August 10, 2009
Volume XXVII, Issue 6
Digital Utilities to Integrate New Last Mile with Leading P2P Solution
Digital Utilities Ventures, an innovator in IP video transport systems with its breakthrough New Last Mile Platform, announced this week that it is in talks with a leader in peer-to-peer (P2P) solutions to integrate its software with DUTV's unique compression system. The object is to synergize the delivery capabilities of both platforms to dramatically increase broadband availability as the answer to the challenge of explosive content growth.
The New Last Mile uses an Internet based platform to deliver its TV programming. This means that DUTV can deliver live programming of broadcast quality from anywhere in the world over the Internet directly to TV sets without the aid of computers by simply piggybacking on existing broadband connections, and to cell-phones worldwide via WiFi, Mobile Telephone Switching Office (MTSO) 3G networks, and the emerging next generation 4G WIMAX.
It accomplishes this with a unique patent-pending compression system that uses under 1 megabit of the Internet as the backbone to the television set and 150 kilobits to the cell-phone, in effect, creating the first global virtual cable television Network.
In a peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) system, each user, while downloading a video stream, is simultaneously also uploading that stream to other users, thus contributing to the overall available bandwidth.
Garry McHenry, Digital Utilities Ventures President said, "I can't think of a better solution for the major content and network providers. Our analysis shows that, when properly managed and combined with our Last Mile Compression System, this type of hybrid platform can become a major add-on to existing networks to maximize their current bandwidth."
Digital Utilities Ventures is an intellectual property (IP) company and advanced technology incubator formed to manufacture and market its innovative, Internet-to-TV and Cell-Phone Communications System for the domestic and international Quad-Play/Convergence services industries. The Company went public on March 26th.
Spotify to Close $50 Million Round before US Launch
Excerpted from ReadWriteWeb Report by Dana Oshiro
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has the Midas touch. In anticipation of the company's US launch, the P2P music streaming service is finalizing what is rumored to be a $50 million dollar round of investments. According to the Financial Times, if Spotify closes the round with Wellington Partners and Li Ka Shing Foundation, the Swedish company will be valued at $250 million dollars.
Spotify's only real revenue at this time is its "premium" or ad-free subscription service. Critics may argue that this service will never earn the company enough to offset the cost of licensing music; however, the Telegraph's Shane Richmond reports that Spotify's iPhone application will only be available to premium subscription users. And if you're questioning whether or not the subscription is worth it, you obviously haven't seen the demo.
Unlike other mobile streaming music applications, the Android and iPhone applications allow members to cache streaming files for offline listening. In other words, there is no need to download a file for listening. It's an amazing mobile feature for users, but as a free application it would cannibalize Spotify's revenue stream from downloads. However, with the subscription requirement, the company is destined to make money from both downloads and streaming lists.
If the application doesn't make it into the App Store, Spotify has other opportunities to generate revenue with downloads. Ek announced plans in late June to launch a one-click download solution for easier on-site purchases. The company's ability to gain referral sales revenue shows potential, but the access model is less attractive than subscriptions. Spotify could offer a tiered file pricing system without compromising its existing service. The company could continue to stream compressed files for free while offering higher-quality files or rare releases for purchase and download. This option might appeal to diehard music fans, but it certainly doesn't have the cool factor of the mobile applications.
Regardless of Spotify's revenue streams, the company's US release is widely anticipated. Americans are eager to see what UK and Swedish audiences have been raving about. We won't have to wait long for a reaction, the release is expected before the end of summer.
Intel Introduces Distributed Computing to Facebook
Excerpted from Ars Technica Report by John Timmer
Intel has announced a new partnership designed to increase the prominence of volunteer grid computing. Its new Progress Through Processors program will see the chipmaker partner with Facebook and GridRepublic to promote several of the projects that are run through BOINC, a distributed computing client that runs during idle time on volunteers' machines. Although there are a whole host of projects that can be run through the BOINC interface, Intel has chosen to focus on three: Rosetta@home, Climateprediction.net, and Africa@home.
The technology behind the endeavor is fairly well established. BOINC, run out of the University of California, Berkeley and supported by the National Science Foundation, was developed in response to the success of several early distributed computing projects, most notably SETI@home. It's designed to provide a single piece of client software that runs while a user's machine is idle. Different projects can provide computational engines that are loaded and run by the BOINC client. The single client infrastructure is intended to make it easier for individual projects to roll out updated software and for users to divide their machine's time among multiple worthy projects.
GridRepublic is a separate effort, designed to make it easier to manage multiple BOINC projects. Users can log into their GridRepublic account, select individual projects, and download the appropriate software. The site also enables them to choose how to divvy their computer's idle time among the different projects. All of this is possible by other means, but the goal here is to provide a single interface that may be a bit more approachable than the alternative methods.
Intel appears to have concluded that the primary barrier to joining the volunteer computing grid isn't necessarily the ease-of-use, but rather the public awareness. So, it's taking things to where the users are, setting up a Facebook page that offers one-stop shopping for client downloads, a discussion forum, FAQ, etc. All of that should, in theory, make it easier for people to get on board with BOINC.
Intel's calling this initial effort a public beta, and it's easy to see why. The system has a number of components, and not all of them are up to the task. Hopefully, Intel will help the different groups involved bring their systems up-to-speed. While the system's in beta, the company would do well to consider duplicating the Facebook pages somewhere that doesn't require an account for access.
You can find out more information about distributed computing projects in the Distributed Computing Forum.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 The DCIA urges industry participants and observers to weigh-in with recommendations and to follow the progress of 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), the bill is now being advanced under the auspices of the US House of Representatives' Energy & Commerce Committee, which is taking next steps after its Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection's May legislative hearing.
We will be glad to serve as a conduit for your input or arrange for you to submit your suggestions directly to Congressional Committee staff. If you'd like to contribute a recommendation, please call 410-476-7965 or e-mail us at HR1319@dcia.info.
As noted in our written testimony submitted for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee July 29th hearing on this same topic, the proposed legislation - the stated purpose of which we strongly support - seemed to have been precipitated by an increasingly outdated concern over a specific feature of a small number of applications, some of which no longer exist.
DCIA Member companies and Inadvertent Sharing Protection Working Group (ISPG) participants no longer have the feature in question - recursive sharing of sensitive file types - or are in the process of phasing it out. But as it turns out, that presumption as to the impetus for this bill may not have been accurate.
The measure has garnered strong bipartisan support, now counting thirty-six co-sponsors, primarily as a result of entertainment industry lobbying, and is moving through a process that is expected to reach committee mark-up shortly after the August recess.
There are three areas that this process highlights, which will be instructional to the distributed computing industry going forward:
1) The challenge of drafting legislation aimed at regulating specific activities associated with unique attributes of certain implementations of a particular technology. How will legislators describe behaviors and define terms so as to zero-in on certain targeted behaviors associated with file sharing without causing unintended consequences in the form of collateral damage to other activities, attributes, implementations, and technologies?
2) The degree to which a powerful special interest lobby can succeed in moving a line originally drawn in proposed legislation to a position more favorable to its own objectives. How much will this bill change from its intent as originally stated - to protect individual consumers from inadvertently sharing their own personal and confidential information - to another purpose - protecting content rights-holders from having their copyrighted works shared without authorization?
3) The reaction if the bill is enacted but fails to influence the growing body of empirical evidence that was used to justify its introduction in the first place. What will happen after the notice-and-consent regimes stipulated in the bill are implemented, but the proliferation of individual and institutional leaked confidential data that is searchable on file-sharing networks and the Internet generally continues to increase rather than decline?
The first area can be illuminated by asking relevant questions. The bill was intended to require file-sharing software distributors to provide notice and to obtain consent from users twice: once prior to installation of their software and once prior to activation of functionality which could result in files on their computers being shared with users of other computers.
We not only support this, but have actually gone much further than this in protecting consumers with the ISPG principles that are now being implemented.
If such terms as "file-sharing software," "file-sharing functionality," and even the term "file" are not clearly defined, however, many other network-based technologies could be caught-up in this new law requiring notice and obtain consent for activities that are not related to sharing of material that a file-sharing software user might want to keep private.
What about servers in traditional server-client architectures which share files on a computer with other computers? What about more advanced implementations of grid and cloud computing that involve files on a computer being shared with other computers, or any of numerous software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions that have as part of their core functionality files on a computer being shared with other computers?
What about the growing number of secure P2P implementations, involving both download and live P2P streaming, offered by companies ranging literally from Abacast to Zattoo, where entertainment rights-holders and corporate entities exclusively enter content into distribution on what are essentially file-sharing networks, but where there is no possibility of user-generated content (UGC) being entered into distribution?
What about the expanding category of peer-assisted hybrid content delivery networks (CDNs) where customers choose how and to what extent to deploy P2P to assist in the most economically advantageous distribution of their content? What about social networks, like Twitter and Facebook, which involve files on a computer being shared with other computers? Indeed, what about the entire burgeoning field of self-publishing?
What about the software that shares e-mail on a computer with other computers, especially in cases where separate files are attached? What about instant messaging (IM) programs that do this? What about voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) applications, particularly those that take advantage of the efficiencies of P2P technology, to facilitate web-based phone-calls and video-conferences?
What about applications that share files on a computer with other computers to accomplish diagnostics, error reporting, and automatic updates? What about data caching? What about basic maintenance, security, and essential technical functioning of programs, which also involve files on a computer being shared with other computers?
The second area can be illustrated by means of a single observation. First, when HR 1319 was introduced (actually reintroduced from the prior session of Congress), the public announcements of the need for it exclusively dealt with protecting consumers from privacy and security risks, but that is now giving way to an anti-piracy agenda.
"Far too many people have no idea that they could be sharing all of their personal files and documents" said the bill's author Congresswoman Bono Mack. "This bill will empower individuals by making them aware and keeping them from inadvertently sharing their private information with complete strangers." Examples given by Congressman Barrow in endorsing the bill were inadvertent sharing of tax returns, financial records, and medical records. Congressman Barton cited as his reason for signing on, "A person's private information should not be unknowingly shared with others on a file-sharing network."
In publicizing the legislative hearing, the Congresswoman added, "People need to realize that by using a file-sharing program, they may be inadvertently sharing all of their personal files, such as medical records, bank statements, and tax returns, with anyone on the network." And at the hearing, she asked, "How many more medical records and tax returns is it going to take for us to act?"
To address this clearly identified problem, the industry has made a great deal of progress since 2007 and is actively working to complete this work. Leading file-sharing software distributors have agreed upon ISPG principles and, to a significant degree, taken steps to implement them, which involve changing default settings, adding warnings, and upgrading functionality to prevent the sharing of files originating on a user's computer, particularly sensitive file types, without taking multiple affirmative steps.
Prior to connecting to a file-sharing network, a user's sensitive files, by definition, originate on that user's computer, either having been created there or having been added from a source other than the file-sharing network. Conversely, the files already on the file-sharing network do not include files from that user's computer because it has not yet been connected to the network.
Preventing user-originated files from being inadvertently distributed is the stated purpose of HR 1319. And the industry's self-regulatory program is totally focused on accomplishing this very worthwhile goal. But now, the record industry is seeking to influence a shift in the bill to require notice and consent before the enablement of sharing files that are already on the network - predominantly media and pop-entertainment content - not just the sharing of private files a user only has on his or her computer. In short, HR 1319 is becoming another anti-piracy bill.
This otherwise inexplicable broadening of the scope of HR 1319 will move the industry in exactly the opposite direction from the way it should be progressing in terms of commercial development. The file-sharing distribution channel needs to be licensed for the competitive distribution of copyrighted works in ad-supported, subscription, paid-download and other business models, not burdened with prejudicial requirements that will make the channel less attractive to consumers.
The third area, however, is where our greatest concern lies. It is extremely doubtful that legislators will blame themselves if this bill is passed and implemented but fails to curtail the increasing amount of personal and sensitive data that can be found on file-sharing networks and otherwise on the Internet. As we have previously noted, this will likely happen, because even after sensitive-data entry-points on popular file-sharing software are shored up, which is already happening, many other points of origin will persist.
We can expect continuing entertainment-industry sponsored demonization of file-sharing technology until the file-sharing channel is finally licensed, in which case such criticisms at last will cease.
Chairman Edolphus Towns (D-NY) indicated that his staff tested a leading file-sharing software program over the weekend prior to his Committee's July 29th hearing. This application featured new default settings that now protect users from inadvertently sharing their files, but the Chairman condemned that software because staffers could still use it to find confidential data shared by others, even though the staffers themselves were protected from sharing their own files.
This will not change even if the bill is widely implemented. A voluminous amount of disclosed material, copies of which are now stored on many computers, will still be available to users in response to relevant searches.
Once any such file has been disseminated to hundreds, thousands, or millions of networked devices, it is virtually impossible to recall all the copies of that file or prevent them from being discovered in an ever-expanding list of related search results on multiple platforms.
We have already observed that a demonstration of graphically dramatized consequences of data breaches will mask less sensational but more substantive work of file-sharing software distributors to stop such breaches from occurring where the problem can practically be addressed - at their initial points of origin.
The challenge of deleting the massive amount of personal and sensitive data that is mistakenly in distribution on the Internet is indeed a very disturbing problem of a different order of magnitude. The fact that nothing in HR 1319 addresses this aspect of inadvertent file sharing further indicates that the real motive for this legislation may not be as advertised.
And because nothing in the bill as contemplated will mitigate the massive availability of such sensitive information, it is perfectly plausible that at some time in the not-too-distant future, these same lawmakers or their successors will convene another hearing at which they will hysterically blame file-sharing software for this problem all over again - as we previously noted, just as they might chastise NASA, after complying with an order not to launch a spacecraft, for the fact that airplanes and satellites continue to fly through the sky.
More fact-based discussion based on a deeper understanding of the relevant issues and technologies, and above all, honest collaboration among affected parties aimed at real solutions, are needed here. Share wisely, and take care.
Download Faster and Better with Free Wyzo Web Browser
Excerpted from PC World Report by Preston Gralla
If you're of the opinion that the world needs a browser specifically designed for power downloaders, then Wyzo may well be for you. The free browser includes a set of tools that downloaders will welcome including multi-sourced downloads for faster downloads and built-in BitTorrent.
Wyzo is a browser for power downloaders who don't want to muck about with an extra BitTorrent program.
The browser will be particularly useful for those who may have heard of BitTorrent, but don't want to go through the fuss and bother of downloading a BitTorrent client and learning how to use it. You can search for torrents from within the browser, then use the browser to download and handle torrents as well.
There are a lot of other extras in Wyzo as well. Notable ones include the ability to navigate the web using mouse gestures, and the integration of Cooliris, which is essentially a browser plug-in for searching for and viewing video content.
If you get a feeling of deja vu when using Wyzo, there's good reason for that: it's built on the same browser engine as Firefox, and looks and works much like it.
You can, for example, use Firefox plug-ins with it. That means that there will be just about no learning curve when trying out this browser. But there might be a bit of confusion as well. In my testing, for example, my download history list in Wyzo was already populated with files I had previously downloaded using Firefox.
Still that's a minor issue - for many users, perhaps not even a problem. If you live to download, and are looking for another browser, Wyzo is worth a try.
Torrage Offers BitTorrent File Storage Service
Excerpted from Digital Media Wire Report by Mark Hefflinger
Torrage this week launched what's being called the first hosting service for .torrent files, the bits of media files used to share files using the BitTorrent P2P protocol, TorrentFreak reported.
Both individual users, and large torrent index sites like Suprnova and EZTV, have begun to use the service, which itself does not provide any search function, but instead provides a unique URL for uploaded .torrent files.
Torrage is currently hosting "hundreds of thousands" of torrents, the report said.
Pirate Bay Buyer May Buy More File-Sharing Sites
Excerpted from Wall Street Journal Report by Gustav Sandstrom
Swedish software firm Global Gaming Factory (GGF) aims to buy more file-sharing websites in 2010-2011 following the acquisition of The Pirate Bay (TPB), chief executive Hans Pandeya told Dow Jones Newswires Wednesday.
He said the company has particularly looked at one big European and one big US-based file-sharing site, but didn't mention any names.
GGF said earlier Wednesday it considers a listing of the company in the US during 2010, due to strong interest from US-based institutional investors.
Pandeya said his company could raise some $80-to-$100 million through a listing, which it would use for its coming acquisitions.
If listed in the US, his company would probably be traded on a smaller market such as Nasdaq small cap, Pandeya said. He added that his company has talked to several advisers regarding a listing, and might hire someone toward the end of 2009. He said his company will have to decide whether to maintain its stock market listing in Sweden.
GGF said on June 30th it is acquiring file-sharing website TPB for $7.8 million. In April, four men responsible for the site were sentenced to one year in prison and damages of $3.6 million for copyright infringement, but GGF said it will run TPB as a legal business, paying content providers.
Pandeya said Wednesday his company still expects the TPB acquisition to close August 27th, adding that GGF has signed a contract with an unnamed major media company, which will provide music for the file-sharing site.
Vanish Gives Your Message an Expiration Date
Excerpted from Lifehacker Report by Jason Fitzpatrick
Encrypting a message is an excellent way to protect it from prying eyes. What if you want to protect it against prying eyes and also make it disappear? Expiring-message service Vanish can help.
Alarmed by trends in US case law where individuals were forced to give up their encryption keys and by the brutality of regimes abroad that did the same in less tactful ways, the creators of Vanish wanted to create a method of encryption where your encrypted data expired and could in no way be retrieved.
Developers created "self-destructing data" to try to address this problem. Their prototype system, called Vanish, shares some properties with existing encryption systems like PGP, but there are also some major differences.
First, someone using Vanish to "encrypt/encapsulate" information, like an e-mail, never learns the encryption key. Second, there is a pre-specified timeout associated with each encrypted/encapsulated messages.
Prior to the timeout, anyone can read the encrypted/encapsulated message. After the timeout, no one can read that message, because the encryption key is lost due to a set of both natural and programmed processes. It is therefore impossible for anyone to decrypt/decapsulate that e-mail after the timer expires.
How do they achieve this guaranteed destruction? The key that is generated each time you create a unique Vanish message is shared across the BitTorrent network - unlinked in any way to your identity - and temporarily stored in a distributed hash table. By the nature of the BitTorrent network, your key can exist in increments of 8 hours depending on how long you want the Vanish servers to keep your message alive.
Once your message reaches the expiration date, the number of users in the BitTorrent network carrying the necessary parts of your key begins to degrade and your message essentially disintegrates. You can never decrypt the message or be compelled to share the key because no key even exists.
Vanish is available as a web-based demo, but they recommend you download the Java-based Vanish System for a more powerful and customizable experience - you can increase the size of your key and tweak other settings with the download. The Firefox plug-in makes it easy to quickly create Vanish-encrypted messages for web-based e-mail and other online services. Vanish is an open-source and free project available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
P2P-like Tahoe Filesystem Offers Secure Storage in the Cloud
Edited from Ars Technica Report by Ryan Paul
Tahoe is a secure distributed filesystem that is designed to conform with the principle of least authority. The developers behind the project announced this month the release of version 1.5, which includes bug fixes and improvements to portability and performance, including a 10% boost to file upload speed over high-latency connections.
Tahoe's underlying architecture is similar to that of a P2P network. Files are distributed across multiple nodes in a manner that allows data integrity to be maintained in the event that individual nodes are compromised or fail. It uses AES encryption to protect file contents from tampering and scrutiny. Tahoe can be used to establish a relatively fault-tolerant storage pool that spans a number of conventional computers over a local network or the Internet. This approach to cloud storage might be more appropriately described as "crowd" storage.
Tahoe was originally developed with funding from Allmydata, a company that provides web back-up services. When Allmydata was originally founded, the company had ambitious plans for distributed storage. It initially offered a service through which individual consumers could get cheap storage capacity on the distributed grid in exchange for volunteering to let the grid use some of their own local storage.
The idea was that every user would be able to get the benefits of distributed off-site back-ups by sharing a portion of their local drive space with the rest of the network. The company eventually dropped that strategy and now self-hosts all of their back-up storage. The Tahoe source code, which is made available under the terms of GNU's General Public License (GPL), can be used to build distributed storage grids that function in much the same manner as Allmydata's original concept.
When a file is deployed to Tahoe, it is encrypted and split into pieces that are spread out across ten separate nodes. Using a variation of Reed-Solomon error correction, it can reconstruct a file using only three of the original ten nodes. This helps to ensure data integrity when some nodes are unavailable. This is similar to how RAID storage works. Tahoe uses a library called zfec that provides an efficient implementation of the error-correction code and exposes it through a Python API. For those of you who are finding this all a bit hard to follow, there is a simple interactive mockup that illustrates visually how Tahoe's distributed storage works.
LimeWire Chairman: File-Sharing Concerns Overblown
Excerpted from Computer World Report by Jaikumar Vijayan
Lime Group Chairman Mark Gorton found himself in the hot seat July 29th during a Congressional hearing on inadvertent file sharing. In a conversation with Computerworld, Gorton claims that concerns about data leaks on file-sharing networks are being fueled and orchestrated by music labels concerned more about copyright infringement on file-sharing networks than anything else.
JV: Were you surprised at the criticism directed at you and LimeWire during the hearing?
MG: I'm not sure I had that much in the way of expectations going into it so I am not sure if I was surprised. This hearing was more or less orchestrated by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). I am personally of the opinion that you cannot view these hearings outside of the context of the litigation which the recording industry has going on with LimeWire.
JV: Why do you say that?
MG: If you look at the testimony of Tom Sydnor, his firm is supported by the major record labels. His report is completely biased. It seems superficially kind of shocking. But when you start parsing it, it really is very tricky and deceptive.
JV: Is there an example of this that you can show?
MG: Sure. Sydnor says he installed LimeWire on a computer and that it immediately started sharing all of the files on the computer and that it was a security disaster. What he failed to mention was that in order to achieve that result, he had to have first installed a previous version of LimeWire on that computer. He then deliberately had to remove all of the security settings on it, ignore countless warnings, and consciously share file-by-file all of the files he was talking about. He then had to uninstall LimeWire from that computer and then reinstall the version that he criticizes, which just picked-up the settings he previously had put on it. He gives the impression that anytime you install LimeWire it shares all these files, and that is absolutely untrue. He manages to cleverly give a highly misleading picture of reality.
JV: What about the testimony from Tiversa?
MG: Tiversa is a company that sells a service to businesses and to the government. It attempts to monitor file-sharing networks and to notify its clients if it finds a document belonging to them. Tiversa has a strong monetary incentive to make the problem of inadvertent file sharing seem as bad as it can possibly be. This is not to say that Tiversa was completely inaccurate. But it seems to want to make the situation a lot more serious than it necessarily is.
JV: What do you think about the response from committee members to the testimony?
MG: Certainly many of them did not approach the hearing with an open mind. You can look at the campaign contributions for some of those members. They receive contributions from the recording industry. Based on that, many of them did not seem to have an open mind at all. To some extent I think many of them are also not familiar with the technical details of file sharing and don't understand the difference between a search using LimeWire and finding a file that is served by a completely different program. It is a distinction that is very important in terms of understanding the security issues. But I think most of them did not come there to learn. Most of them came there to be angry at me without taking the time to understand the facts. That's not to say there isn't a problem. That's why LimeWire has been working in the last couple of years to do what it can to eliminate inadvertent file sharing. But grandstanding and deliberately ignoring the facts does not help address problems.
JV: So, is the latest version of LimeWire safe?
MG: It does not share documents by default. If you install LimeWire, it will not share documents automatically. In order to share documents, you have to go through a process in which you click nine times and pass three warning signs in order to share a document. That is not the sort of thing people are going to do by accident. We have really changed the interface, the way file sharing is done and the way you can send files to be shared. We have gotten rid of the entire concept of shared folders. It doesn't exist anymore. We completely reengineered that entire process top-to-bottom. We very clearly, very visibly show people which files they are sharing and give them controls to be able to control that. No files are shared automatically. It is only by taking affirmative steps that users can share files.
BitTorrent Is Uniting the World's Movie Buffs
Excerpted from NewTeeVee Report by Janko Roettgers
People all over the world are downloading movies via BitTorrent, according to new research presented at last week's P2P Research Group convening at the 75th IETF Meetings in Stockholm. And we're literally talking all over the world: A popular movie torrent analyzed as part of the research was within a week accessed by people from 165 countries. "Considering that there are about 192 countries recognized by the UN, this is a sizable spread of the swarm across the countries," said Bell Labs researcher Vijay Gurbani.
The fact that Hollywood fare is popular around the world probably isn't all that surprising, but the research also shows that foreign movies can be just as popular. In fact, a Cantonese movie analyzed by the researchers received even wider global distribution through BitTorrent than a Hollywood flick with roughly the same number of downloads.
Bell Labs' Gurbani and P2P veteran Stas Khirman conducted a detailed analysis of two popular BitTorrent swarms in early June, meaning they looked at all the users who were downloading and redistributing two movies via The Pirate Bay's (TPB) tracker.
The duo's goal was to look at popular movies with significant cultural differences, and they ended up choosing the Dakota Fanning teen action flick "Push" and the Chinese action movie "The Sniper" as their two samples. "We assumed that 'Sniper' would attract a Cantonese-speaking population and 'Push' would attract an English-speaking population," Gurbani said. However, it turned out that the "Sniper" download was much more popular in the US than in China, and even countries like Norway that are not really known to be home to many Cantonese speakers showed lots of downloader interest.
One should note at this point that the "Sniper" torrent featured an English-subtitled file, so it wasn't completely impossible to watch the flick if you don't speak Cantonese. However, subtitled movies tend to attract a far smaller audience through regular distribution channels. That's not the case with BitTorrent. Multiple copies of "The Sniper" are available via BitTorrent, and the one tracked by Gurbani and Khirman attracted an audience of 122,437 users from 165 countries within seven days. "Push," on the other hand, was accessed by 136,259 people from 159 countries.
One particularly interesting aspect about these two movies is how organic the buzz around them was. "Push" was released theatrically in the US a few months before its eventual online leak, so it's highly unlikely that people downloaded it after seeing a trailer or reading a review. "The Sniper," on the other hand, premiered at the Seattle International Film Festival around the time the film exploded online, but has yet to get any US distribution. BitTorrent sites like TPB, where both movies popped up in the Top 10 list in early June, seem to have played a major role in generating this buzz among movie buffs all around the world.
Gurbani and Khirman told me that they want to continue to analyze BitTorrent swarms to get a better sense of the download patterns for different movies in various countries. This could also help them understand the impact of anti-piracy enforcement on these types of downloads, explained Khirman. "It will be interesting to check if indeed differences in anti-piracy laws make any significant impact on peer participation trends," he added.
ARTISTdirect to Delist from Nasdaq
ArtistDirect to Quit SEC Reporting, Delist Shares From Nasdaq
ARTISTdirect, a provider of music and movie news, as well as streaming music and anti-piracy services, announced on Thursday that it intends to suspend its SEC reporting obligations, and delist its common stock from the Nasdaq.
"The company's board of directors approved the filing of the Form 15 after careful consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of continuing its SEC reporting obligations," said ARTISTdirect CEO Dimitri Villard.
"Suspending the SEC reporting obligations will allow the company to eliminate the substantial expenses associated with SEC reporting and compliance, while reallocating those resources to support business operations.
"It will also enable management to focus more of its time and efforts on managing and developing the business and enhancing shareholder value."
Santa Monica, CA based ARTISTdirect held its IPO in 2000. The company's Peer Media unit, which includes MediaDefender and MediaSentry, provides intellectual property (IP) protection to movie studios and record labels.
eBay Wrangles with Joltid Over Skype P2P Technology
Excerpted from DigitalTrends Report by Geoff Duncan
Back in 2005, online auction site eBay bought P2P telephony powerhouse Skype amid glowing promises of synergy between the two companies; but this year it admitted that hadn't really worked out and announced plans to spin Skype back off into its own company with an IPO.
However, an unresolved technology licensing battle may derail the plans, because it turns out Skype's founders managed to retain control of the P2P technology underlying Skype; now they're looking to kill the licensing agreement saying Skype is in breach of contract.
Under the hood, Skype uses P2P technology owned by Joltid, run by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the folks who founded Kazaa and then Skype and later went on to the video service Joost. Skype had a license to use that technology, but Joltid is accusing Skype of breaching terms of that license, in part by disclosing confidential information in other patent cases. Skype and eBay, in turn, deny any breach of terms and have filed a claim against Joltid in a UK court asking that the original licensing agreement be upheld.
Skype and eBay say they are confident of their legal position, but eBay has also disclosed it is trying to build a replacement technology for the Joltid software in case things don't go well - and in a 10-Q filing with the SEC admits such a move is risky.
"If Skype was to lose the right to use the Joltid software as the result of the litigation, and if alternative software was not available, Skype would be severely and adversely affected and the continued operation of Skype's business as currently conducted would likely not be possible," the company wrote in its filing.
The trial in the dispute with Joltid is scheduled for June 2010 - and the uncertainty of the trail plus the risks inherent in swapping out core elements of Skype have raised doubts about the viability of Skype's IPO.
Quest to Reclaim P2P.com Brings Arrest
Excerpted from Star-Ledger Report by Chris Megerian
Two years ago, Miami, FL entrepreneur Albert Angel discovered his website had been hijacked. It had been hacked, transferred, and sold on eBay to a professional basketball player in California.
The domain name was only three characters: P2P.com but Angel and his partners - his wife, Lesli, and their friend, Marc Ostrofsky, another Internet investor - wanted it back.
"He picked the wrong couple to victimize," Angel said. "We weren't willing to let it go."
So began a three-year quest to reclaim the domain name, culminating in the arrest last week of Daniel Goncalves, 25, in Union Township, NJ.
Lawyers and authorities said this may be the first criminal case of its kind in the country.
"Domain names are extremely valuable, if courts of law and prosecutors are treating it the same way they would treat a stolen car," said Brian Hall, an attorney who specializes in Internet law at a Michigan law firm called Traverse Legal. "That says a lot."
The case could set a precedent, Hall said, with more people seeking criminal charges when a domain name - which functions as the website's registered identity - is stolen.
The Angels and Ostrofsky purchased the domain for $160,000 from a Wisconsin company called Port to Print in July 2005.
To the printing company, the domain was just a handy acronym. But to the buyers, "P2P" stood for "peer-to-peer" networking, an Internet-based technology that includes the type of file sharing made famous by the music software Napster. They saw potential in owning the rights to the name.
After Angel discovered the domain was stolen, he tracked down its sale on eBay to Mark Madsen, a forward for the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team, who purchased the domain for $110,000 in September 2006.
Congressman Proposes File-Sharing Ban for Government PCs
Excerpted from Zeropaid Report
Lawmakers in our nation's capital have been trotting out LimeWire's Chairman for years now as they rehash the same tired discussion about how to prevent the leak of sensitive and confidential information on government and private PCs.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee reopened an investigation into LimeWire this past April and demanded to know what it was doing to address the problem. The company subsequently released a new version, LimeWire 5.0, which by default, does not share documents even if a user purposely attempts to do so.
It was apparently not enough for lawmakers and so a new round of hearings was conducted. "From what we heard today, it is clear that private citizens, businesses, and the government continue to be victims of unintentional file sharing," said Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns.
Guess he hasn't heard that LimeWire 5.0 doesn't allow default file sharing, even though LimeWire CEO Mark Gorton reminded him of the fact in his written testimony. He wrote:
"LimeWire 5 does not share any documents by default. In order for a LimeWire user to change their default settings to enable document sharing, they have to click nine times and disregard three warnings.
A LimeWire 5.2.8 user cannot share or even place into the LimeWire Library his or her 'My Documents' folder, 'Documents and Settings' folder, 'Desktop' folder, or 'C' drive no matter what. And this setting cannot be changed.
If a user shares the contents of a folder, LimeWire 5.2.8 will not share the documents in that folder even if the default settings have been changed to allow document sharing.
In LimeWire 5 there are no 'shared' folders, meaning that if a user elects to share a folder he or she is only electing to share the contents of that folder at that particular time; nothing will be shared that a user adds to that folder at a later point in time.
All LimeWire versions 5 and above automatically unshare documents that a user may have shared using an earlier version of LimeWire 4."
So it would seem Congressman Towns is a victim of a lack of knowledge about file-sharing software. LimeWire has already addressed the problem.
The real problem, which has been glossed over in the past, is the fact the government employees are being careless enough to put file-sharing programs on government PCs or home PCs that also contain sensitive government data! The outrage has always been shockingly absent in the discussion.
Until now: "For our sensitive government information, the risk is simply too great to ignore," Congressman Towns continues. "I am planning to introduce a bill to ban this type of insecure, open network software from all government and contractor computers and networks."
Finally, some common sense. Rather than blame a third-party for its own failings, at least one lawmaker has realized that file-sharing programs have no business being installed on government PCs in the first place.
However, Congressman Towns doesn't want to stop there. He feels that file-sharing programs need some sort of regulation.
"I plan to meet with the new Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to request that the FTC investigate whether inadequate safeguards on file-sharing software such as LimeWire constitute an unfair trade practice," he says.
Again, it's as though LimeWire is speaking to deaf ears.
Gorton suggests that some of the lawmakers he testified before at the hearing, though not specifically naming Congressman Towns, didn't come to the hearing with an open mind, that entertainment industry campaign donations may have blurred their vision.
A peek at Towns' reported lifetime campaign contributions places "TV/Movies/Music" at $370,361, so certainly they have his ear from time-to-time. Nowhere on the list is a file-sharing company, or any technology-related industry entity for that matter.
Donors Come to Aid of BU Student in Download Case
Excerpted from Boston Globe Report by Jonathan Saltzman
Joel Tenenbaum may have to pay four record labels a total of $675,000 in damages for music he downloaded and shared online, but at least the Boston University graduate student is getting help with his legal expenses.
In the five days since a US district court jury ordered Tenenbaum to pay damages to the record labels for sharing 30 songs, nearly 100 people donated a total of more than $2,000, according to Debbie Rosenbaum, a fourth-year student at Harvard's law and business schools who assisted in Tenenbaum's defense.
"What makes it particularly remarkable is that they're coming in at average donations of 10 to 20 dollars,'' she said. People are making the donations through Tenenbaum's legal defense website, joelfightsback.com.
Rosenbaum said the donations will pay for legal expenses incurred by the team led by Harvard Law Professor Charles Nesson, who represented Tenenbaum for free. None of the donations will pay the award, which the defense team intends to appeal.
After a weeklong trial, the jury Friday decided that Tenenbaum, who is from Providence, RI infringed on the copyrights of the 30 tunes.
A list of the songs on court documents shows that as a music fan, Tenenbaum's tastes ran from grunge (Nirvana's "Come As You Are") to rap metal (Rage Against the Machine's "Guerrilla Radio") to older sounds (like Aerosmith "Janie's Got a Gun"). For good measure, he also downloaded some vintage punk -- the Ramone's "The KKK Took My Baby Away.''
Please click here to see a photo slideshow on the purloined play list.
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.
Cloud Computing Conference - September 9th in San Diego, CA. Topics will include what's being done in the cloud today, separating myth from reality, while learning about the cloud's opportunities and challenges, gaining an overview of the multi-vendor, multi-product cloudscape combined with real-world examples and insightful analysis.
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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