September 28, 2009
Volume XXVIII, Issue 1
Don't Miss the P2P & GAMES CONFERENCE
The first-ever P2P & GAMES CONFERENCE will take place Thursday October 22nd at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel in Los Angeles, CA in conjunction with Digital Hollywood Fall.
This inaugural event will focus on business models, delivery services, and case studies that demonstrate the benefits of P2P and cloud computing for the distribution of games and game updates to networked devices. Many of the advances being made in P2P for games can also apply to video content and music.
Keynote speakers include Jim Kott, Co-President, Abacast; Norman Henderson, VP of Business Development, Asankya; Eric Klinker, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), BitTorrent; Arthur Pober, American Associate, European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA); Joe Porus & Milt Ellis, Vice Presidents, Harris Interactive; Scott Tilghman & Daniel Ernst, Principals, Hudson Square Research; Nicholas Longano, CEO & Founder, Music Mogul; Robert Levitan, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Pando Networks; and Chris Hennebery, Director of Software Distribution, Yummy Interactive.
Featured conference speakers include Aaron Markham, VP of Research & Development, BayTSP; Max Davis, Director, DataRevenue.Org; Jim Burger, Member, Dow Lohnes; Robert Hunter, Digital Rights Consultant, Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA); Chris Ullrich, Writer / Producer, The Flickcast; Steve Masur, Managing Partner, MasurLaw; Russell Frackman, Partner, Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp; Seth Shapiro, Principal, New Amsterdam Media; Hal Bringman, Founder & President, NVPR; Michael Perricone, Principal, Omstream; Rich Roberts, VP of Sales & Business Development, PlayFirst; Mark Isherwood, Senior Consultant, Rightscom; and Laura Tunberg, Principal, We Get It Consulting.
In addition to a very exciting agenda of keynotes and panel sessions featuring industry leaders at the forefront of this new category, there will also be a continental breakfast and conference luncheon.
Pre-registration rates, which offer substantial savings, end October 15th. To register, please e-mail P2PGC@dcia.info for instructions.
FCC Takes Sides in Net-Neutrality Debate
Excerpted from Washington Post Report by Rob Pegoraro
On Monday, the new Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said the agency would write rules requiring Internet providers to do something many of them already say they do: deliver online content without discrimination.
Chairman Julius Genachowski's speech at the Brookings Institution brought two "network-neutrality" questions back into the headlines. One: Is it bad if providers treat certain kinds of Internet data better than others? Two: Should the government do anything about it?
Genachowski, a lawyer and technology investor nominated by President Obama to the Commission in March, argued that the answer to both questions should be yes, citing the lack of competition in many markets; the conflict of interest posed by providers that also sell voice and TV services, which could be replaced by web-delivered alternatives; and the difficulty of checking whether your provider is slowing down sites or services.
Further, Genachowski said network-neutrality rules should cover not just land-based connections - which have seen few neutrality conflicts since 2007 - but also the mobile broadband services of wireless-phone carriers. That's where this debate gets a lot more interesting and relevant.
Although wireless carriers tout their data services as comparable with wired Internet connections - a claim that's gone beyond puffery with the arrival of fast 3G and upcoming 4G services - they don't sell them like the wired kind. Beyond setting monthly bandwidth quotas (sometimes unenforced), they prohibit or limit such common uses as sharing a connection with other computers or using peer-to-peer (P2P) file transfers.
So when readers ask whether they could use a mobile-broadband service in place of cable or DSL, I have to warn against that option.
As a customer, I would rather know just what I'm buying in terms of megabytes per day, week, or month than have to discover that my new service blocks a site or application that works on other connections. In turn, we'll see more innovation if new Internet applications don't have to ask permission from a wireless carrier.
Wireless carriers, meanwhile, fail to make a solid argument for keeping their restrictions. They talk about their freedom to develop new business models, but where are the innovative services made possible by these limits?
They make a fairer point when warning about the risks of added regulation. Every time you force private enterprise to interact with a government agency, you create expensive work for lawyers and lobbyists and increase the odds of corruption down the line.
But if we assume that wireless Internet access will be a legitimate alternative to ground-bound broadband, we should make sure it will work the same way. Maybe the threat of regulation alone can alter wireless carriers' behavior; if not, the FCC should write the simplest, clearest rules possible.
The Internet has grown and prospered because of a principle built into its core design - it's open to your imagination - and that principle is worth defending.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 The question I've been asked most often this week is, "What is your reaction to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's Preserving a Free and Open Internet: A Platform for Innovation, Opportunity, and Prosperity?"
We urge you to view this important presentation for yourself if you haven't already, and then to visit www.openinternet.gov and get involved in the process.
Chairman Genachowski summarized the FCC's pre-existing four principles intended to preserve and maintain an open Internet, which have guided FCC policy since 2005, in a single statement:
"Network operators cannot prevent users from accessing the lawful Internet content, applications, and services of their choice, nor can they prohibit users from attaching non-harmful devices to the network."
Then he added two more.
Fifth: "Non-discrimination - broadband providers cannot discriminate against particular Internet content or applications. This means they cannot block or degrade lawful traffic over their networks, or pick winners by favoring some content or applications over others in the connection to subscribers' homes. Nor can they disfavor an Internet service just because it competes with a similar service offered by that broadband provider. The Internet must continue to allow users to decide what content and applications succeed."
And sixth: "Transparency - providers of broadband Internet access must be transparent about their network management practices."
The DCIA strongly supports the addition of these two principles, which taken with the original four, should serve as mandatory guides to the actions of industry participants at every level. These principles should be applied immediately on a case-by-case basis in relatively mature and developed broadband environments, such as DSL and cable modem.
We are concerned, however, that the inherent stringency of detailed rule-making based on these principles could freeze innovation in areas of rapid technological advancement and change. Ironically, premature government regulation could actually be detrimental to the preservation and maintenance of a free and open Internet.
In this regard, it is essential that the Chairman's commitment to "do as much as we need to do, and no more, to ensure that the Internet remains an unfettered platform for competition, creativity, and entrepreneurial activity" inform all such rule-making efforts. Providing notice and holding an open, public proceeding are critical to the commencement of a fair, transparent, fact-based, and data-driven process here. But extreme care must also be applied at every succeeding step in order to do no harm.
Genachowski also reiterated this statement from his Senate confirmation hearing: "Open Internet principles apply only to lawful content, services, and applications - not to activities like unlawful distribution of copyrighted works, which has serious economic consequences. The enforcement of copyright and other laws and the obligations of network openness can and must co-exist."
Of course, unlawful practices should not be sheltered by these principles. But we believe that where new business models have not yet been established, continued experimentation and a search for solutions that capitalize on the disruptive capabilities of broadband networks - and the sophisticated Internet-based software applications that run on them - must be the priority.
This quest should take precedence over a continuing emphasis on enforcement aimed at protecting old models, which has not proven to be a winning strategy. Once new revenue streams have been defined, it may even be more beneficial to rights holders, consumers, and other participants in the online distribution chain to revise and update copyright laws rather than to settle for mere co-existence with rules that are no longer adequate or applicable.
The genius of Internet innovators is enormous indeed, and the fewer obstacles they face, the greater the future benefits will be.
Finally, the application of these principles must take into account practical realities, in terms of such differences as capacity constraints, usage patterns, and market competition, unique to various broadband networks (e.g., wireline vs. wireless) that will change as they evolve.
In the fullness of time, we envision not so much a convergence towards just one Internet with different access points as the emergence of a growing panoply of dynamically interconnected P2P networks and fungible computing clouds. Ad-hoc sets of connections will quickly coalesce and dissipate as users group, separate, and regroup in diverse configurations to accomplish a multiplicity of tasks. Consumer demand truly should be allowed to be the key driver of this evolution, not federal regulation.
Most important from our perspective, the Chairman alluded twice to a challenge that has been front-and-center in our emerging industry - but didn't mention the solution that the private sector brought forth and that we believe exemplifies the best way forward to address such potential obstacles to growth.
First he noted, "We've already seen some clear examples of deviations from the Internet's historic openness. We have witnessed certain broadband providers unilaterally block access to VoIP applications and implement technical measures that degrade the performance of peer-to-peer software distributing lawful content."
And later he added, "Last year the FCC ruled on the blocking of peer-to-peer transmissions by a cable broadband provider. The blocking was initially implemented with no notice to subscribers or the public. It was discovered only after an engineer and hobbyist living in Oregon realized that his attempts to share public domain recordings of old barbershop quartet songs over a home Internet connection were being frustrated. It was not until he brought the problem to the attention of the media and Internet community, which then brought it to the attention of the FCC, that the improper network management practice became known and was stopped."
At about the same time as the Oregon hobbyist/engineer's discovery, Laird Popkin, CTO of Pando Networks, and Doug Pasko, PMTS of Verizon Communications were taking action on a directly related discovery of their own: an enhanced P2P networking protocol, dubbed P4P, developed by Haiyong Xie, a doctoral candidate in computer sciences at Yale University, under the guidance of Professor Richard Yang.
This protocol promised to relieve the very conditions of network congestion that had driven certain constrained network operators to take the actions that resulted in the offending degradation of popular P2P software performance.
Theoretically, this new P4P protocol would enable broadband providers to securely share network topology information with P2P application distributors so that their file-transfer efficiency could be improved by an astonishing 80% - to the benefit of all parties, including consumers.
With P4P, Internet service providers (ISPs) should be able to enjoy an enormous savings of network resources, and P2P programmers should benefit from accelerated delivery speeds and quality improvements - not degraded service.
Pasko and Popkin's discovery led to their creation of the P4P Working Group (P4PWG) - a stark contrast to complaining to a federal agency - and, under their tutelage, the P4PWG grew from a handful of interested ISPs and P2Ps to approximately one hundred such organizations with a global footprint.
The P4PWG not only validated the promise of P4P, it also demonstrated that P4P could exceed its initially projected potential.
The P4PWG conducted advanced simulation studies, field-tested the P4P protocol under various conditions, published results, formalized the working group's structure as a non-profit corporate alliance, submitted technical specifications to the leading Internet standards-setting body, and now its members are in the process of commercially deploying P4P so that its advantages can be realized all over the world.
The DCIA believes that the best way to ensure continuing development of the Internet - and the innovation, opportunity, and prosperity associated with successfully doing so - is through a combination of the high-level principles articulated by Chairman Genachowski, case-by-case examinations by federal agencies of questionable practices in well established market segments, and voluntary private sector initiatives, like the P4PWG, that bring together directly affected parties to find technological and commercially viable - as opposed to regulatory - solutions.
The flexibility of this kind of a dynamic process will yield more progress than the rigidity of a static regime bound in conventional rule-making and enforcement procedures. Share wisely, and take care.
Keep Copyright Out of the Broadband Plan
Public Knowledge (PK) President & Co-Founder Gigi Sohn offers the following highlights of some of PK's recent work to bring balance to copyright law.
First off, PK launched a new TV series: We Are Creators Too with Art Brodsky. The first two interviews in the series of four are available to watch now on its website. In the series, you will hear from artists, remixers, and vidders who use others' works to create something new - for purposes of social commentary or entertainment - and the confusing legal problems that they encounter along the way.
Secondly, the FCC held a Broadband workshop last week, at which Gigi and representatives from the MPAA and a major Hollywood studio spoke. Hollywood would like the FCC to make copyright filtering a part of the National Broadband Plan.
Filtering technology is a blunt instrument that will needlessly censor lawful web traffic while compromising the privacy of all Internet users. For more on copyright filtering, just read PK's whitepaper or watch the latest episode of In the Know.
Hollywood already has plenty of copyright enforcement tools at its disposal. The FCC doesn't need to ask your Internet Access Provider to filter web traffic for the studios.
Tell the FCC that copyright should not be a part of our National Broadband Plan by visiting www.broadband.gov and submitting your feedback.
Net Neutrality, Alcatel-Lucent Style
Excerpted from Computer World Report by Bob Brown
Alcatel-Lucent hasn't officially gotten caught up in this week's brouhaha over the FCC's plan to formalize net neutrality rules. However, that doesn't mean the company doesn't have a big stake in the issue.
Wim Sweldens, VP of Bell Labs' Alcatel-Lucent Ventures and in essence Alcatel-Lucent's CTO, said that the company's mission involves not just serving the traditional carriers it has supplied with equipment for years but also the new application and content providers, such as those offering social networks.
"There's tension. People use derogatory terms like 'dumb pipes' for carriers and 'over-the-top' players for Web 2.0 companies," Sweldens says, citing ongoing debate. "Today, there's not a well-oiled value-chain between the Web 2.0 companies and the telcos, but there needs to be."
Part of the trick, Sweldens says, is exposing the call control and other sorts of technologies that lie beneath the surface of wired and wireless networks so that application and content developers can exploit them, such as to build proximity-based services and services like network-based address books.
Carriers also need to get more visibility into their own networks so that traffic such as P2P file sharing is seen as an opportunity, not a threat, Sweldens says. "People use P2P because they find it useful," he says. "So what can we do to improve the end-user experience while also dramatically reducing load on the network?"
Carriers also need to bolster their networks to handle traffic from a society that increasingly is communicating via images and video, according to Alcatel-Lucent. CEO Ben Verwaayen said, "The next generation doesn't use words at all. If you find five words written on one line, that will be novel. Videos tell the story. Pictures tell the story."
Alcatel-Lucent is attempting to address the needs of carriers, application/content providers, and ultimately end-users, in a number of ways: It is bringing various parties together through efforts such as the 4G industry group called the ng Connect Program. It's making internal product developments, such as the Converged Backbone Transformation Solution, which is designed to unite optical transport and IP routing to enable carriers to run more efficient networks.
It's pulling off strategic acquisitions, such as the recent buyout of content delivery network (CDN) products company Velocix; And it's commercializing Bell Labs inventions and investing in start-ups outside of Alcatel-Lucent's walls, through Alcatel-Ventures, the New Jersey-based outfit that Sweldens built from scratch a few years back. Products emerging from the group include the Wireless Network Guardian for carriers and the Nonstop Laptop Guardian designed to help companies keep track of and manage portable computers.
Sweldens says Alcatel-Lucent Ventures' mission is to commercialize and invest in developments that fit with Alcatel-Lucent's overall strengths and that can benefit from the technical, marketing and sales resources of a company with a $10 billion-plus market cap. So far, the group has commercialized eight ventures. As for outside investment, Sweldens says the group generally targets later stage investments and a typical funding might run between $1 million and $10 million.
"We want to make a dollar investment from us worth more than a dollar from other investors," he says.
Start-Ups Eye FCC on Net Neutrality
Excerpted from Total Telecom Report by Scott Denne
Some start-ups are watching closely as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) develops rules regarding how web traffic should be treated.
The Commission's Chairman, Julius Genachowski, issued a policy statement on Monday that could severely limit the ability of companies that provide Internet service to manage traffic on their networks. Though it could be a boon to companies building content and applications deployed over wired and wireless networks, certain equipment companies could find themselves on the wrong side of the net-neutrality debate.
"The frustrating thing to me is that this debate is dragging on," said Elan Amir, the chief executive of deep packet inspection (DPI) company Bivio Networks, which has raised nearly $80 million in venture funding from investors including Goldman Sachs, InterWest Partners, Silver Creek Ventures, Storm Ventures, and Venrock. "A lack of clarity is putting the whole issue in limbo."
Advocates of net neutrality argue that all applications should be given equal treatment, but telecommunications companies argue that a certain amount of traffic management is needed to keep a few bandwidth-hogging applications from clogging their networks.
The principles that the FCC announced acknowledge a need for reasonable network-management practices, but didn't provide any guidance as to what those should be.
The news should hardly come as a shock to most DPI companies. "They've all gotten on the ball about shifting their products for different uses," said Diane Northfield, Director of Global Regulatory Research for Yankee Group.
Bivio uses its technology for a host of other applications, like security and content-based billing. It does very little business with US-based service providers, with most of its non-government business involving carriers in the Middle East and Europe.
"Until this stuff starts shaking out, were not going to spend a tremendous amount of resources marketing to US service providers," Amir said.
Several other venture-backed companies sell DPI products, like Arbor Networks and CloudShield Technologies, but they've shied away from traffic management, instead emphasizing security, which has been a focus at both companies early in their histories.
Arbor Networks raised $33 million in venture funding from investors including Battery Ventures, Cisco Systems, EDF Ventures, Ironside Venture Partners, and Thomas Weisel Partners Group before merging with Ellacoya Networks in January 2008. CloudShield raised more than $70 million from firms including Fuse Capital, Foundation Capital, Paladin Capital Group, and TPG Ventures.
Even if the final rules, which will be decided upon at the FCC's October meeting, come down hard against DPI, there are plenty of other applications for the technology to pursue, maybe even some created by more regulations.
Cloud Computing Gathers Steam with Mobile Devices
Excerpted from Chicago Tribune Report by Wailin Wong
The outlook for the wireless industry is getting cloudier.
Consumers have tapped into cloud computing technology for years: sending messages via Hotmail, uploading photos to Facebook or editing a spreadsheet on Google Docs are just a few examples. Simply put, cloud computing moves data from a single machine, such as a personal computer (PC), to the Internet. The technology frees users from needing to be at a specific PC to access saved information.
Now the cloud is going mobile, and industry players expect the number of mobile cloud computing applications and web-enabled portable devices to grow rapidly over the next few years. Motorola is building much of its turnaround strategy for mobile phones on a cloud-based solution, and wireless broadband service provider Clearwire believes the advent of faster, more sophisticated networks will unleash the full power of cloud computing.
If the industry projections come true, cloud computing will be even more commonplace. Colleagues may edit the same document over the Internet, with one person on a home computer and the other using a touch-screen built into the back of the driver's seat of a car. Or a tourist who takes photos on a phone could store them in an online album, then view the pictures from a laptop.
ABI Research forecasts that the number of mobile cloud computing users will jump from 42.8 million people in 2008 to more than 998 million in 2014, representing nearly 19% of wireless subscribers.
"When you have a laptop or a netbook, those are true computers and have great processing power and data storage," said Mark Beccue, a senior analyst at ABI Research. "But anything from a smart phone down does not. Mobile cloud computing says: 'What if you can enable these devices to access applications and data in the cloud?'"
Motorola showed off the mobile cloud this month with a Web-based service called Motoblur, which will debut on a social-networking phone called the Cliq. Motoblur aggregates data from a user's online networks and streams updates to the phone. The content can be remotely wiped if the phone is lost, or transferred to any Motoblur-enabled handset.
Motorola's vision encompasses more than social networking, Co-Chief Executive Sanjay Jha said at an investment conference this month. "Motoblur and social networking is not the last answer," he said. "You will see, fundamentally, our approach is to think about how the mobile Internet and cloud services can solve additional problems."
One of the cloud's biggest benefits is device independence, said Raju Vegesna, spokesman for Zoho, a maker of web-based enterprise software. "It's not just the mobile phone and your laptop," he said. "I don't see a limit to the number of devices."
"The biggest component of mobile cloud computing is you have to have a fat pipe wherever you are," Bill Morrow, chief executive of Clearwire, said in a recent interview. Clearwire is a provider of WiMax, a technology that is faster and more reliable than current wireless networks. Clearwire plans to expand to 80 US markets by the end of 2010.
Analysts say faster networks will dovetail with the proliferation of smarter devices. "This is going to be much more accessible to a lot of us on affordable phones," Beccue said.
Interactive Ad Bureau Posts In-Game Ad Metrics Guidelines
Excerpted from Digital Media Wire Report by Mark Hefflinger
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) on Monday released its final in-game advertising measurement guidelines for the industry.
The guidelines stipulate that an in-game ad must be visible on screen for at least ten seconds before being counted as an impression; establish a common methodology for counting impressions; and provide key measurement definitions to help marketers quantify the value of in-game ads.
PlayFirst Looks to the Stars with Gemini Lost
PlayFirst, the award-winning entertainment company and creator of the popular "Diner Dash" series, this week announced the release of Gemini Lost, an all-new life simulation title where players must build a thriving community while trying to solve an ancient riddle. Rooted in astrology, "Gemini Lost" will have players search their villages to find couples based on astrological signs to help grow budding communities into thriving establishments.
"Gemini Lost" is available now for both Mac and PC download, priced at $19.99.
"Gemini Lost" chronicles the adventures of a lost group of denizens who were magically whisked away to an unknown land while exploring a site of mystifying astrological ruins. Combining the lore of astrology with user-friendly simulation gameplay, "Gemini Lost" creates an altogether unique experience for players of all ages.
The game offers everything from puzzles and activities, to a rich storyline and a touch of resource management. "'Gemini Lost' truly offers something completely new for fans of casual games," said Kenny Shea Dinkin, Vice President and Creative Director of PlayFirst. "It delivers a rich storyline and satisfying gameplay in a way that anyone can really enjoy. It also offers something special for players looking for a little more depth in their pick-up-and-play titles."
Players must help their hardworking villagers find 12 astrological keys needed to power a "teleporter" to send them back home. To this end, players will need to outsmart 20 challenging puzzles, as well as build more than 7unique tools to help the town grow. Villagers will also benefit from 18 science upgrades to help build their communities, and earn 20 different skill trophies as they step closer to their ultimate goal of making it home safely.
Symform: A Green P2P Take on Back-Up
Excerpted from Technologizer Report by Harry McCracken
At the DEMOFall conference, one of the cooler ideas was Symform, a small-business remote-back-up service.
Technically, it's utterly unlike services such as Mozy and Carbonite. Those services store everything in massive server farms, but Symform is farm-free - it uses P2P technology to store back-ups on the PCs of other Symform users.
If you want to back up 10GB of data, for instance, you agree to devote 10GB of disk space to other folks' back-ups - and to leave your computer on 80% of the time.
Does that sound like it involves big questions about availability and security? Well, a lot of obstacles leaped to mind as I heard the Symform people explain what they'd come up with. But they say that they break everything up into tiny chunks, encrypt it, and distribute it among multiple computers in a redundant fashion.
In theory, at least, your data will be protected from snooping eyes (such as those of the people whose computers store it) and will be there when you need it. It's kind of like a private, secure BitTorrent for your own data.
I'm still wrestling with the whole concept of storing confidential data on the computers of random strangers, but it's an interesting idea on a technical level. Symform is pitching it as, among other things, a greener approach to disaster recovery - those massive server farms cost a fortune to build, and consume massive amounts of energy.
Symform is aiming its service at small businesses, and plans to sell it through the independent IT professionals who small companies tend to call on for help; it'll charge the IT pros about $15 per month, and let them decide how much they charge their customers. At the moment it's for Windows users only, but the company says it hopes to release a Mac version at some point.
So would you trust your small-business data to a P2P network?
Clouds in Barcelona at Annual Grid Conference
At the annual conference of Enabling Grids for E-Science (EGEE) in Barecelona - the world's largest grid computing infrastructure for research - two sessions showcased the latest developments aligning grid and cloud technology.
"Grids" and "clouds" are two paths open to researchers who want to use distributed computing. While industry has mostly concentrated on exploring cloud resources, academia has primarily invested in grids. This has resulted in differences in emphasis between the two, driven by the needs of these distinct but related user communities. From these differences - and from the similarities - lessons can be learned by both communities.
The two sessions at the conference focused on how cloud computing can potentially offer benefits for the scientific community, including feedback from innovative projects deploying clouds within the grid paradigm. These include the Dutch National Institute for Subatomic Physics, Nikhef, which is using virtual machines at its major grid computing center, European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, which has created a virtual batch system, and the National Institute of Nuclear Physics, INFN, in Italy which is helping to improve job submission to the cloud for EGEE users.
"Grids and clouds are complementary technologies: both aim to make life easier for users and provide service," said David O'Callaghan of Trinity College Dublin. "Clouds can bring another level of flexibility to grids, making it simpler to manage infrastructure and allowing grids to expand on demand. For researchers, there is the potential to scale up applications and analysis seamlessly. Clouds will be a hot topic for many European Grid Initiative participants."
In the afternoon, the RESERVOIR project presented its early findings on grid and cloud integration. A short video demonstrating RESERVOIR technology can be seen at here.
Razor & Tie Drops LimeWire Lawsuit
Excerpted from Billboard Business News Report by Antony Bruno
Razor & Tie has withdrawn its copyright infringement lawsuit against file-sharing service LimeWire. The Kidz Bop label originally filed the suit last October, about two years after the RIAA filed a similar lawsuit in August 2006. The RIAA lawsuit remains pending.
Neither LimeWire nor Razor & Tie would provide details that led to the lawsuit's dismissal, though LimeWire CEO George Searle said the company is working towards a partnership with the Razor & Tie and other labels.
"My personal belief is that this is not a legal issue; it's a business issue," he said. "You can't fix business issues with a legal approach. So we've been in discussions with Razor & Tie and labels, publishers, and artists of every size, working towards a solution. This is not going to work only with Razor & Tie content, but on a much broader scale. We're in discussions with the entire industry."
Razor & Tie said the lawsuit was withdrawn without prejudice and no agreements were made.
In addition to operating a paid download service with licensed content from several independent labels and digital distributors, LimeWire recently hired formal label veteran Zeeshan Zaidi as its Head of Global and former TotalMusic exec Jason Herskowitz as VP of Product Management.
QTRAX Jukebox to the Rescue
Excerpted from New University Online Report by Christina Nersesian
Some of us may have been too young to remember when Napster came out. It's okay to come out of hiding now and admit we have a few Napster-downloaded tracks still floating around on our iPods. Lars Ulrich and his band of millionaire music-makers already had their field day arresting 14-year-olds for downloading music.
Since then, there has been a rise in licensed downloading venues online. With the surge of Apple's family of portable music players and iTunes, they've created a lucrative side-project with their iTunes Store. Costing an extra buck, one can download that special track from the latest diva's premiere album. This gives you instant gratification and keeps you from having to find parking at Borders, and even eliminates those wasted dollars spent buying overpriced albums at Tower Records (R.I.P).
The rise of the BitTorrent downloading protocol encouraged file sharing. From this we saw Torrent search engines like Mininova and The Pirate Bay (TPB) provide one search field for varying forms of media. Regardless, this was still considered unauthorized.
A possible cure to all these ills emerged in late January. QTRAX advertises itself as the "world's first free and absolutely legal P2P downloading station." Expecting a platform holding over 25 million songs, they put the likes of the iTunes Store to immediate shame. With zero adware or spyware promised, you won't get that unwanted porn site subscription just because you downloaded The Beatles' discography.
QTRAX works directly with the record labels and music publishers. These groups have licensed their products for online distribution and get paid through the money QTRAX makes from advertisers. You don't have to sign away any first-borns either, since the software can be downloaded for free.
QTRAX came out of the woodwork recently and still has a few kinks here-and-there to iron out. It has applied digital rights management (DRM) technology to its vast library of downloadable songs. This means the songs are attached to the specific computer to which they are downloaded to protect them from being distributed outside QTRAX's control. So put your iPods back because there's not yet a way to effectively make the music you download portable.
Put your Macs back, too. Currently, the QTRAX player is only compatible with Microsoft Windows XP and Vista, though in the future it will also be available to Mac OS X and Linux users.
QTRAX could set the precedent for a world of free licensed music to come. It's absolutely amazing to have this idea of "free and legal" downloading coming to possible fruition thanks to the emergence of QTRAX.
Fun Little Movies Nominated for 2009 ME Awards
The BBC, Orange Telecom, SkyTV, and Fun Little Movies. WHO? Fun Little Movies (FLM), a little known mobile video production and distribution company, is, like the others, a finalist for Best Video Company in the annual Mobile Entertainment Awards in London on October 1st, also known as the ME Awards, sponsored by Mobile Entertainment Magazine.
"You wouldn't think Fun Little Movies has a snowball's chance in hell, especially since we lost to MTV for the same award in 2006 and 2007." said Frank Chindamo, the Founder and Chief Creative Director of FLM, "But then in 2008 we ran against MTV in Cannes at the MEF awards, and won!"
This year, FLM walked away with the Mofilm Grand Prize, thanks to the innovative comedy series Turbo Dates, created by Jocelyn Stamat, and written and directed by Stamat and Terry Rossio, who wrote "Shrek," "Pirates of the Caribbean," and "National Treasure." This time, with Turbo Dates under their belt and Mr. Wrong, now a hit series on Babelgum, they are a strong contender for the "ME Award" for Best Video Company.
Unlike their competitors, who focus mainly on the web, Fun Little Movies' primary distribution is on mobile phones. They are a top-deck channel on Sprint TV, have the number one application for comedy on the Bold and Curve 3G Blackberry phones thanks to Canadian App Builder Metranome, and can be seen on Babelgum and the Poptiq iPhone application. All together, they have 50 distribution contracts around the world, from Mumbai to Malaysia to Michigan.
FLM is helmed by award-winning writer/producer Frank Chindamo, who started the first class ever in Mobile Video Production as an adjunct professor at USC. Chindamo and FLM have been featured on the covers of the LA Times and Forbes Magazine, and also in CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Variety, and Hollywood Reporter.
Is Microsoft P2P DRM Too Late, or Ahead of Its Time?
Excerpted from GigaOM Report by Paul Bonanos
Microsoft's freshly granted patent for a digital rights management (DRM) system sounds like a 2003 idea coming to fruition in 2009, that's because it is - the patent that was granted this week was filed six years ago. The newly codified bit of intellectual property (IP) is a DRM system that's distributed over P2P networks, decentralizing a processing mechanism that traditionally resides on a central server.
The entertainment industry has used DRM to prevent unauthorized duplication of copyrighted material, but it's been largely abandoned by the music business in response to customer demand for unprotected files.
Information Week's Alexander Wolfe makes a case that content owners could still use DRM in legitimate P2P music-swapping networks at some point in the future, "when P2P networks reemerge from their current sub-rosa position and become popular, branded, public-facing methods of distributing content," enabling Microsoft to reap considerable royalties.
Indeed, P2P technology has a place in above-board distribution as it already powers everything from streaming music service Spotify to several video distributors, so Wolfe is onto something.
But if the idea is that the old paradigm will be flipped - you can do what you want with the file you pay for, but you can't duplicate the free file you find on P2P networks, instead of the other way around - I have my doubts that these "public-facing methods of distributing content" will ever dominate if they're full of DRM.
Wolfe asserts that "the whole 'web wants to be free' versus 'evil corporations with their DRM' argument hasn't been resolved," despite evidence that 95% of digital music acquired by consumers today is infringing (and presumably virtually all DRM-free).
Apple has dropped DRM from its market-leading music store after consumers resisted DRM to the point that the music industry finally gave up. Copy protection is eroding as people flock to unprotected alternatives, and most DRM has turned out to be breakable anyway. It's hard to imagine where this patent will fit in - unless the past six years have simply obviated it, and Redmond isn't planning to do anything at all with it anymore.
Is Stopping Infringement More Expensive than Ignoring It?
Excerpted from I4U Report
Numbers lie all the time. Let's get that out of the way at the onset. Whenever anyone offers up some enormous number to "estimate" the probable loss or gain of a course of action it's probably close to total BS. Take the UK music industry's claim that it expects to lose as much as £200 million in 2009 as a result of online infringement. There's no way to actually calculate that number, because it's impossible for us to know what people would have purchased if they didn't have unauthorized access to it.
Sure, Ted the income tax adjuster probably would have bought that DVD of "Coupling" if he hadn't had access to BitTorrent. But I doubt that Jimmy the 9th grader or Bob the college student would've spent over £20,000 each on movies, music, and software if online purchasing was the only option. Just because someone accesses a lot of media doesn't mean they would have bought it if the free option wasn't available.
Thankfully, the Internet service providers (ISPs) in the UK are firing back at the music industry with some big numbers of their own. The music industry wants to create a "three-strikes" rule in order to cut down on infringement. This privacy prevention plan would be expensive for the ISPs, and for the individual customers themselves. In fact, they estimate their expenses will top over £365 million a year.
That number is too round and too exact to be right; it's another approximation that's probably just as flawed as the music industry's "projected" losses. That said, there can be no denying that fighting infringement has some very substantial costs. So what's the right move to make?
Content providers need to understand that the Internet is a game-changer for their industries. The same strategies and tactics that worked twenty years ago will not stand up now. You can fight pirates all you want, but that won't increase your sales. Only adapting to the digital age and finding ways to make customers want to buy your product will work.
Swedish Pirate Party Wins 2 Seats in EU Parliament
Excerpted from Zeropaid Report
Fallout from the conviction of Swedish BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay (TPB) for the facilitation of copyright infringement has reached critical mass with news that the Pirate Party captured 7.1% of the votes in EU Parliament elections.
"The polls beforehand had us at between 8 and 9%, but everything over 4% is a political sensation," said Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Pirate Party.
It's enough for at least 1 of the available Swedish seats in the legislative body.
An astonishing 19% of the voters under the age of 30 are said to have voted for the Pirate Party, making it the "biggest party among young people, bigger than both the Social Democrats and the Moderates," said Politics Professor Soren Holmberg.
The jubilation inside Pirate Party HQ was immediate, and despite previous polls and studies indicating a win of at least 7%, even Falkvinge was amazed.
"We've felt the wind blow in our sails," he said afterwards. "We've seen the polls prior to the election. But to stand here, today, and see the figures coming up on that screen... What do you want me to say? I'll say anything."
He observed that it was a statement about the tension between Swedish youth and older politicians, between those that have grown up immersed in a digital world and those that haven't.
"Together, we have today changed the landscape of European politics," Falkvinge added. "No matter how this night ends, we have changed it. This feels wonderful. The citizens have understood it's time to make a difference. The older politicians have taken apart young peoples' lifestyle, bit by bit. We do not accept the authorities' mass-surveillance."
Many have pointed to the trial of TPB as one major reason for the surge in popularity of the Pirate Party.
Many of the country's youth have been angered over what they see as an intrusion by foreign, primarily US-based, entertainment industry conglomerates into the private affairs of a sovereign country.
They understand that copyright laws were essentially written in a world before digital content that no longer exists, and that ultimately paralyze the ability of citizens to freely communicate and interact with one another.
Also adding fuel to the fire was the disclosure that the presiding judge in the TPB trial, Judge Tomas Norstrom, is an active member of several pro-copyright groups, rendering his decision anything but unbiased in the eyes of many.
Stay tuned.
Coming Events of Interest
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.
BayTSP Online Trends & Insight Conference - October 14th-15th in Los Gatos, CA. Topics include advances in digital distribution of content, the state of TV piracy, new uses for business intelligence and monetization in the entertainment industry, graduated response, and anti-piracy litigation trends.
P2P & GAMES CONFERENCE - October 22nd in Santa Monica, CA. The DCIA's first-ever event focusing on the use of P2P and cloud computing 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.
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT at CES - January 6th in Las Vegas, NV. The DCIA's seminal industry event, featuring keynotes from top P2P and cloud computing software companies; tracks on policy, technology, and marketing; panel discussions covering content distribution and solutions development.
2010 International CES - January 6th-10th in Las Vegas, NV. The industry's largest educational forum to help companies expand their businesses and understand new technology. Over 200 conferences and more than 300 expert speakers encompass International CES.
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