September 27, 2010
Volume XXXII, Issue 5
Verizon CEO: Internet TV Will Replace Cable
Excerpted from Wall Street Journal Report by Peter Kafka
The party line from cable executives is that the "cord-cutting" phenomenon - consumers swapping cable subscriptions for Internet video - is a myth. Or, at best, greatly exaggerated. Not so, says Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg.
He told the crowd at Goldman's media conference this week that the cable bundle is going to go the way of the wireline telephone business. That is, the next generation of consumers won't have any interest in paying for it.
"Young people are pretty smart. They're not going to pay for something they don't need," he said. "Over-the-top (OTT) is going to be a pretty big issue for cable."
But that's an issue for Verizon, too, right? Seidenberg's company sells its own version of the cable bundle, via its FiOS service, and it has 3.5 million customers. And Seidenberg noted that the TV bundle isn't going away immediately. But it will, he said.
"We take the OTT issue with video very seriously," he said. "I think cable has some life left in its model, but that it is going to get disintermediated over the next several years."
Seidenberg's argument is that OTT is a much bigger deal for cable guys like Comcast, which has an entire business built around the bundle, than it will be for his company, which is a relative newcomer to video. Theoretically, he'll be able to replace some video subscribers with subs who pay for robust broadband connections. But like it or not, it's going to happen, he says.
"I've seen the movie. If you remain static too long, the technology is going to nibble at you on the edges, and you have to be prepared for it."
Meanwhile, on the eternal iPhone question: Seidenberg repeated his standard line, which is that he'd very much like to offer Apple's handset, and hopes to do so one day.
Existing versions of the iPhone won't work on Verizon's CDMA network, but he's hopeful that the launch of its new 4G LTE network this fall will lead Apple to produce a compatible handset. Which it may very well be doing, anyway.
Meantime, he has a business to run, and he's been activating a lot of Google's Droids. Warning! Sports metaphor ahead: "This is like the Knicks getting Carmelo Anthony. Like it would be very good if the Knicks got Carmelo Anthony. But they have to play the game whether they get Carmelo Anthony, right?"
Diller Says Internet TV Will Transform TV Biz
Excerpted from Smart Money Report by Nat Worden
IAC Chief Executive Barry Diller said AOL's description of its recently brokered search deal with Google is good news for other Internet-content companies.
At an investor conference in New York this week, Diller cited AOL CEO Tim Armstrong's comments that "all aspects of our partnership with Google will be improved by this deal" as a sign that AOL won better financial terms in the deal that it had previously.
That came as a surprise to many observers who expected Google to offer inferior terms to AOL, given the disappointments that have plagued the web-advertising business in recent years.
Diller noted that IAC has a similar partnership with Google ending in two years, and he said Armstrong's indication that AOL bolstered its own financial position in its negotiation with the search giant bodes well for his company.
The companies allow Google to handle searches generated on their websites in return for a share of the revenue.
MySpace, the social-network site owned by News Corp., is currently in talks with Google, and rival search providers such as Microsoft, about renewing its own partnership with the search giant. MySpace hammered out a $900 million, three-year deal with Google, which expired in August, that provided a key source of revenue for the company. News Corp. owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires.
Many industry observers have been concerned that Google will ratchet back on the financial benefits it offers to search partners as it grows its market share in the business, Diller acknowledged. He noted that Google has demonstrated an unwillingness to miss out on deals. For its part, IAC was close to a search partnership with Microsoft when it was cobbling together its current deal, Diller said, and Google came in just in time with a better offer to win its business.
Separately, Diller said the Internet still has enormous potential to transform the distribution chain in the media and entertainment business, including the TV business. He said emerging online video services such as Google TV could bring about the end of the pay-TV industry's ability to bundle channels together, allowing consumers to access just the content they want.
"The Internet's ability to put you, without any filter, straight to the consumer, is going to have a huge effect on video producers," said Diller. "The 'a la carting of life' becomes possible for the first time once you have a screen of sufficient size that connects you to this world of possibilities that is the Internet."
Online Video Increasing in All Media Categories
Brightcove and TubeMogul recently published the Online Video & the Media Industry Quarterly Research Report for the second quarter of 2010. Examining online video discovery, usage, and engagement data from a sample of nearly 2,000 news and entertainment websites representing 3.4 billion video streams, the study found that online video consumption grew across all media industry categories.
Overall, the number of unique viewers grew by an average of 2.81% per month in Q2, up from 0.05% per month in the first quarter. Not only were more unique viewers watching, but they were watching 11.2% more videos per month.
Between the first quarter and second quarter, average minutes watched held steady across most categories at 2:00 minutes per stream, though growth was achieved by television broadcasters by 3.1% and magazines by 2.1%.
Referral traffic for online video from Facebook and Twitter is growing faster than from traditional search engines.
At current growth rates, Facebook will surpass Yahoo! within the year to be the second only to Google for video referral traffic. Not only are Facebook and Twitter drawing in viewers, but they are also leading to the highest levels of engagement for video on television network and music entertainment websites, says the report.
Consumers who find marketing and e-commerce video via Facebook and Twitter have the longest viewing times (1:24 minutes and 1:18 minutes respectively), while traffic originating from Yahoo! search (0:52 minutes) and display ads (0:52 minutes) tied for shortest.
This quarter's report also includes a special feature focused on brand marketing and online video, with findings from a global survey of brand managers and analysis of platform data from marketing and e-commerce websites:
Nearly 60% of respondents said they plan to invest more in online video in the next 12 months.
More than 65% of brand managers indicate that the primary focus of their online video initiatives is awareness, followed by lead generation (21%) and e-commerce (12%).
70% of respondents said they plan to add mobile video to their marketing mix in the next 12 months.
Please click here for more details.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 S-3804: Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), was introduced Monday in the Democrat-controlled US Senate on behalf of Hollywood interests by Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Ranking Member Orrin Hatch (R-UT).
This measure would use public funds for a dangerous and ultimately self-destructive scheme to attack websites globally that have merely been accused of facilitating copyright infringement of entertainment content.
Sponsors of this woefully misguided proposal, which if enacted would ultimately backfire in very damaging ways, were Senators Herb Kohl (D-WI), Arlen Specter (D-PA), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Evan Bayh (D-IN), and George Voinovich (R-OH).
S-3804 bypassed normal due process and was slotted for action at the Committee's Thursday business meeting, where, for the moment at least, fortunately this potentially very costly measure did not move forward.
This highly prejudicial bill would empower movie studios and record labels to order the Department of Justice (DoJ) to disrupt websites, search engines, e-mail applications, social networks, and other software programs that they allege enable links to and/or transmissions of material that could include copyrighted works.
There's no question that had COICA been enacted while YouTube was in development, this innovative service would have been shut down.
The subjective bias of this measure is apparent in its provision for the public to engage in helping Hollywood name websites to be so blacklisted - and publicly so - while failing to provide any mechanism for appealing such listing of services that are wrongly targeted for government sanctioned interference and taxpayer funded service disruption.
Ultimately, any Internet-based offering with a domain name anywhere in the world could be threatened by S-3804, which would spawn court orders under in rem jurisdiction forcing domain registrars and Internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to accused sites.
As DCINFO readers know, the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) advocates commercial solutions to the serious problem of online infringement that is the result of what has frankly been a shared failure to date of entertainment, telecommunications, and technology concerns to develop business models that harness and exploit advanced digital distribution technologies.
Until motion pictures and music are authorized for online distribution and a vibrant marketplace replaces the global phenomenon of Internet users simply redistributing such material without regard for licensing, Hollywood's emphasis on enforcement is doomed to continuing failure and increasing embarrassment for all who are associated with it.
We not only agree with the legion of legal pundits who question the Constitutionality of this horrendous bill - has the First Amendment been repealed? - but we also have grave concerns about the practical consequences of enacting it.
How can US Senators justify a law that is essentially censorship on behalf of large entertainment contributors who refuse to update their own business models? What do they think will be the consequences of investing in the costly enforcement actions as prescribed in this bill?
Do they think this would actually do anything other than bring about the obsolescence of the Domain Name System (DNS)? Can't access www.thepiratebay.org? Fine, just use http://194.71.107.15.
Why is the US federal government and DoJ in particular getting involved at all in what is essentially a civil commerce issue? And on what basis is it attempting to reach beyond national borders to shut-down websites in other countries, regardless of whether they may be in full compliance with applicable laws?
Of tremendous concern is the needless escalation of cyber-warfare that COICA will inevitably instigate. Simple analogies can be drawn to historical conflicts like the American revolution, where a large army of institutionalized British regulars was no match for small bands of individual American freedom fighters.
This week, concurrently with this ill-conceived Senate activity, we had a small taste of the digital mayhem that will transpire if S-3804 is enacted. In the wake of large Hollywood interests sponsoring cyber-attacks against sites that host unlicensed music and movies, "net freedom fighters" responded by taking down the websites of the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
Of course, if the US government had learned the underlying lesson here, it would have not engaged in the Vietnam conflict where history demonstrated it was on the wrong side of this equation - much less having some of its most senior lawmakers associate themselves with COICA.
Regarding disruptions of entertainment trade group websites, the 4chan message board said, "We brought them down the same way they brought down The Pirate Bay, with a distributed denial of service (DDoS). They hired Aiplex, who has been taken care of as well. They struck first, we struck harder." Those responsible added that they will continue with tit-for-tat actions if websites continue to be attacked.
Can't we learn from the pattern of large government-sanctioned action followed by small paramilitary reprisals? Does anyone need yet another example of the fact that fighting the war on piracy exclusively with enforcement tools - and absent robust commercial solutions - is a losing proposition? Isn't there a better way?
More precisely and also more ominously, earlier this year in Australia, government websites hosting vital data were blocked in protest of plans to introduce Internet filters to combat online infringement of entertainment content. What happens when S-3804 makes the focus of this activity America?
How do the irresponsible backers of this measure propose to stop the collective manpower of the open-source Internet community? This is a growing movement of individuals who have prided themselves on technical prowess and anonymity, and it is flourishing in the digital realm. Why go to war with them over an issue that will be resolved as new business models are deployed?
What we need instead of S-3804 is an acceleration of new cloud-based and other advanced distributed computing solutions for licensed entertainment content. Streaming P2P music sensation Spotify needs to be authorized for the US. The fact that it hasn't been is a disgrace.
And Google Music, with storage-in-the-cloud coupled with a choice of streaming or downloading, could be an example of a much more viable commercial approach than Apple's outdated and declining iTunes. Meanwhile, we commend Microsoft for its response to a similar threat in Russia.
COICA shows that when it comes to enforcement, content rights holders can demonstrate enormous creativity. It should be no surprise that our view is that this energy would be better directed towards innovative business models. Share wisely, and take care.
TV Everywhere: Sony's Singer Sets Bar for Content Distribution
Excerpted from Broadcasting & Cable Report by Andrea Domanick
In the age of BitTorrent and YouTube, multiplatform content distributors have been forced to bend their business strategies to accommodate consumers' easy access to free content.
But Sony Pictures Entertainment CTO Mitch Singer thinks he's found something better.
As President of the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), a consortium of film studios, technology firms, retailers, and pay-TV operators formed in 2008, he and the group have worked to create a common digital rights management (DRM) system that will standardize the digital delivery of content to consumers. This past July, DECE unveiled this system - UltraViolet.
"I believe we can create an environment where consumers perceive UltraViolet as better than free," Singer explained during a keynote Q&A session at the "TV Everywhere & Anywhere" event in Los Angeles, CA September 22nd.
He discussed the possibilities of the new ecosystem with Multichannel News Editor-in-Chief Mark Robichaux, who led the Q&A.
Singer explained that UltraViolet is a rights authentication service that is concerned with cross-platform ownership of a variety of digital and physical media.
Ideally, UltraViolet will allow consumers to purchase a TV show, movie, or even a book and enjoy it on multiple platforms. A single purchase, then, would function as a token in a consumer's "Digital Rights Locker" to access that content on a variety of devices.
"There's no question that it's disruptive to the economic interests of the industry, but it's time to disrupt ourselves. It's time to take fate in our own hands, rather than allow a third party to disrupt us," Singer said. "We're not in it to make money; we're in it to enable providers to build new business models."
So what's to keep consumers from sharing access to their content with non-subscribers?
Singer believes UltraViolet's consumer-centric, personalized system - which includes a username and password to access content anytime, anywhere - will function similarly to one's private e-mail account. That is, a private authentication system by nature deters consumers from sharing their libraries with more than, say, members of their household.
"With authentication, I know there's a certain level of trust that can be integrated into the system," Singer explained. And that, combined with the value of accessibility, is what he says makes the UltraViolet system "better than free."
The true disruption, Singer says, is coming culturally, as the Millennial generation gradually usurps the Baby Boomers' market power. He cited that by 2014, Millennials will represent about 64% of the 18-49 demographic.
"This is the generation that selected the MP-3 over higher fidelity. They're moving constantly and they want to carry their libraries with them," Singer said. "So the way we distribute across platforms today is really inefficient. With UltraViolet, all of that redundancy in the back-end is now gone. We're trying to build back-end service by reducing cost, and hopefully it will flourish in connection with delivering content more directly to consumers."
However ambitious, UltraViolet must start small if it wants to keep up with consumers' needs, says Singer. DECE is looking to launch the system in about a year's time, but is unclear how many types of media it will encompass by that point.
"Everyone in the organization really understands that time is not our friend and that we need to get out sooner rather than later," Singer said. "A lot of this stuff we're discussing is illustrative, but you can see the value of UltraViolet as we start to roll out the brand - cross-platform operability."
Alcatel-Lucent and Blue Coat Deliver Better Video Experience
Alcatel-Lucent and Blue Coat Systems this week announced a multi-year, global strategic reseller agreement to bring industry-leading web caching and content delivery solutions to service providers worldwide.
Under the terms of the agreement, Alcatel-Lucent will sell Blue Coat products, including Blue Coat ProxySG and CacheFlow appliances, to Alcatel-Lucent customers worldwide - including tier-one telcos, managed service providers, regional ISPs, and mobile operators. The products are available immediately.
Alcatel-Lucent will specifically leverage the CacheFlow appliance as a complement to Alcatel-Lucent's Velocix Content Delivery Network (CDN) solution. The Velocix Digital Media Delivery Platform manages the distribution of digital content and is based on open Internet video standards.
The CacheFlow appliance reduces the strain of bandwidth-consuming dynamic Web 2.0 and video content by transparently caching such over-the-top (OTT) content, providing bandwidth savings for carriers and a better experience for users. The CacheFlow appliance also helps service providers manage traffic "spikes" due to unusually high demand for content on breaking news or special events.
Working together, Alcatel-Lucent and Blue Coat will exploit innovative content delivery technologies, including a new generation of web and video caching, to enable service providers to enhance their customers' video and web experience while offering reduced overall costs associated with bandwidth delivery and backhaul. Multimedia caching technology allows operators to store some content locally closer to the user to improve delivery performance across the network and user experience.
In addition, Blue Coat ProxySG and PacketShaper appliances can provide service providers with a range of security, application acceleration and visibility capabilities to further improve the user experience, add value in content and application delivery and provide protection from malicious threats and phishing.
"With this relationship we see significant opportunity to help service providers capitalize on growing consumer demand for access to high-speed video over the Internet by leveraging their existing infrastructure investments," said Paul Larbey, Vice President of Alcatel-Lucent's Velocix Content Delivery Network solutions. "The Blue Coat platform is proven in some of the largest service provider and enterprise environments in the world, and it complements our existing products and services, giving service providers another tool to improve and simplify video delivery."
The Alcatel-Lucent Services team will play an integral role in assisting customers to take full advantage of intelligent application delivery using Blue Coat solutions. Expanded services include deployment and configuration support, capacity planning, custom security and compliance policy definition and implementation, as well as other consulting and technical integration services.
With more than 100,000 appliances deployed globally, Blue Coat delivers proven, service provider-class solutions - with the ProxySG and CacheFlow appliances - for accelerating, optimizing and securing Web content and applications and reducing costs.
"With Alcatel-Lucent's market-leading position in networking infrastructure solutions and its well-earned reputation among service providers, Blue Coat sees tremendous opportunity with this strategic relationship to expand its already established global footprint with service providers," said Mike Borman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Blue Coat Systems. "Alcatel-Lucent's selection of Blue Coat also highlights the strong synergies between the two companies around application delivery and next-generation service enablement."
Alcatel-Lucent brings together the unique experience as a CDN platform provider and a prior provider of CDN services, along with the focus on bringing technologies that provide intelligent delivery for large Multi-gigabyte media assets. The Velocix Digital Media Delivery platform is enabling operators today to dramatically improve their subscribers' experience and become part of the digital media value chain. It's also a key element of Alcatel-Lucent's High Leverage Network (HLN) architecture which addresses the dual challenge of simultaneously scaling and managing network capacity to meet increasing bandwidth demand while delivering differentiated, revenue generating services.
UAB Receives Grant for P2P-Based Exascale Storage System
Excerpted from The Examiner Report by Paul Hamaker
Anthony Skjellum (Professor and Chair of Computer and Information Sciences Education) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) on September 16th to investigate a new model for a P2P-based storage system for high-end computing.
This grant is part of the NSF's Early-Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) program.
Clemson University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) jointly propose transformative computer science in the area of file systems in High-End Computing (HEC). The project is unique to the mission of NSF's EAGER program because, in a novel way, the outcomes of this work will replace current parallel file systems with a substantially more scalable Peer-to-Peer (P2P)-based storage system that will enable forthcoming exascale computing systems.
The combination of P2P-based file-sharing concepts and HEC requirements and concerns is a novel approach to large-scale computing with performance requirements. The study of exascale storage from first principles is an important class of research to be undertaken, as opposed to refactoring existing approaches to file systems that are deployed on Terascale and Petascale systems.
Because the investigators seek to validate alternative designs of high scalability, availability, integrity and robustness than those offered by the logical evolution of existing HEC file systems and their instantiations on Petascale architectures, this EAGER project will seek to produce a preliminary/research prototype for a radically different file system. This project will jointly study, design, and create a preliminary/research prototype for a distributed software infrastructure and related techniques that support scalable and reliable file storage and retrieval for HEC relying on a structured P2P network.
If this project is successful, the design/architecture/strategy for exascale-based storage systems will change greatly over the logical evolutionary extensions of existing file systems and key opportunities and barriers will be more clearly understood in regards to the creation of practical exascale storage systems. Exascale co-design approaches will be considered and compared to the outcomes of this work, thereby informing other researchers of the relative merits of co-design approaches for exascale when file systems are studied based on a first-principles approach.
Even Paul McCartney is on the Cloud Computing Bandwagon
Excerpted from ZDNet Report by Larry Dignan
It's one thing when every technology executive on the planet is yapping about cloud computing, private clouds, and everything in between. It's quite another when Sir Paul McCartney is talking "Band on the Run" and private clouds.
McCartney's library of music, images, artwork, film and videos, and masters of his songs will be digitized by Hewlett-Packard (HP) and delivered through a private cloud. HP will also design a content management system and deliver select material to McCartney fans.
For HP, the McCartney deal is the first with a major artist. I'm not sure how many cloud deals McCartney will win for HP, but he's certainly one of the more notable reference customers.
uTorrent 2.2 Beta, Build 22117 Released
Excerpted from UniteTheCows Report
The latest beta installment of the hugely popular BitTorrent client, uTorrent has been released for Windows users. This latest release includes bug fixes, changes and the odd feature enhancement. For those that are not familiar with the client - uTorrent is a small but mighty BitTorrent client that uses less that 6MB of RAM and includes most features available in other clients without the baggage.
Features include: bandwidth prioritization, scheduling, RSS automatic downloading, trackerless support (mainline DHT), changeable icons and skins, password-protected boss key, global run-command feature on torrent completion/state change, UDP proxying for SOCKS5, proxy privacy features, improved set download location/relocate feature (now moves files for you), show add torrent dialog for magnet links, and an add option to pause torrents when user activity is detected on the computer.
CMN Chooses Abacast for Online Radio Streaming and Ad Insertion
Abacast, a mission critical online radio solutions provider and Crystal Media Networks (CMS), a leading provider of technology, media, and social networking products to Fortune 500 companies and radio and television broadcast groups, have partnered to provide a comprehensive, fixed-cost software, streaming, social, and analytics solution for Crystal Media Networks' customers.
"CMN has an excellent Social Suite that integrates a radio station's stream, website, social strategies, mobile, texting, affinity programs, geo-targeting, contesting, and more," said Nick Krawczyk, CEO of Crystal Media Networks. "We needed a company that could provide consistently high bit-rate bandwidth and technical streaming services plus an intuitive, easy to use, ad insertion software program. Abacast fit the bill, has delivered excellent service, and represents a company with strong senior leadership."
"Crystal Media Networks is one of the most successful companies in radio today, and we are thrilled to be providing software and services for them", said Rob Green, Interim CEO, Abacast. "Abacast's world-class ad insertion and streaming solutions will provide Crystal Media Networks' Social Suite with the resources, service, and support it needs to continue its impressive growth."
Telecom Italia to Offer Cloud Computing
Excerpted from Bloomberg News Report by Chiara Remondini
Telecom Italia said it's starting cloud-computing services for businesses and government offices as Italy's biggest phone company seeks more sources of revenue.
"Telecom Italia can't just be a carrier of bits, it needs to change its skin in a radical way," Chief Executive Officer Franco Bernabe said at a press conference in Milan this week. "Telecom Italia wants to sell integrated services to companies, not just connectivity."
The new services will be available on demand and on a pay-per-use basis, tapping the growing "cloud-sourced IT managed-services market," whose value is forecast to reach about 300 million euros ($390 million) in Italy in 2012, the Milan-based company's CEO said.
Telecom Italia, which is investing about 30 million euros on the project, targets a share of 20 to 25 percent of the domestic cloud-computing market, Bernabe said. The services allow clients to bring down their IT costs and focus their resources on their core businesses, he said. Cloud computing allows clients to store data on external servers.
As part of the company's effort to diversify its services, Telecom Italia said in July it will offer banks software and remote assistance for automatic teller machines, or ATMs. It's targeting a market that's estimated to be worth more than 250 million euros in Italy and expected to grow 5 percent annually for the next three years, the company said.
IBC 2010: A Look Back
Excerpted from Streaming Media Report by Tim Siglin
The curtain's closed on the 2010 IBC show, held from September 9th to 14th in Amsterdam, Holland but the buzz about a number of new and noteworthy solutions presented at the show continues to linger.
3D was a big part of the buzz, and not just on TV. As stereoscopic 3D (S3D) is beginning to grow toward maturity, the discussion of whether or not to stream live S3D on the web was partially answered by a technology demonstration.
A live S3D 4Mbps HD stream was encoded at a German television studio and then transmitted to the show floor at Elemental Technologies' Hall 13 stand. The technology demonstration, accomplished in a partnership between Elemental, Level 3, Microsoft, and TVN Group, demonstrated the feasibility of S3D as an online broadcast medium.
Microsoft showed off a number of products in the Topaz Lounge, including a Windows 7 mobile phone playing back Big Buck Bunny via SmoothStreaming and an iPhone receiving streams from a demonstration version of Microsoft's IIS Media Services 4, which we hope to review in fairly short order.
In the portable encoding space, two companies had product showcases of interest: Viewcast and miniCASTER.
Viewcast showed off its soon-to-be-released Niagara 4100 unit, an HD-SDI successor to the GoSurf. With anticipated pricing of $9,995, the portable product is expected to include the ability to encode and stream MPEG-4, H.264 for Flash and Silverlight as well as Apple's HTTP Live, although it's uncertain if the latter will be adaptive bitrate (ABR) or just a single stream.
One of the benefits of the Niagara 4100 is its ability to ingest either standard-definition (SD) or HD video sources through its SDI input, as well as the ability to upscale standard-definition video to HD, so that a change in input signal does not cause an encoding session to grind to a halt. Audio input also comes in four options: audio embedded into SDI, AES/EBU via a mini AES 3-pin connector, and either balanced or unbalanced stereo audio inputs.
The device has the option to be run on an Anton-Bauer battery pack, and one of the two on-board USB ports can also power a few of the low-power Wi-Fi wireless access points on the market, making the solution truly portable, as long as profiles have been properly set prior to going into the field.
On the other end of the spectrum is the almost petite miniCASTER, which generated a significant amount of buzz at the show, given both its small size and the placement of the stand at the entrance to Hall 1.
While the product was shown as a "sneak peek" at Streaming Media East 2010 in New York, the IBC presence was the premiere of the product to the larger broadcast world.
miniCASTER is a mobile encoding device that packs a significant number of options into the size of a unit not much larger than the first-generation iPod. Using 3G, Wi-Fi, or Ethernet connections, the miniCASTER is designed to work in tandem with a service offered by the TV1.EU content delivery network.
TV1.EU's Livestreaming platform is a service of what its founders bill as the first independent CDN in Germany called TV1.EU. "Using our own CDN is the big difference to our competitors," said Michael Westphal, CEO of TV1.EU.
While the device is showcased with 750Kbps at 1280x720 (an HD pixel size) the company says the product is for high-quality SD delivery.
The concept of tying an encoder to a particular service provider is not new, as Visionary Solutions has been doing the same thing with Powerstream in the U.S. for the last few years; but the diminutive nature of the miniCASTER, coupled with an account on TV1.EU, allows for a time from setup to encode to be measured in single-digit seconds.
TiVo also showcased its integration of YouTube into the familiar TiVo user interface, at a suite at the Hotel Okura, a few minutes walk from the RAI Congress Centre.
Unlike the widget concept employed by most Internet-enabled TVs, TiVo has chosen to allow direct access to YouTube via the company's familiar peanut-shaped remote control. A new version of the remote control also has a sliding interface that reveals a QWERTY keyboard.
"While we have a retail presence in the United States," a company spokesperson said, "our international focus is to work with service providers to place the TiVo software on their set-top box (STB) of choice. We have licensees in Taiwan, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and Spain, plus we've just announced a UK presence powering a Virgin offering."
Next year's IBC will take place at the RAI Congress Centre from September 9th to 13th.
Who's An "Innocent Infringer?" Supreme Court May Decide
Excerpted from Daily Online Examiner Report by Wendy Davis
The US Supreme Court indicated that it's interested in deciding when people accused of copyright infringement online can claim that they are "innocent infringers," subject to as little as $200 in liability.
In an order quietly issued last week, the Supreme Court directed the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to respond to a petition for review filed by Whitney Harper, who downloaded 37 tracks from Kazaa when she was in high school. That order doesn't mean that the Supreme Court will definitely take the case, but increases the odds, according to The Blog of the Legal Times.
US District Court Judge Xavier Rodriguez in San Antonio, TX earlier ruled that Harper was an "innocent infringer" and ordered her to pay $200 per track - the statutory minimum for innocent infringers. The minimum for people who aren't "innocent infringers" is $750 per track.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Rodriguez's decision because the copyright statute says that "innocent infringer" status is only available to people without access to published phonorecords - in this case compact discs (CDs) - that contain copyright notices.
Harper then asked the Supreme Court to take up the case, arguing that the copyright statute's wording about notices on phonorecords should not apply in her case because she didn't infringe by copying a CD.
Should the Supreme Court accept the case and ultimately rule in Harper's favor, the decision could change the dynamics of copyright litigation going on today.
Consider the copyright troll Righthaven - a start-up that has filed more than 100 lawsuits against web users ranging from Senate candidate Sharron Angle to reform groups to an unemployed woman who blogs about cats.
It costs Righthaven $350 to file a lawsuit, so if an innocent infringer defense is available to defendants in those cases, even a victory by Righthaven could cost the company money.
Spain Rules That YouTube Can't Be Liable for Copyright
Excerpted from NY Times Report by Eric Pfanner
A Spanish court on Thursday sided with Google in a dispute with the broadcaster Telecinco, saying Google's online video-sharing service, YouTube, did not have to screen television clips for potential copyright violations before posting them on the site.
The decision, by a commercial court in Madrid, follows a similar ruling in the United States in June, when a judge rejected copyright infringement claims against YouTube by the media company Viacom. Like the American court, the judge in Madrid said YouTube was not liable as long as it removed copyrighted material when notified by the rights holder.
"This win confirms what we have always said: YouTube operates within the law," Google said in a statement.
That principle has not always prevailed in Europe. This month, in a case involving videos of the singer Sarah Brightman, a German court said YouTube must pay compensation to musical rights holders when their work is uploaded without their permission.
Google also faces copyright claims in other YouTube-related cases in Italy, France, Belgium, and other European countries. Meanwhile, media companies, royalty collection agencies, and other rights holders are negotiating with Google over the sale of advertisements next to their content on YouTube.
Telecinco, a subsidiary of Mediaset, the Italian media conglomerate controlled by the family of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said it would appeal the Madrid decision, noting that the judge had recognized the company's need to protect its copyrighted material.
"Telecinco welcomes the contents of the court decision and reaffirms its commitment to defend itself against attacks on its intellectual property (IP) rights with all the resources at its disposal," the broadcaster said.
YouTube has argued that it is merely a "host," like an Internet service provider (ISP), rather than a media service, like a television broadcaster. The distinction is important, because under European Union rules, hosting services are granted some protection from liability for the content they deliver to users.
Google also has a system called Content ID, which alerts media owners when their content is uploaded to YouTube, so that they can ask YouTube to take it down or to sell ads alongside it. Screening material before it is posted is unfeasible, the company says, because of the volume of video uploaded.
While lawyers say the European protections for hosts are generally similar to America's "safe harbor" provisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which reduces a host's liability, European courts have offered a range of interpretations.
In the recent decision involving Ms. Brightman's music in Germany, for example, the judge said YouTube's safeguards against copyright infringement were insufficient. Google has said it plans to appeal that ruling.
The question of whether video sites like YouTube are responsible for the content posted on them has also come up in cases not related to copyright issues. Last winter, three Google executives were found guilty of privacy violations in Italy, after videos of an autistic schoolboy being bullied by classmates were posted to a different Google video-sharing service.
"The issue of when a host was liable has been getting a bit vague, and some hosts in Europe have been getting a little bit nervous," said Kim Walker, a partner at the law firm Pinsent Masons in London. "The Spanish case pushes things back a little bit in the direction of where they are across the Atlantic."
Streaming Video Websites Creating New Infringement Challenge
Excerpted from MYCE Report
File sharing has been under fire for several years because of the unlicensed media that is transmitted via the networks, but now a new form of online copyright infringement is catching the attention of the film and television industries.
Streaming video websites, such as Megavideo, are quickly growing into a larger threat to corporate profit margins than file-sharing networks due to the ease with which people are not only able to digitally capture and upload content, but also because of simple single-click accessibility that is much simpler than piecing together a torrent file.
Industry analysts are just beginning to realize the impact of the issue. One study showed that between July and August of this year, the number of websites streaming copyright infringing content increased by 42%.
"It's not larger than file sharing, but its growing faster," said Lawrence Low, an executive with BayTSP, a tech company that identifies unauthorized content online for entertainment industries. "Live streaming, in particular, is doubling in the last two years."
In addition to the unrestrained growth these streaming video sites have demonstrated, the financial implications of the issue seem to be nearly impossible for anyone to track. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) tried, but gave up in April because they were not able to base their numbers on anything other than assumptions about what consumers might have been purchasing.
Some companies have already produced software that can be enabled to automatically identify and block content that is determined to be a copyright violation. However, not all sites use such tools, and many will only agree to take down material once notified that it is in violation.
So now we have a new game of technological cat and mouse to play in the MPAA and government effort to fight piracy. This particular game, however, seems to be much more of a challenge than the fight against file sharing.
Coming Events of Interest
M2M Evolution Conference - October 4th-6th in Los Angeles, CA. Machine-to-machine (M2M) embraces the any-to-any strategy of the Internet today. "M2M: Transformers on the Net" showcases the solutions, and examines the data strategies and technological requirements that enterprises and carriers need to capitalize on a market segment that is estimated to grow to $300 Billion in the year ahead.
Digital Content Monetization 2010 - October 4th-7th in New York, NY. DCM 2010 is a rights-holder focused event exploring how media and entertainment owners can develop sustainable digital content monetization strategies.
Digital Music Forum West - October 6th-7th in Los Angeles, CA. Over 300 of the most influential decision-makers in the music industry gather in Los Angeles each year for this incredible 2-day deal-makers forum to network, do deals, and share ideas about the business.
Digital Hollywood Fall - October 18th-21st in Santa Monica, CA. Digital Hollywood Spring (DHS) is the premier entertainment and technology conference in the country covering the convergence of entertainment, the web, television, and technology.
P2P Streaming Workshop - October 29th in Firenze, Italy. ACM Multimedia presents this workshop on advanced video streaming techniques for P2P networks and social networking. The focus will be on novel contributions on all aspects of P2P-based video coding, streaming, and content distribution, which is informed by social networks.
Streaming Media West - November 2nd-3rd in Los Angeles, CA. The number-one place to come see, learn, and discuss what is taking place with all forms of online video business models and technology. Content owners, viral video creators, online marketers, enterprise corporations, broadcast professionals, ad agencies, educators, and others all come to Streaming Media West.
Fifth International Conference on P2P, Parallel, Grid, Cloud, and Internet Computing - November 4th-6th in Fukuoka, Japan. The aim of this conference is to present innovative research results, methods and development techniques from both theoretical and practical perspectives related to P2P, grid, cloud and Internet computing. A number of workshops will take place.
International CES - January 6th-9th in Las Vegas, NV. With more than four decades of success, the International CES reaches across global markets, connects the industry, and enables consumer electronics (CE) innovations to grow and thrive. The International CES is the world's largest consumer technology tradeshow featuring 2,700 exhibitors.
Content in The Cloud - January 7th in Las Vegas, NV. The DCIA's Conference within CES explores this cutting-edge technology that promises to revolutionize entertainment delivery. Six keynotes and three panel discussions focus on cloud-delivered content and its impact on consumers, the media, telecom industries, and consumer electronics (CE) manufacturers.
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