December 17, 2007
Volume XX, Issue 4
From Las Vegas to Cannes
Offering an early look at breakthrough products and services, now literally from Abacast to Zattoo, the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV has become the first must-attend event of 2008. Attendees will also get a pre-launch peak at QTRAX, the widely anticipated world-shattering P2P music service from Brilliant Technologies Corporation that will officially launch during MIDEM/MIDEMNET 2008.
The P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV is the first-ever DCIA Conference within CES, where attendance is expected to top 140,000 this year. Our day-long January 6th event leads up to Bill Gates' evening keynote address.
This seminal industry conference may sell-out for the first time since the series debuted in Washington, DC in June 2005. Delegates to P2P MEDIA SUMMITS take away unparalleled insights into digital content distribution from the very cutting edge of innovation. There will also be a continental breakfast, luncheon, and networking cocktail reception with live entertainment.
Please click here for more information and click here to register. Advance registration rates, which save attendees up to $200, are now in effect.
Later in the month at Cannes, in addition to QTRAX's major presence, other MIDEM/MIDEMNET 2008 attractions include a keynote address by P2P industry luminary Janus Friis, visionary chair committee participation by Nettwerk Music Group CEO Terry McBride, exhibition by Javien Digital Payment Solutions, panel participation by MasurLaw's Steve Masur, and much more.
Pando & PeerApp's P2P Partnership
Pando Networks and PeerApp are partnering to enable Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to accelerate delivery of video and other digital media published by Pando's peer-assisted content delivery platform, improving consumers' experience while reducing network congestion. This groundbreaking initiative will provide the first solution that lets content providers, aggregators, telecom firms, and multiple system operators (MSOs), collaborate in peer-to-peer (P2P) content delivery and share the benefits.
The partnership integrates Pando's industry-leading managed P2P distribution services with PeerApp's P2P acceleration and caching solutions for ISPs.
Content providers and aggregators have been adopting P2P for delivery of premium video content. Service providers play a critical role in video content delivery because they control the "last mile" to their subscribers. The cooperative approach provided by the Pando-PeerApp partnership satisfies subscribers' demand for high-quality video content, content providers' interest in broad distribution, and ISPs' desire to play a more active role in content distribution.
Pando's managed P2P network delivers more data daily than any other P2P network of its kind. The PeerApp technology is being optimized for Pando-delivered content, enabling wire-speed delivery without requiring ISPs to invest in additional bandwidth or to restrict P2P content.
"With this joint solution, content providers and aggregators can now ensure effective, fast, high-quality delivery of their content across the entire distribution chain," said Robert Levitan, CEO of Pando Networks. "As more high-definition video and multimedia content migrate online, we want to provide our content customers with innovative ways to provide faster, more reliable downloads for consumers while decreasing costs for distributors. We also want to build relationships with telcos and MSOs. PeerApp's technology ensures the success of commercial content delivery networks by providing quality of service, acceleration, and caching benefits to service providers, content providers and consumers."
"This partnership and technology are laying the groundwork for the future of broadband video delivery," said Robert Mayer, PeerApp's CEO. "Together, Pando and PeerApp are giving ISPs a clear path to satisfy the growing demand from their subscribers for high-quality video and to effectively support the increase in media delivery. And we are empowering content providers to deliver video and other digital content to consumers in a controlled, managed way that benefits everyone, including the service provider."
With this partnership, PeerApp is introducing a commercial P2P service that accelerates and caches P2P video and ensures its high-quality delivery. As an alternative to traffic mitigation and throttling that degrade P2P services, PeerApp's technology provides traffic management that accelerates media content delivery while improving the quality of service (QoS) for P2P and non-P2P consumers alike. Deployed globally, PeerApp's technology is already improving the quality of experience for millions of broadband consumers.
Pando and PeerApp have featured speakers at the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 We're excited to see significant representation from the distributed computing industry on the list of 2007 Digital Media Winners.
As Richard Menta reports, "Last year Azureus and the BitTorrent client represented the BitTorrent technology on the winners list. In a single year µTorrent - a client that takes up minimal space and resources - passed them all to become the number one BitTorrent client by a wide margin. BitTorrent's acquisition of µTorrent last December is paying off high dividends.
LimeWire is by far the number one P2P application in US households, though BitTorrent is more efficient with movie files so a client like µTorrent may already be handling as much bandwidth.
Two new P2P clients, FrostWire and Pando, mimic µTorrent's early quick adoption. Whether either can sustain this growth waits to be seen."
And leading the list of digital media artists for 2007, "Prince sold 3 million copies of his latest release, Planet Earth, to a London newspaper as part of a huge CD giveaway that also garnered Prince lots of good-for-ticket-sales press ink.
Like Radiohead, he's blazing a path of self-sufficiency for superstar artists after their major label contract runs out. As for the remaining 99.9% of signed and unsigned artists the search for a more efficient model continues."
Please plan now to attend the Distributed Computing Industry Association's (DCIA) first-ever P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV. The inaugural Conference within CES will be held Sunday January 6th at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
On the day before our Conference, Storage Visions 2008 will bring together technologists, vendors, retailers and users to explore the pod-, web-, and life-casting consumer revolution and how to preserve, protect, and search for content using digital media.
In the evening after our Conference, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will deliver his annual pre-CES keynote address. With the full attention of the consumer technology world, Gates has previously used the International CES to preview products and technology on the horizon for consumers.
The 1/6 DCIA Conference will feature keynotes from top P2P and social networking software distributors, panels of industry leaders, valuable workshops, and much more.
Confirmed P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV speakers include senior executives representing such industry-leading firms as Abacast, AHT International, Beat9.com, Bennett Lincoff Law, Bingham, BitTorrent, Brand Asset Digital, BuyDRM, CacheLogic, Cisco Systems, DeviantART, Digimarc, Digital Containers, Financial Dynamics, FTI Consulting, Grid Networks, Javien, MasurLaw, MediaPass Network, Motorola, National Association of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), Nettwerk Music Group, Oversi, Pando Networks, Paramount Pictures, PeerApp, Peer Innovations, Raketu Communications, Rebel Digital, Rightscom, ROK Entertainment, SafeNet, Thomson, YuMe Networks , Veoh Networks, VeriSign, Verizon Communications, Vuze, and Zattoo.
Advance registrants include representatives from a who's who of leading companies in the entertainment and technology sectors.
Don't miss the opportunity to participate in this 2008 inaugural event. Please click here for more information and click here to register - or call 410-476-7964. Advance registration rates save attendees $200.
For sponsor packages and speaker information, please contact Karen Kaplowitz, DCIA Member Services, at 888-890-4240 or karen@dcia.info. Share wisely, and take care.
Cisco, AT&T and the New Internet
Excerpted from eWeek Report
One of the oldest jokes about the Internet goes, "Imminent death of the Internet predicted, GIF at 11." Just the acronym "GIF" gives you an idea how long people have been predicting that the Internet was about to be overwhelmed by traffic.
To prevent our cable and DSL modems from delivering Hayes 1200-baud SmartModem-like performance, the major telecoms, such as AT&T, have been investing in serious infrastructure upgrades. In the most recent one, AT&T announced that it was buying Cisco CRS-1 core routers for 25 of its major Internet backbone sites. At $500,000 to more than $1 million per CRS-1, that's serious mullah even for AT&T or Cisco.
What do you get for that kind of money? A single CRS-1 port, according to an independent test by Light Reading, can deliver 40 gigabits per second. In another test, Light Reading was able to test two fully loaded CRS-1 chasses and the pair reached a rather stunning 1.2 terabits per second. Now that, my friend, is fast.
It wasn't so long ago that spam made up the single-largest component of Internet traffic. Then, along came Napster, and then BitTorrent, and by 2005, people were estimating that two-thirds of all Internet traffic was from P2P networks like BitTorrent and Gnutella.
When Napster came along, people were P2P-ing songs that weighed in at a few megabytes. Now, people commonly use P2P to trade the latest episodes of "Desperate Housewives" or "House" or buy and download TV series such as "Family Guy" in several hundred megabytes packages.
And, coming soon, thanks to the adoption of H.264 in the latest version of Adobe Flash and VC-1 in Silverlight, we're going to see a lot more high definition (HD) movies and TV shows being traded over the net. A typical movie in 720p HD will be somewhere around 1.5 GB in size.
QuickTime, which also uses H.264, Flash, and Silverlight will also let vendors stream HD Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) over the Internet. That's a lot of traffic.
An AT&T-sponsored study this August estimated that by 2010, twenty households could generate more bandwidth demand than the entire Internet handled in 2005. Yes, they said 20.
I can almost feel sorry for Comcast, which is facing a possible class-action lawsuit for allegedly discriminating against P2P traffic. It's not easy to move that kind of IP traffic with the specter of lawsuits and network neutrality bills, which would explicitly forbid ISPs and backbone providers from charging extra fees based on bandwidth consumption.
Vuze, a licensed P2PTV distributor, plans on using BitTorrent to deliver its HD goods to its customers, making Comcast's current blunt-instrument approach to shaping traffic - based on it use of a particular protocol - untenable.
Like it or lump it, the multimedia Internet is here. I expect to see Cisco, Juniper Networks, and the other top-tier, high-speed network companies do extremely well for the next few years. AT&T, Verizon - all of the major telecommunication companies and network providers, have no choice in the matter. They will have to upgrade their Internet infrastructure and then upgrade it again.
The question we, as users, will need to answer is: "How much will we be paying for top Internet service?"
NBC Direct Will Soon Have HD P2P Downloads
Excerpted from TechCrunch Report by Erick Schonfeld
While NBC Universal is making deals left and right to make up for the fact that it is no longer distributing its digital TV shows through iTunes, don't get distracted by all the small-fry announcements.
NBC has something brewing that could actually make a difference to the digital-download appeal on its own site, NBC Direct. NBC will soon start using P2P technology from Pando Networks to distribute its downloads, a story Streaming Media broke a couple of weeks ago.
Yesterday at the Web Video Summit in New York, NY, I was able to confirm that a stripped-down version of Pando's technology will be incorporated into the NBC Direct video player. I also learned something new.
The reason NBC wants to go with P2P technology is because it wants to start distributing high-definition (HD) videos. Pando's P2P system can help NBC not just to lower the cost of distributing large files, but also to differentiate itself with HD video downloads.
NBC will be betting big on HD to drive viewership of web video. It is already playing around with HD streams on Hulu, its joint venture with News Corp.
And it is not going to be just NBC. HD video is going to come to the web a lot faster than most people think. It may even come to many people's computer screens before it comes to their TV screens.
Just think about that for a second. If you can get a better viewing experience off the web than you can on your TV, that might just be the incentive you need to really start shifting away from TV.
BBC's P2P iPlayer Launches Christmas Day
Excerpted from The Register Report by John Oates
The official launch, or marketing launch, of the BBC's iPlayer is happening on Christmas Day.
A spokeswoman for the Beeb assured us it was a good time to launch because of the all the great content the BBC puts on for Christmas. At least we can all watch the Queen's speech a couple of extra times. The player needs Windows XP or Vista to work, and gives UK residents access to the last seven days of BBC TV content.
The spokeswoman said, "Marketing launch means we'll be trailing the service on TV, radio, and posters." She added that the streaming service for those without Windows XP or Vista will "hopefully" launch within the next two weeks.
The corporation recently hired two ex-Microsoft men, Erik Huggers and Jon Billings, to join its digital media teams. The iPlayer project is led by Anthony Rose, formerly of Kazaa.
The peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) service has been in beta testing since July.
Bablegum CEO: 2008 Will Be a Pivotal Year
Excerpted from Mobile Digest Report
Valerio Zingarelli, CEO of Babelgum, the prolific P2PTV service, believes that next year will see the rise of web TV.
According to recent research from Nielsen, nearly 21 million Brits visited a TV, video, or movie-related website in September this year, up 28% from the previous year. Additionally, Internet TV services are currently available to the 12 million UK households with a broadband connection.
Zingarelli believes that many more companies will enter the web TV space in 2008, lured by a potentially vast audience both in the UK and worldwide. This "intense competition" will "lead to greater innovation and a substantial increase in service quality for viewers".
He continued, "While traditional television platforms such as cable and broadcast TV still serve a large audience, those viewers who are unwilling to wear the straight-jacket that linear TV offerings put them in are seeking new ways of accessing content tailored to their specific taste, whether it be sports, news, or entertainment. P2PTV like Babelgum allows viewers to satisfy this need for tailored entertainment, free from the constraints of linear broadcasting. Viewers are able to interact with the content and choose how, when, and where they watch it.
"Broadcasters worried about web television should realize Internet TV is not trying to replace traditional TV, but is merely giving increasingly savvy viewers greater control and choice. It is this greater control and choice which will enable Internet TV to take its place as a conventional platform alongside broadcast TV in 2008 and beyond."
Joost's Volpi Looks Ahead at FutureMedia
Excerpted from Media Guardian Report
Joost's chief executive Mike Volpi was on pitching level 11 at the FutureMedia conference, delivering a well-practiced speech about exactly why Joost's web TV model has got it absolutely right.
At the same time, he admitted that notching up only 4 million users since public launch in October wasn't that impressive. He said they could do better, considering the vast global online audience.
He repeated what we've heard many times about the demands of web TV being so different from traditional TV - interactive, distributable, and shorter form, with the "sweet spot" between 7 and 30 minutes. "It is a new form of entertainment, not a substitute; and will capture a younger, smarter audience in a new way that can be monetized. Everyone will win."
Asked if and when Joost might move onto a traditional TV platform, Volpi was dismissive: "I don't have a timeframe for that. It's not a huge priority." He said 18-34 year olds spend hours every week on Facebook, and younger kids would rather go online than watch TV.
"We are in the business of making sure that Joost is the premium portal for premium content. I don't think TV is that critical."
Why don't large media companies do web TV themselves? "It doesn't make sense," he said. "There's a three-part value chain of content creation, distribution, and consumption; and just because companies are good at one part of that chain doesn't mean they would be good at others."
As a side, Volpi also said that he didn't believe users wanted to steal content, but that they only do that when they can't find what they want in an authorized version. More than 36% of web TV viewing in the UK is of US content, he said.
He said Joost is about "the fat belly" rather than the long tail. The few hundred major mainstream content companies - CBS, Viacom, Fox, and so on - account for the head in the infamous long-tail graph; millions of people watching a lot of a small number of major channels.
YouTube accounts for the long tail; millions of very niche interest videos watched by just a few users. Joost is pitching itself in between, taking more niche professional content to niche audiences; he mentioned Joost deals with National geographic, Sci-Fi Channel, and Atlantic Records. "You have to have some branded content on your platform to make it attractive for people, and then we have a broader range of content that shows up later, and if it is matched properly to those users it can be a very rich experience."
Joost wants to be seen as a platform that allows content brands to reach niche audiences efficiently, and is impatient for the value of targeted advertising to reach its potential. The site uses 30-second spot ads, 5-second pre-rolls, overlays, and ad bugs that show on top of the screen as it plays. Perhaps the most important part is the combination of automated and user-driven recommendation systems that target both relevant content and advertising to users.
"You need 6-7 million people to watch something on prime-time US TV just to cover production costs. We want to open the door for content that might be $200 per episode, or $50,000 - but you don't need to reach as big an audience though it is still professional content. You might have a chance to watch that fat belly content on channel 27 between 11 PM and midnight, but what is the chance you would find that?"
Review of P2PTV Vudu STB
Excerpted from MacWorld Report by Brian Chen
Broadband Internet users all have one thing in common: they want fast downloads. In this regard, movie watchers will be pleased with Vudu. Using P2P streaming technology, the Vudu TV set-top box (STB) offers an online movie rental and purchase system, allowing you to choose a movie from a vast collection and watch it immediately with the click of a button.
Though speedy delivery is Vudu's strength, the device doesn't fall short in quality. Movies streamed from Vudu look comparable to those on DVDs, and the sound is excellent. I personally was a little disappointed in the breadth of new releases that are offered by Vudu, and the fee structure - which Vudu says is imposed by the movie studios - is somewhat complicated and frustrating. But since Vudu is in its very early stages, I'm optimistic it can expand and improve.
A compact, black box weighing 4.2 pounds, Vudu connects directly to a broadband connection and a television or display. The setup is as simple as plugging in the audio, video, power, and Ethernet cables and powering on the device. You'll see Vudu's startup screen on your television, and after setting up your Vudu account at the company's website, you'll be able to rent or purchase a movie and watch it.
The Vudu box contains a 250GB hard disk drive - enough to store approximately 100 hours of movies. Vudu's movies are encoded in the MPEG4 format, and the hardware supports HDMI v1.1, component, S-Video, and composite connections. For audio, Vudu supports HDMI v1.1, digital optical, digital coax, and RCA. Although Vudu supports HD output, the service currently doesn't offer any HD movies. However, Vudu representatives say that HD movies will be available once deals are finalized with studios.
Vudu doesn't achieve the impossible by downloading an entire video the instant you click the rent or buy button. Vudu streams video, which means that you watch the video as it downloads; you can only fast-forward through the entire video once it finishes downloading.
Something less obvious to Vudu users is that they're not only downloading - they're uploading, too. With the box connected to the Internet, each Vudu user contributes to a P2P network to ensure the delivery of every movie. The upload rate is capped at a reasonable rate (300 Kbps), so Vudu won't make your Internet connection sluggish.
Over One-in-Three PCs Carry LimeWire
Excerpted from Digital Media Wire Report
More than one-third of all PCs worldwide now have LimeWire installed, according to data jointly released by Digital Music News and media tracking specialist BigChampagne.
The discovery is part of a steady ascent for LimeWire, easily the front-running P2P application and the target of a multi-year RIAA lawsuit.
For the third quarter of this year, LimeWire was found on 36.4% of all PCs, a figure gleaned from a global canvass of roughly 1.66 million desktops.
The installation share is impressive, and unrivaled. But growth has actually been modest over the past year.
LimeWire enjoyed a penetration level of 34.1% at the same point last year, a difference of merely 2.3%. "LimeWire continues to be the iTunes of P2P by a wide margin ... but growth has remained flat over the last several months," said Richard Menta, Research Analyst at Digital Music News.
The report closely follows a legal defeat for LimeWire owner Lime Group LLC, which alleged anticompetitive, collusive behavior amongst major labels. But that challenge was thrown out by a federal court, shifting the attention back towards a massive infringement suit being spearheaded by the RIAA.
For consumers, the legal volleys are mostly background noise, and more users than ever are relying on the application to acquire freebie downloads.
The complete Digital Media Desktop Application report - which covers e-commerce, jukebox, BitTorrent, P2P, and other applications - can be purchased here.
A Holiday Gift for You
Excerpted from the Vancouver Sun Report
From now until 12:01 AM PT on Monday, The Vancouver Sun, in partnership with Nettwerk Music Group is offering a digital download of free seasonal music from Sarah McLachlan, the Barenaked Ladies, Oh Susanna, Martha Wainwright, the Medieval Babes, and others.
It's called Seriously Westcoast Vol. 2 - Happy Holidays.
It's full of rare tracks and seldom heard remixes offering a whole new way to listen to holiday music.
Everyone who downloads the free digital album will also be entered immediately into a very special contest to win a holiday card from Sarah McLachlan and the Barenaked Ladies.
Now that'll look pretty impressive on the mantle, won't it? We'll announce the winners on December 19th in the Arts and Life section of the newspaper.
So, follow the instructions on this page, download this unique compilation and you'll be listening to these holiday tunes within minutes.
Spread the love yourself - tell your family, tell your friends, tell anyone you want about Seriously Westcoast Vol. 2 - Happy Holidays.
Maybe you'll want to give a copy or two to those on your Christmas list. That's not up to us, that's up to you because when we say free we mean free. And when we say happy holidays, we mean Happy Holidays!
Simply visit www.seriouslywestcoast.com, find the Seriously Westcoast Vol. 2 icon, click through to the download page, enter the required info, and hit the download button.
Enjoy the music. Tell everyone you know to come and get it. And, oh yeah, did we mention? Enjoy your free digitally downloaded album.
Hungama Has a New Friend
Excerpted from Business Standard Report by Shivani Shinde
Hungama.com has joined hands with UK-based Friend Media Technology Systems (FMTS) to provide solutions to curb copyright infringement.
While Hungama will provide the offering to other Indian media players under its digital services segment, it is simultaneously availing FMTS' services to curb infringement on its site.
The Indian entertainment and media industry is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18 percent over the next five years.
However, segments such as music and video are fighting a tough battle with copyright infringement which is affecting their bottom line. While the number of raids and seizures have been steadily increasing over the past few years, infringement rampantly continues.
FMTS provides companies with a unique data analysis algorithm solution that monitors a vast array of sources on the Internet - from P2P networks to discussion forums to newsgroups.
The solution works at three levels. First, FMTS provides monitoring services or identification of the seeding point (starting point); second, removing content from the site and sending infringement notices to the people concerned; and third, using the data in a positive way to understand how specific content is being accepted.
"We are not providing a counter measure service for copyright infringement. What we are providing is a targeted service, especially for those who are seeding the content," said Jonathan Friend, Director, Engineering, FMTS.
The company monitors and identifies the content's source, people who are responsible for doing so, and those who download the same. It monitors blog sites, chat rooms, and all possible popular sites.
Neeraj Roy, CEO, Hungama feels the Indian industry is ready for such a mechanism, especially players like themselves who have a large repository of original content and exclusive tie-ups for content sharing in the web world. Roy stated that within a year, 50 percent of the market should be using this service.
The services will be targeted at studios and broadcasters. Roy feels the India broadcasting community will be a big segment for these services.
"Broadcasting houses provide us with content to be made available on the portal, while this is done just a few minutes before the series hits the televisions. If somebody shares this well in advance, the production house could have huge losses," explains Roy.
With all new channels being targeted at all the possible platforms, tracking where the content's path and who is using it will be crucial.
As for Hungama, the company will start the implementation in phases. "The first phase will cover the music and video segments," said Roy. He also plans to take the services on the mobile platform.
"Initially, this will only cover the online segment. The mobile segment, however, is not far off. We have close to 45 million people using the Internet on mobiles. As we move ahead, we will also target other platforms," added Roy.
Nielsen Digital Media Manager for P2PTV & UGC
Excerpted from ScreenPlay Magazine Report
A new Nielsen Digital Media Manager service will combine Nielsen's content database with Digimarc's watermark tracking network to identify the specific broadcast source of copyrighted content, thereby enabling media, social network, P2P, and user-generated content (UGC) firms to monitor and manage Internet media distribution.
To be launched in mid-2008 with an initial focus on US Internet media distribution, the service will use digital watermarking and fingerprinting to establish an industry-wide, rules-based copyright security solution. The partners' goals are to help clients including advertisers to facilitate revenue streams, including ad-pairing, e-commerce, royalty reporting, and others, said Stuart Rosove, Senior Director of Business Development for Digimarc, which will co-develop the service with the Nielsen Company.
Rosove explained that the Digital Media Manager enjoys a substantial headstart over competing watermark or fingerprinting service providers by virtue of Nielsen's database of encoded content built on embedding digital watermarks into some 95 percent of national television programming for its television ratings service over the past four years.
"The challenge for others is to build a database that's as comprehensive as possible, and that would have to be contrasted to what Nielsen has in place," Rosove said. "We believe that's a significant cost and would additionally require content owners to inject new processes into their workflows."
The Digital Media Manager service will combine Nielsen's database with Digimarc's multimedia watermark tracing services to provide information to clients tracking content. Through what Rosove described as Digimarc's "broad detector network" and Image Bridge product, the service will be able to identify content throughout the supply chain - a capability not available through fingerprinting services, which must analyze content and compare analysis results with a database of content.
"If a watermark is applied at the point of broadcast, Nielsen can say this particular content came form a particular affiliate station," he said.
"Fingerprinting has no knowledge of the point of distribution. Nielsen has both technologies. We believe watermarking is efficient because it's not an approximation. We can determine content down to granular level. In this world, more granular data will be essential."
As a result, the partners say, Nielsen Digital Media Manager will enable content owners to leverage the popularity of new media distribution channels by identifying what content is being shared, viewed, mashed up, or accessed, and by enabling content owners to make meaningful decisions on what content to allow or disallow on such sites. It further will aid development of new revenue streams and methods for measuring the effectiveness of associated marketing campaigns.
Nielsen said the service also will help social networks, UGC site operators, and Internet media aggregators to ensure the legitimacy of content shared on their sites, paving the way for new business relationships with the content community and for extending the reach of advertising and other value-add applications to their own services.
"If, for example, there is a national ad campaign selling widgets paired to an episode of "South Park," once part of that episode finds its way onto a UGC site, and the person posting it has stripped off all commercials, our system would identify the content and know it came from this broadcast," he explained.
"The content owner could go into the database and, with the rules engine, re-associate the ads with that content. Alternatively, you could introduce at that point links to purchase the widget. At the same time, through the backend intelligence, as we get further into future, you could make a decision that, should it be posted on UGC site and content owner wants it on that site, a distributor could make new decisions on what ads to associate with it. We refer to it as frictionless commerce, to audit for royalty payments and lead up to e-commerce."
Digimarc and Nielsen are working closely with a cross-industry alliance, which in November - with the endorsements of firms including CBS, DailyMotion, Fox Entertainment Group, Microsoft, MySpace, NBC Universal, Veoh Networks, Viacom, and the Walt Disney Compay - issued "collaborative principles" designed to protect intellectual property (IP) while encouraging the growth of UGC content online.
"In today's world, particularly with UGC sites, content is being freely distributed by users worldwide, for the most part in unauthorized fashion," Rosove said. "Some content owners just want to get a handle on monitoring and gaining intelligence of this redistribution of their content to understand how it can be further monetized or to extend existing distribution or spawn whole new distribution. With Nielsen having arguably the largest deployed watermark system, this became a natural blend of our core competencies with the Nielsen Digital Media Management System."
Janus Friis Keen to Interact with Biz
Excerpted from Billboard Report by Juliana Koranteng
Janus Friis is hoping to build bridges with the record business.
The co-inventor of P2P file-sharing network Kazaa will have the opportunity to get up close and personal with the industry when he delivers the keynote speech at January's MidemNet confab.
When asked how he expects delegates to respond to his presence, he told Billboard, "We think people liked it because it was fun. But we've all settled the litigation. And the industry also knows we don't want to end up in another lawsuit."
Between 2002 and 2006, Kazaa - developed by Friis with his business partner Niklas Zennstrom - was used by users to download tens of millions of music files without authorization.
Following its sale to Sharman Networks and other operators of the technology, Kazaa became the subject of protracted lawsuits filed by the major labels, publishers, and motion-picture companies.
In 2006, Sharman Networks and other defendants reached a $115 million out-of-court settlement with the plaintiffs. And Kazaa has since been reconfigured.
Friis and Zennstrom subsequently founded P2PTV service Joost, which features authorized content. Joost's growing reputation has led to Friis' invitation to be a keynote speaker at the international digital-music forum MidemNet in Cannes from January 26th to 27th.
He added, "Although there might be a residue of skepticism in the industry, we know they are all looking for legitimate business models."
When asked whether it would ever be possible to monetize file sharing, Friis commented: "We did try to monetize Kazaa. Unfortunately, the timing wasn't right. But the music industry is always looking for good new services to emerge."
50 Cent Stands Behind File Sharing
Excerpted from Afterdawn Report
In an interview before he got up on stage in Oslo, Curtis Jackson, better known as the rapper 50 Cent, made a few notable comments about file sharing, even going as far as to say, "What is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn't hurt the artists!"
It is important to mention that 50 Cent is not some small, up and coming artist. He has sold over 20 million albums as a solo artist and owns his own record label, G-Unit Records.
During the interview, 50 was asked "How are G-Unit Records doing in these times of file sharing?
"Not so good." he responded. "The advances in technology impact everyone, and we all must adapt. Most of all hip-hop, a style of music dependent upon a youthful audience. This market consists of individuals embracing innovations faster than the fans of classical and jazz music."
"What is important for the music industry to understand is that this really doesn't hurt the artists."
For years now, anti-piracy groups such as the RIAA have gone on about how file sharing hurts not only the industry, but the artists as well. 50 Cent clearly does not agree.
"The concerts are crowded and the industry must understand that they have to manage all the 360 degrees around an artist. They, (the industry), have to maximize their income from concerts and merchandise. It is the only way they can get their marketing money back."
He finishes up, "The main problem is that the artists are not getting as much help developing as before file sharing. They are now learning to peddle ringtones, not records" he added.
"They don't understand the value of a perfect piece of art."
Labels Concede File Sharing Not So Bad
Excerpted from TechDirt Report
For the last decade, the fundamental principle of the labels' business strategy is that sharing music without paying for it is stealing.
They drove Napster, AudioGalaxy, Grokster, and other P2P file-sharing services out of business on that basis.
As we pointed out way back in 2000, all this accomplished was to drive file sharing underground where the recording industry couldn't get a cut of the profits.
Had the record labels approached Napster in 2000 the way they approached Imeem this year, they could have been collecting ad revenue from every file-sharing transaction over the last seven years.
Instead, they wasted a lot of money on lawsuits, angered a lot of their customers, and ultimately still had to concede that music sharing might be OK as long as they get a cut.
The only significant difference between Napster and Imeem, an ad-supported website that majors have licensed, is that Imeem only allows you to play music on its website, whereas Napster allowed you to download songs to your hard drive.
The Imeem website doesn't provide a "download" button, but there's no DRM involved, and it's quite easy to download music files from Imeem using third-party tools.
So what we have here is the de facto legalization of Napster-like sites, as long as the record labels get a cut of the advertising revenue. It's an exciting development, albeit one that should have happened seven years ago.
The Case for Collective Idiocy
Excerpted from Guardian Unlimited Report by John Naughton
When the history of our digital times comes to be written, one of the questions that will puzzle historians is why the record companies missed the significance of the Internet.
Just think about it. Throughout the post-war period, theirs was a big and powerful industry making shedloads of money, and controlling just about everything - recording artists, publishers, distributors and retailers. By 1982, music had gone digital. (The first CDs went on sale that year.) So recording studios converted the sounds made by musicians into bitstreams - long sequences of ones and zeroes - while, at the consumer end, CD players converted those bits back into high-fidelity sound.
The problem was: how to get the bitstreams from the recording studio to the consumer? The solution was to 'burn' the bits onto plastic disks which were labeled, packed in (fragile) plastic cases, boxed and shipped to distributors' warehouses. From there they were ferried to retailers, who removed the disks from their cases and filed them in shelves behind the counter while leaving the case and its associated sleeve artwork out for browsing by customers.
Customers would take the empty case to the counter and hand over their money, after which the disk was fetched from its hiding place and replaced in the box. Once home, the customer inserted the disk in his or her CD player, and the sound of music filled the room.
This palaver of 'shipping atoms to ship bits' (as IT guru Nicholas Negroponte dubbed it) was probably the only way to do it at the beginning. But it was expensive, inefficient, inelegant and uneconomic: nearly 50 per cent of the retail price of a CD was taken up by the costs of manufacture and distribution.
The Internet as we know it today was switched on in January 1983, and at that point a light ought to have gone on in the heads of senior management of recording companies. For the net was effectively a vast machine for shipping bits from one place to another - efficiently, quickly and at virtually zero cost. As far as the record industry was concerned, it was a technology made in heaven; it held out the prospect of halving their costs and quadrupling their profits.
So did the music companies fall upon the internet like ravening wolves? Like hell they did. First, they ignored it. Then, when Shawn Fanning launched Napster - the original file-sharing service - they called their lawyers. Then they started suing file-sharers and companies which operated P2P networks. Then the bands themselves, notably rockers Metallica, joined in the legal action. And finally they all started prosecuting teenagers and intimidating their parents. And while all this was going on, CD sales went into freefall, revenues collapsed and profits eroded.
As Ted Cohen, a former executive at EMI and Warner Brothers put it: 'The record labels had an opportunity to create a digital ecosystem and infrastructure to sell music online, but they kept looking at the small picture instead of the big one. They wouldn't let go of CDs.' It was one of the greatest examples in history of collective corporate stupidity.
So the 64-billion-dollar question is: how did it happen? The obvious hypothesis - that the senior executives of all the record companies were idiots - has always seemed implausible to me. Or it did until I read the recent interview in Wired Magazine with Doug Morris, Chairman & CEO of Universal Music Group (UMG). Morris's ascent to the top of Universal in the 1990s coincided with the rise of CDs - the biggest boom the music business has ever known. The colossal profits blinded Morris & Co. to the threat/potential of the net.
Pressed by the interviewer, Morris went into rant mode, insisting that there wasn't a thing he or anyone else could have done differently. 'There's no one in the record company that's a technologist,' he said. 'That's a misconception writers make all the time that the record industry missed this. They didn't. They just didn't know what to do. It's like if you were suddenly asked to operate on your dog to remove his kidney. What would you do?'
Why didn't they hire people who understood the stuff? 'We didn't know who to hire,' he responded. 'I wouldn't be able to recognize a good technology person - anyone with a good bs story would have gotten past me.' It beggars belief, but maybe the reason the record industry screwed up can be summed up in two words: willful cluelessness.
Coming Events of Interest
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV - January 6th in Las Vegas, NV. This is the DCIA's must-attend event for everyone interested in monetizing content using P2P and related technologies. Keynotes, panels, and workshops on the latest breakthroughs. The Conference will take place in N260 in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center and the Conference Luncheon in N262-264. This DCIA flagship event is a Conference within CES - the Consumer Electronics Show.
IPv6 - Connectivity, Community & Consumer Electronics - Monday January 7th from 3-4 PM at The Venetian, Las Vegas, NV. This CES panel will discuss how the new IPv6 protocol will impact the consumer and enterprise experience of a connected world. Topics will include mobility, interoperability, media content distribution, and what IPv6 means for consumer electronics manufacturers.
CCNC 2008 - The Fifth Annual IEEE Consumer Communications & Networking Conference, January 10th-12th at Harrahs, Las Vegas, NV. Now co-promoted by the DCIA. The latest research developments and technical solutions in the areas of home networking, consumer networking, enabling technologies (including middleware), and novel applications and services. See www.ieee-ccnc.org for details.
MIDEM/MIDEMNET - January 26th-31st at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France. Never has there been such demand for music. By putting you in direct contact with nearly 10,000 music and technology professionals from over 90 different countries, MIDEM connects you with the players matching this unprecedented demand. Delegates from the recording, publishing, live, digital, mobile, and branding sectors gather to do deals, network, learn, and check out new talent.
Digital Music Forum East - February 26th-27th in New York, NY. Major and indie music label executives, artists and their representatives, and technology and consumer electronics leaders come together for this "must attend" event. Now in its 8th year, Digital Music Forum East is the leading event focused on the intersection of technology and music. Don't miss the opportunity to be part of the industry's future.
P2P ADVERTISING UPFRONT NY - Sponsored by the DCIA March 11th in New York, NY in conjunction with the Media Summit New York (MSNY). The industry's premiere marketplace focused on the unique global advertising, sponsorship, and cross-promotional opportunities available in the steadily growing universe of open and closed P2P, file-sharing, P2PTV, and social networks, as well as peer-assisted content delivery networks (CDNs).
|
