieve this file. As long as the darknet exists, that file exists in the network."
According to Hoffman and Wood, the goal of the project is to lower the technical barriers to participating in darknets. Right now, to use Freenet or WASTE, for example, users have to jump through a number of hurdles that may be difficult for those who aren't tech-savvy.
Kazaa Strives for Legitimacy
Excerpted from Pollstar Report by Jay Smith
If the original Napster was the devil in the eyes of the recording industry, then Kazaa was the anti-Christ. Now Kazaa has re-emerged as a download service friendly to copyright holders everywhere.
Niklas Zennstrom, Janus Friis, and Priit Kasesalus created the original Kazaa in 2001. As the recording industry began focusing its legal muscle on the popular file-trading service, the founders sold it to Sharman Networks before moving on to their next big project, Internet phone service Skype.
Because it was incorporated on the tiny South Pacific island of Vanuatu, it was thought Kazaa might be protected from the recording industry's legal wrath. However, Australian courts pursued the company for copyright infringing activities, as did the RIAA. Sharman eventually sold Kazaa to Brilliant Digital Entertainment, whose subsidiary, Altnet, recently transformed the P2P service into a subscription business.
Of course, Napster followed a similar route. As the first P2P service dedicated to facilitating music file exchanges, it quickly felt the power behind the recording industry's litigating sting. Today Napster sells downloads as well as monthly subscriptions, and, although songs purchased from the service are not copy-protected, the tunes downloaded on the subscription plan are wrapped in digital rights management (DRM) technology.
The reborn Kazaa is also offering a subscription service offering all-you-can-download songs and ringtones for $19.98 per month. Like Napster's subscription service, the new Kazaa uses DRM technology, which limits the playing of the songs to a certain number of devices. As with many music subscription services, the DRM factor means the songs stop playing if the user cancels the subscription.
"We know that people originally got into P2P because it was quick and convenient to use," Brilliant Digital CEO Kevin Bermeister told Pollstar. "So it made sense that payment also had to be quick and convenient. Our research showed us that just payment by credit cards was inconvenient to many. But many times that's all they were offered."
"We're also using payment via cell-phone and ISP billing. This is the way we plan to get our subscriber numbers, by drawing on people who don't use any of these applications at the moment."
Please click here for the Kazaa website.
Skype Introduces Screen-Sharing Feature
Excerpted from TMCnet Report by Raju Shabhag
P2P phenomenon Skype has announced a free screen-sharing feature for both Mac and Windows users. The company believes that this new feature will provide new levels of collaboration facilities to its customers.
Screen sharing allows users to transfer the contents of their computer screen to one or more remotely connected Internet users. This means users can share various presentations, documents, images, and other software with other users. The screen-sharing feature is also called application-sharing by some.
If a user wants to make use of Skype's screen-sharing feature, all he/she needs to do is to call another Skype contact and click on "Share Your Screen" in the conversations window's IM toolbar (using Windows) or Share >Share Screen (using a Mac). The user can then share a full screen or just a small part of it.
"Screen sharing is all about bringing people closer together and having conversations around what people want to share," said Neil Stevens, Head of Consumer for Skype. "I can share the latest video of my daughters with my mother who lives overseas, all while having a conversation over Skype. Skype's screen sharing adds to our productivity. I can share desktop presentations and show demos while talking over Skype."
Along with screen sharing, Skype also allows its users other facilities such as conducting free video and voice calls, making low cost calls to landlines and mobiles, sending instant messages (IMs), and sharing files with others. If you are a Mac user with the latest Skype software, you can also enjoy a new feature called Skype Access, which offers low pay-per-minute access to Wi-Fi hotspots.
Recently, the company released a new version of Skype called Skype 4.0 and is available for free download. New features - such as personalized and full-screen video calling, multi-window conversation tracker, and user interfaces that are more user friendly than previous releases - have been driven by demand from more than 20,000 customers, according to the company.
LimeWire Adds Social Net Support & BitTorrent Seeding
Excerpted from Wired News Report by Eliot van Buskirk
File-sharing veteran LimeWire released a new version of its Gnutella/BitTorrent client Wednesday that lets users share files with their social networks, download files faster via BitTorrent, and seed files back into the BitTorrent network.
Version 5.2 also revamps the program's private sharing feature, launched in December. Rather than sharing each file with specific people, you can now create a list of files to share with all of your personal contacts, making it easier to share vacation photos, videos, and so on while keeping any sensitive content private.
Rather than creating its own social network, LimeWire put its hooks into the networks people already use, which is a wise strategy. Among Twitter, blogs, e-mail, Facebook, instant messaging (IM), text messaging, and something called a telephone, we hardly need another way to keep tabs on our friends.
Those who prefer to organize media on their own computers, rather than trusting it to Flickr, Vimeo, and so on, will likely appreciate the way LimeWire lets them serve media directly to their friends, even if the "hey, I just shared something with you" alert comes through another service (e.g., Facebook).
To use the private sharing feature, users need to be running LimeWire at the same time.
CloudShield & ITS Develop Military Messaging Security Platform
CloudShield Technologies, a leading provider of service management and infrastructure security solutions, and Innovative Technology Solutions (ITS), a leading provider of information technology (IT) services and integration solutions for mission-critical intelligence and US government programs, this week announced their Binary Armor solution that enables a joint cross-domain platform for military users involved in instant messaging, chat and intelligence data message exchanges.
Built on the CloudShield CS-2000 platform, ITS utilized its unique Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to develop a solution that allows government users to communicate on classified and unclassified security domains seamlessly. The architecture currently supports unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operations, as well as numerous intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance efforts for the US government.
"Confidential information is often shared over military messaging platforms and it is critical that users have the tools in place to make sure that information is secure," said Bruce Gilley, Vice President of Federal Business Development at CloudShield. "Through our unique packet processing architecture, secure management, and open programmability, CloudShield is providing the high performance and essential functionality needed to secure and control critical information flows at today's network rates."
"In developing this application on CloudShield's patented hardware, we aimed to exploit progressive ideas and solve unique security issues for the US government," said Joe Yavorski, President and CEO at ITS. "The successful implementation by military agencies, in turn, will drive efficient and effective product, process, service or business practice evolutions."
The solution will be highlighted at the 2009 Joint Symposium & Expo, "Team C4ISR: From Concept to Combat" from September 15th to 17th in Atlantic City, NJ.
CloudShield is the only DPI vendor that enables ISVs, Sis, and customers to write applications on its hardware solutions platform. Applications are developed for the CS-2000 and the IBM BladeCenter PN41 using packetC, CloudShield's network processing language, and the first open programming language designed for secure, scalable, high-performance parallel network processing.
To subscribe to an RSS feed of CloudShield news, please click here and select "Subscribe to RSS."
Kontiki Brings Affordable Video to Mid-Size Enterprises
Corporate video communication is the new must-have capability for any mid-size enterprise. High-quality video, whether it's live or on-demand, is the most effective way for business leaders to connect with employees - far more effective than other communication methods like e-mail or voice-mail.
Over 60% of mid-size companies with less than 10,000 employees say corporate communication has recently become significantly more important. In particular, 73% of these companies want to add high-quality, live, or YouTube-style video as a top channel for critical communications to employees.
In response, Kontiki, the leading provider of enterprise video delivery solutions, announced this week that its groundbreaking P2P-based video communications solution is now offered in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model - a cost-effective approach that doesn't require upfront software licenses or expensive hardware investments.
For the first time, businesses can acquire enterprise video capabilities from a single provider and immediately leverage their investment.
"In the past, the use of high-quality video has been viewed by mid-size enterprises as a large technical hurdle with a big upfront cost investment. With our new service offering, Kontiki is putting the power of enterprise video within reach of mid-size operations - at a fraction of the cost of hardware-based choices and with the rapid implementation and ease-of-use they need," said Eric Armstrong, President and CEO, Kontiki.
Many companies attempt to "video-enable" their corporate networks via a hardware-based caching or streaming-server approach, but this is often economically impractical and it can take months or years to deploy - particularly for organizations with many branch offices or home workers. Additionally, the deployment and maintenance costs of hardware-based solutions are prohibitive for most companies.
Kontiki's P2P SaaS customers gain all the benefits of Kontiki's patented video delivery solution, including: secure delivery of high quality video to every employee in the company and in any office location around the globe; end-to-end workflow capabilities to publish, manage, deliver, and view reports on enterprise video content; ease-of-use for employees - simple video access via an existing intranet portal, integrated into Outlook 2007, or as a separate media client; flexible video delivery options - live or on-demand - with no impact to existing business network traffic; and quick deployment for use within any company in a matter of days.
SaaS is a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand. On-demand licensing and use alleviates an organization's burden of equipping a device with every conceivable application, while reducing software maintenance, ongoing operation patches, and patch support complexity in an organization.
According to a survey by Gartner, nearly 90% of organizations expect to maintain or grow their usage of SaaS in the next year. Added Armstrong, "Now more than ever, this is a vital model for companies of all sizes."
Kontiki's P2P SaaS is available immediately and is priced starting at $2-$4 per employee/per month. For more information, please click here.
New Browser Tool Self-Destructs Personal Messages
Excerpted from ChattahBox Report
As the iconic theme plays from the classic TV show, "Mission Impossible," Agent Phelps must quickly dispose of a tape containing the details of his secret mission that self-destructs in five seconds. And now a new security tool, called Vanish performs the same function, allowing users to set a time-limit on web-based text messages, before they self-destruct and disappear forever.
The Vanish prototype was developed by a group of researchers from the University of Washington, to provide a method for sending sensitive messages that don't end up in the wrong hands. When e-mails and other messages are deleted, they never completely disappear, as they are archived on web servers indefinitely.
Head researcher, computer scientist Tadayoshi Kohno cautions that, "If you care about privacy, the Internet today is a very scary place."
"When you send out a sensitive e-mail to a few friends you have no idea where that e-mail is going to end up," said Kohno.
Vanish works by making use of the natural turnover process, called "churn," used on P2P file-sharing networks. The program creates a secret key that is not revealed to the user, and then encrypts the message with that key.
The key is broken into dozens of pieces that are distributed across random computers, which are part of massive file-sharing networks.
Since the file-sharing networks constantly "churn" data, as computers join or leave the network, the pieces of the key disappear over time, leaving the original message undecipherable.
As an added security measure, Vanish programs a network's computers to purge their memories on a continual eight-hour cycle.
Vanish only self-destructs text messages, but the concept is viable for digital photo and audio files as well.
The Vanish prototype is available as a free, open-source program that is compatible with the Firefox browser. You can download it here.
Comcast Upgrades Internet Speed
Excerpted from Philadelphia Inquirer Report by Bob Fernandez
Comcast has upgraded the Internet in Philadelphia to its fastest speed - 50 megabits per second (Mbps), the company said.
The cable giant, which is competing with Verizon Communications for Internet customers, says its fastest Internet speeds are now accessible to 25 million homes in the United States, or about half of its cable franchise area.
PlayFirst Surpasses 5 Million Units in Mobile Game Downloads
PlayFirst, the award-winning entertainment company, has achieved the milestone mark of 5 million game downloads globally on mobile handsets. The significant number of game downloads, which excludes iPhone download numbers, is propelled by the success of mobile versions of PlayFirst's popular Dash games series and its new innovative game titles for the mobile market.
The news comes as the gaming industry hits its peak summer cycle which sees many gamers on the move and a trend towards more mobile game purchases.
Since its inception, PlayFirst has embraced the concept of ubiquitous gaming and its game titles are now available across popular gaming platforms. As the mobile market increases its user base particularly through the increasing global penetration of smart phones, PlayFirst continues to work with developers and mobile partners to ensure its game titles are tailored specifically for players on the move.
PlayFirst works with a number of industry partners to distribute its games on mobile platforms including Glu Mobile with whom it has partnered since 2005.
"Glu has seen tremendous success from the Diner Dash franchise on mobile handsets, as casual games are a natural fit for the mobile platform," said Jill Braff, SVP of Global Publishing, Glu Mobile. "With over 5 million downloads, it is clear that fans are excited to be playing their favorite PlayFirst games on-the-go."
"Our tradition of producing engaging and winning titles for a sophisticated mobile audience is proven in our numbers today," said Rich Roberts, VP of Sales at PlayFirst. "With the global mobile entertainment industry now worth $32 billion dollars and growing, PlayFirst is poised to continue to deliver more exciting new content for fans on the go."
The success of PlayFirst's mobile game downloads is dominated by the Dash series which PlayFirst introduced to the mobile handset market in 2006 with the launch of flagship title, Diner Dash featuring Flo, PlayFirst's iconic game character and virtual restaurateur.
Building on the series success, Diner Dash was followed by Wedding Dash, Doggie Dash, and Diner Dash 2: Restaurant Rescue. Other available mobile titles include Zenerchi, the meditative puzzle game based on color matching, and Chocolatier, the award-winning economic simulation game that puts players in the role of a master chocolatier.
Mobile Broadband Traffic Surges 30% in Second Quarter
Allot Communications, a leader in IP service optimization and revenue generation solutions based on deep packet inspection (DPI), released its inaugural Global Mobile Broadband Traffic Report (GMBT), which indicates that worldwide mobile data bandwidth usage has increased 30% during the second quarter of 2009. Asia leads the growth with 36%; Europe posted 28% growth, and the Americas 25%. GMBT collected data from leading mobile operators worldwide with a combined user base of more than 150 million subscribers.
The report shows how subscribers, particularly heavy data users, do not distinguish between their fixed and their mobile networks, and seem to expect the same service from the Internet, irrespective of their access method. By extension, today's mobile operators face the same challenges as their wireline counterparts, but with more technological limitations. All of these problems are exacerbated by the network infrastructure where the cells themselves can serve as natural bandwidth bottlenecks, often greatly contributing to network congestion and delay.
According to the Allot GMBT, P2P accounts for 42% of bandwidth utilization in the busiest cells on the network, but only 21% in the average cell. HTTP downloads, which experienced 34% growth globally, are now almost as popular as P2P, and in EMEA have even overtaken P2P in popularity.
"This report enables operators to map out subscriber behavior in all its complexities," said Rami Hadar, President & CEO of Allot Communications. "It highlights how subscribers are really using their mobile data services and provides an invaluable overview of the industry and the changes that are taking place as it matures."
The Allot GMBT Report data was collected using the long term reporting capabilities of Allot NetXplorer, Allot's centralized management and reporting system. The length of the collection period allows accurate identification of usage trends and patterns, reducing the influence of temporary events in the monitored networks.
DataRevenue.Org Launches Governing Membership Drive
Max Davis, Director of DataRevenue.Org, invites DCIA Members and DCINFO readers to participate in a new initiative to monetize unlicensed file transfers in the mobile space.
"Basically, we believe there should be a statutory rate set for the delivery of copyrighted multimedia via data infrastructures. Current copyright laws don't address data specifically because multimedia messaging (mms) is a fairly new technology," Max said about the non-profit organization's mission.
"Our mission is to establish accountability for multimedia publishers within the mobile space and we will not distinguish among players until it is time to divide up the data revenue pie."
"The message I'd like to send DCINFO readers is this: we are definitely moving forward and most recently have found a way to include the newspaper industry in the loop, http://mmsnewsfeed.com. We expect enthusiastic participation by that industry."
"With all that's going on (Performance Rights Act, Webcasters, etc.), our initiative speaks to the future of ALL multimedia. That is a major difference from other efforts focused, for example, exclusively on music, and we want our governing board to reflect the diversity of multimedia."
"Please consider taking a seat as a governing member of our association. Our website was launched within the last 90 days so we are very new but garnering a lot of attention. It is basically a win-win proposition, including for the wireless carriers."
"Getting started is always the hardest thing. We've done that. If you have a vision of inclusion in what we are promoting and developing, please help us by becoming a member and/or donating to the cause."
"You will put your organization in a prime position to help us administrate as a collective once we succeed. Thanks for your consideration."
For more information, please click here.
Spotify Adds 2 Million Tracks with IODA Music Deal
Excerpted from Revolution Magazine Report by Dan Leahul
P2P music streaming service Spotify has beefed up its music catalog by announcing a deal with digital distributor the Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA), giving Spotify's two million users access to content the likes of grime MC Bashy and comedian Stephen Fry.
IODA will contribute more than two million tracks to Spotify's already large music directory, with content spanning 50 countries and genres, everything from rock, hip-hop, electronic, and metal, to world, Latin, jazz, and classical.
Some artists covered by IODA include the Prodigy, Burial, Bob Marley & The Wailers, and Broken.
IODA also brings its growing number of international partners into the deal, including Nordic territory partner Bonnier Amigo Music Group, which adds artists such as Ane Brun, Madcon, Hello Saferide, Sunrise Avenue, and The Third Degree to the catalog.
Daniel Ek, CEO and Founder of Spotify, said one of the company's main challenges was to provide a wide range of music for all its users' conceivable tastes.
Ek said the deal is a "leap forward" in Spotify's mission to provide users with "the biggest, most diverse musical catalog on the planet."
Kevin Arnold, Founder and CEO of IODA, commended Spotify and said, "We've seen a lot of promise from ad-supported revenue models. Spotify is exciting and unique in that the promise is backed up with a tangible subscription model and a slew of fresh ideas on how to grow the platform."
PWN Last.fm Brings Torrents to Last.fm
Excerpted from TorrentFreak Report
With millions of active users, Last.fm is one the largest and most appreciated music communities on the Internet. Its main purpose is to create a personalized library of all the music listeners play, but it's also a handy music discovery tool and recommendation engine.
Although the service enables its users to check-out short previews of artists that are recommended to them, they still have to pay the full price for album or track downloads. However, PWN Last.fm aims to change this by adding BitTorrent downloads to the site.
PWN Last.fm is offering a script that works with Firefox's Greasemonkey add-on and the Opera web browser. By using ISOHunt's publicly available API, the script adds BitTorrent search results to every artist page on Last.fm, very well integrated into the site's design.
The search results show the first fifteen torrents with full titles, file size, and the number of active seeds and peers. In addition, every torrent has a play icon with a direct link to Bitlet where the torrent can be streamed directly to get a full preview of the track.
RIAA Spokesman Denies Saying DRM Is Dead
Excerpted from Information Week Report by Antone Gonsalves
A Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) spokesman who drew a huge amount of attention on the web when he was quoted as saying "DRM is dead" denied Monday ever making the widely publicized statement.
The alleged quote from Jonathan Lamy drew lots of attention because of the RIAA's previously strong support for technology used to prevent unauthorized copying of music and movies.
While Hollywood studios still use digital rights management (DRM) technology in movie and TV show downloads, record companies now offer DRM-free music on Apple iTunes, Amazon, RealNetworks, and other major online music stores.
Nevertheless, the RIAA, which has aggressively defended copyright holders by suing unauthorized downloaders and file-sharing sites, is not ready to declare that DRM is ready for the grave.
Lamy was originally quoted by TorrentFreak as saying, "DRM is dead, isn't it?" The alleged comment was made in reference to the number of online music stores offering DRM-free tunes that can play in any device.
Lamy's full, original comment read: "There is virtually no DRM on music anymore, at least on download services, including iTunes."
The speed with which Lamy's misquote circulated throughout the web reflects how DRM remains a hot-button topic. Critics claim that restrictions imposed by DRM drive consumers to file-sharing sites where they can download unlicensed content. Supporters say DRM is needed to protect against unauthorized copying.
The RIAA has been criticized for moving too aggressively against consumers caught downloading copyright-protected music without permission. In June, a Minnesota mother of four was fined $1.92 million in federal court for downloading 24 songs. Jammie Thomas-Rasset is seeking to have the penalty lowered or undergo another trial.
Pirate Bay Acquisition Still on Track
Excerpted from CNET News Report by Greg Sandoval
Anybody following the plight of The Pirate Bay (TPB) may have read Tuesday that the potential acquirers are "back pedaling," "backing out," or that the deal was "uncertain."
"Nobody is uncertain about anything," said Hans Pandeya, CEO of Global Gaming Factory, the software company that plans to acquire TPB for $7.8 million.
"We are more certain than ever before. There are no changes in our plan," Pandeya told CNET News Tuesday evening. "We'll bring the deal to investors at a shareholders meeting, which we expect to hold in four weeks."
What appears to have happened is that members of the media stirred up skepticism about a deal getting done by "twisting" comments made by one of Global Gaming's lawyers, said Pandeya.
During a court hearing on Tuesday in the Netherlands, Ricardo Dijkstra, Global Gaming's attorney, said the Swedish company would only acquire TPB if the site can be turned into a "legitimate business." Dijkstra said whether the sale will be completed is "very much the question."
Pandeya said all Dijkstra was doing was pointing out that no deal is done until a contract is signed and that hasn't happened yet. But Pandeya said reports about a potential setback are vastly overblown. He says the funding is in place and that all that needs to be done is to fulfill the requirements set forth by investors. Ever since the company announced its intentions to buy TPB earlier this month the company said that any purchase was contingent upon approval of investors.
"When we have the funding signed then we'll issue a press release," Pandeya said.
As for ditching plans to buy the company because of some question about whether it can be turned into a legitimate business, well, there isn't any question, said Wayne Rosso, the former Grokster exec who Pandeya recently hired.
Rosso told CNET last week that once an acquisition is complete, TPB will no longer be a BitTorrent tracker, enabling users to find unauthorized movies and music. The site will morph into a legal service that offers content in exchange for users' computer bandwidth and hard drive space, he said.
The controversy began when Global Gaming found itself being called to court by Brein, a Netherlands-based group that represents copyright owners. According to Pandeya, Brein was under the erroneous impression that Global Gaming had already acquired TPB and was trying to include them in a civil suit the group filed against the original iteration of the site.
But what about the music industry's attempts to collect money from TPB founders? Could that scuttle a deal? The music industry has plans to try to collect the cash that Global Gaming has offered to pay to acquire TPB. Earlier this year, a Swedish court found TPB's four founders guilty of copyright violations and ordered them to pay $3.6 million.
"We have nothing to do with that," Pandeya said. "The acquisition goes through when the money hits the bank account and what happens after that we have nothing to do with."
TPB's founders have said that they haven't owned the service since 2006.
DCINFO Editor's Note: Global Gaming Factory (GGF) Update - GGF is not continuing its trial DCIA Membership at this time. The DCIA wishes the company well in its in-process acquisitions of The Pirate Bay (TPB) and Peerialism; the completion, integration, and deployment of its advanced P2P technologies; and the fulfillment, launch, and marketplace success of its highly advanced business model. The company will reconsider joining the DCIA in the future.
Pirate Bay Co-Founders Sue Dutch Anti-Piracy Agency
Excerpted from Digital Media Wire Report by Mark Hefflinger
The co-founders and spokesperson for file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay (TPB) have filed suit against the head of Dutch anti-piracy agency BREIN in Sweden, alleging defamation, libel, and slander over a claim from BREIN that they initiated a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on BREIN's website, TorrentFreak reported.
Additionally, TPB's Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Fredrik Neij asked the Dutch court that is hearing a copyright infringement case brought against them by BREIN to impose damages against the agency.
"We would like the Dutch court to make sure that these power hungry corporations and organizations cannot abuse their power and financial muscle against private people that criticize the way these companies behave towards the public," they wrote in a letter to the Dutch court.
Pirate Bay's iPREDator Rolls Out to More Testers
Excerpted from TechSpot Report by Justin Mann
The Pirate Bay's (TPB) relatively new iPREDator service was one of the responses the group had to the lawsuits brought against it. Though TPB's moniker itself is on the road to commercialization, there are still efforts being made by the group to improve P2P services on the Internet.
Moving towards that goal, this week TPB officially opened iPREDator to hundreds of thousands of beta testers. Bypassing Internet service provider (ISP) or government restrictions, providing anonymous connections via a 128-bit encrypted virtual private network (VPN) tunnel, and other features are selling points of the service, which has apparently pulled in around 180,000 individuals for the beta and will ultimately be available through a monthly subscription.
When iPREDator goes public it will compete with other online VPN services that offer similar functionality.
TPB hopes to use not only its name, but the fact that the service is hosted in Sweden to its advantage, given that Swedish law does not require it to surrender user information unless conviction is expected to result in at least two-years imprisonment.
Even if that were the case, iPREDator promises it will not keep network records, meaning there is no point in collection agencies pressuring them to hand over customer data.
Tenenbaum Circus Enters Big Top Next Week
Excerpted from Ars Technica Report by Nate Anderson
The second full trial of a US P2P file swapper begins this week. Sublimeguy14@Kazaa (aka Joel Tenenbaum, a Boston University grad student) will make his way through the marble corridors of Boston's federal courthouse Monday to face a set of RIAA lawyers who are fresh from a $1.92 million victory in the Jammie Thomas-Rasset case and eager to go 2-0 in such prosecutions.
But Tenenbaum has a secret weapon - Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson, who will argue that the 816 songs in Tenenbaum's Kazaa shared folder back in 2004 were simply a "fair use" of the recording industry's protected work. Unfortunately, Nesson has the tendency to write this sort of thing, which appeared in a new motion just filed with the court:
"Cyberspace is a space for sharing. People of all ages, but especially young people, love to share music. Peer-to-peer sharing technology is technology for sharing music. From the first burst of Napster into the lives of the born-digital generation the recording industry's physical hold on its catalog of copyrighted music was gone. The music was and continues to be out in cyberspace in format sharable for free by anyone with a net connection. That was and is the effect of technological progress, not Joel Tenenbaum's fault."
This has little to do with the law - in essence, the argument is merely that something which once was difficult has become supremely easy. But "easy" doesn't mean "legal," and Tenenbaum didn't help his own fair-use defense by admitting during deposition that even he believed his actions to be illegal as he was doing them.
Nesson has an answer to this, too. "Joel Tenenbaum's fair-use defense starts from the proposition that he did nothing wrong: In no sense is he blameworthy. What he did was not unfair. It may be that, at the time, he believed he was acting illegally, but that does not mean that what he did was unfair, or that a jury could not now respond to that defense. If his conduct was fair, it was not in fact illegal, even though he may have believed it to have been illegal at the time."
Fair enough. So how does Tenenbaum address the famous "four factors" of fair-use law? Nesson says that each factor favors his client. For instance, the "purpose and character" of the infringement was "non-commercial" (the labels disagree vehemently, since they argue that at least some portion of the songs downloaded must represent lost sales, and that distributing the music to others magnifies this effect enormously).
As for the "amount" of the work used, Nesson argues that only the whole album was copyrighted; individual songs, therefore, amount to only a small fraction of the total work.
But it's on the "nature" of the copyrighted work that the verbiage really gets going. "The nature of the copyrighted work is music in the form of bits in free and open MP3 format. This factor favors Joel Tenenbaum because the idea of imposing law on the global ocean of free bits that has flooded into cyberspace is a gross and harmful over-extension of the power of the state and authority of the law."
Please click here for the full report.
Coming Events of Interest
Bandwidth Conference - August 27th-28th in San Francisco, CA. Annual gathering of music/media executives and digital music professionals. Bandwidth explores the evolving musical experience - how people discover, purchase, interact with, and are exposed to new music.
all2gethernow! - September 16th-18th in Berlin, Germany. An "open source" forward-looking Music 2.0 substitute for the postponed PopKomm, one of the leading international conferences and expos for the music and entertainment businesses worldwide.
New York Games Conference - September 30th in New York, NY. Join games industry leaders - including leading videogame publishers and developers, carriers, portals, technology companies, advertising execs, venture capitalists, lawyers, analysts, and many more.
FMC Policy Summit 2009 - October 4th-6th in Washington, DC. Future of Music's (FMC) annual event where, this year, music, technology, policy and law are going "back to the future." Early-bird discounts are now available.
P2P and Games Conference - October 19th in Santa Monica, CA. The DCIA's first-ever event focusing on the use of P2P technologies for the distribution of games and updates. Industry leaders from around the world will participate.
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.
Cloud Computing Expo - November 2nd-4th in Santa Clara, CA. Fourth international conference on this subject. Cloud computing is a game changer. The cloud is disrupting traditional software and hardware business models by disrupting how IT service gets delivered.
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