August 18, 2008
Volume XXIII, Issue 3
Time to Revisit P2P
Excerpted from ReadWriteWeb Report by Bernard Lunn
Google had a bad week in cloud computing, with serious downtime in G-Mail, Blogger, and Spreadsheet. Back in July, it was Amazon that was embarrassed with its S3 outage. If you measure total downtime, however, cloud computing still looks good compared to traditional hosting or in-house data centers.
But that glosses over the psychological and market confidence issues, when a problem hits everybody at the same time. In contrast, when was the last time you heard about a massive Skype outage? Maybe it is time to look more seriously at P2P.
Actually, about one year ago Skype did have a problem. But it was minor in comparison with the Google and Amazon outages. Skype has over 9 million people online right now, so this is major validation for P2P scalability and reliability.
This week we also saw the launch of Wuala, a P2P cloud storage solution (please see review here). Earlier, we reviewed Faroo, a P2P approach to search, and Metaaso, a P2P approach to video sharing.
With the exception of Skype, these P2P offerings are all tiny start-ups. Interestingly, they have all originated outside America: Skype - telephony - Estonia; Wuala - storage - Switzerland; Faroo - search - Germany; Metaaso - video - India.
This geographic origin may not be coincidental.
You need gazillions of dollars to be a cloud computing platform. Those server farms cost a lot. Skimping, or misjudging demand, leads to outages, slow response, and other confidence-killers. This is a game for the big boys - Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, AT&T, and Sun. These are all American firms, with access to plenty of capital.
Disruptive innovation usually comes from start-ups that are starved for capital. You replace capital with technical innovation. That was true for Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, AT&T, and Sun as well when they started.
That is why I have believed for some time that P2P is the next big disruptive technology at the infrastructure level.
Disruptive technology sometimes needs support from big companies as well. Fortunately for P2P, three very big companies would benefit greatly from more use of P2P as infrastructure - Microsoft, Apple, and Intel. It's a great way to mop-up those underutilized desktop CPU cycles. And attack the cloud computing incumbents.
Historically, P2P start-ups have tended to focus on music sharing and have been hurt by legal issues, but they have been fine technically. Skype makes P2P respectable and proves that scalability does not have to be an issue. Skype is taking on one of the largest and well established industries in the world, and millions of people increasingly rely on Skype as a mission critical alternative to landlines or cell-phones.
P2P infrastructure could play very well behind the enterprise firewall. It reduces CIO security fears about too many cloud-based apps outside the firewall.
This is important for P2P start-ups. They would need a lot of capital to go to market entirely with a consumer/SOHO offering.
If they can get enterprise adoption at the same time, then they can accelerate cash flow and reduce their need for funding.
Watch the P2P space. It's the next big wave of innovation at the infrastructure level.
P2P & MUSIC CONFERENCE Comes to Berlin in October
The DCIA proudly presents an all-new day-long conference within PopKomm: The P2P & MUSIC CONFERENCE on Friday October 10th in Berlin, Germany.
Learn about how to protect and monetize music using P2P technologies from top leaders in this space. We are literally assembling the top tier of P2P industry leaders worldwide for this first-of-its-kind event.
What can be done to stop unauthorized file swapping? How can the enormous amount of P2P user traffic, comprised largely of fans seeking to discover new music, be monetized? What are the new entertainment-industry sanctioned P2P offerings for advertising-supported, subscription, and paid-download music and how do you do business with them?
The rapidly emerging P2P industry now offers powerful copyright enforcement mechanisms, innovative promotional and traffic conversion tools, and unprecedented revenue generating opportunities with highly attractive entry points at many levels.
In addition to our primary focus at this global gathering on commercial development of the P2P distribution channel for music, we will also invest time to discuss the renewed debate over net neutrality, exploring the latest arguments from consumer advocacy interests and Internet service providers (ISPs), as well as current actions by regulators around the world.
This first-of-its-kind event will feature unprecedented participation from the most exciting P2P innovators from every continent. We hope to see you there!
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 Reflecting on the major themes expressed during the P2P MEDIA SUMMIT Silicon Valley and Building Blocks last week, it is clear that we are on the verge of a significant breakthrough in our industry's relations with content owners.
The DCIA welcomes this, having consistently worked, since our inception, to advance content provider interests in the P2P distribution channel.
Examples of this include: sponsoring demonstrations of P2P digital rights management (DRM), interdiction, and filtering solutions for content owners; initiating projects like the P2P Revenue Engine (P2PRE) to provide a blueprint for commercially harnessing P2P by content owners; conducting working groups such as the P2P Digital Watermark Working Group (PDWG) to protect the rights of content owners; hosting conferences along the lines of the upcoming P2P & MUSIC CONFERENCE within PopKomm for the benefit of content owners; actively recruiting Member companies for the DCIA Content Group, etc.
In order for the P2P distribution channel to achieve its full potential, in our view, it is essential that the DCIA Content Group be as fully developed and have as prominent a role and a voice as the other two key groups that must be aligned - the Operations and Platform Groups - comprised of P2P software distributors and Internet service providers (ISPs), respectively.
The threat to established methods of content monetization from early implementations of P2P in the form of file-sharing applications has finally been superseded by the benefits to content business models of commercial P2P, exemplified by Kontiki, whose President, Eric Armstrong, gave the opening keynote at the SUMMIT, and by Pando Networks, which received the 2008 DCIA Innovator's Award, accepted by its CEO, Robert Levitan.
Both of these industry-leading companies have successfully entered into high-profile ground-breaking relationship agreements and deployments with major international media companies.
Traditional content distribution business models are also coming to P2P in a number of ways, represented by QTRAX with ad-supported music, iMesh with a subscription model, and Vuze with paid high-definition (HD) video downloads.
The same title or track, in fact, can be presented to users simultaneously in a sponsored version, as part of a package, or as a premium a la carte item. P2P can create an extremely robust and flexible marketplace.
For the first time, at the Silicon Valley SUMMIT, we also explored wide-area peering, which along with caching and content acceleration, represents an additional way to ensure that premium entertainment content is delivered to key markets globally at the lowest possible cost and highest possible quality regardless of regional broadband network variances.
2007 was the year when peer-to-peer television or P2PTV finally arrived, representing a huge breakthrough for video distribution. Now featuring major studio and network content with interactive chat is Joost, independent films and customized movie channels is Babelgum, and European television content now completing market trials is Zattoo.
A very popular P2PTV service, backed by Michael Eisner and Time Warner, now with more than 30 million monthly users is VeohTV. A hybrid P2PTV client player is Miro. And our newest DCIA Member in this space is TVU Networks, which announced its brilliantly conceived Seamless Streaming Product at the SUMMIT.
China has been a pioneer of P2PTV with services like PPLive, PPStream, QQlive, UUsee, Vakaka, and Xunlei - where the cost savings of P2PTV have brought television to millions of unserved viewers. Now Vatata (sister service of Vakaka) is bringing P2PTV directly to set-top boxes (STBs).
The newest iteration of P2P is peer-assisted or hybrid-P2P content delivery networks (CDNs). These incredibly sophisticated platforms give rights-holders enormous flexibility in managing online delivery of their copyrighted works.
Cost, speed, and terms-and-conditions for content redistribution can each be precisely controlled. Downloads to watch in real-time, downloads to watch later, and live broadcast transmissions can all be supported with the unprecedented advantages of P2P.
Leading examples in this category are Abacast, CloudShield, GridNetworks, Ignite Technologies, Solid State Networks, and Velocix.
The inflexion point, from our perspective, is fast approaching as a result of the entrance of broadcast television programmers into our space, bringing characteristics more aligned with the benefits of P2P technologies than record labels, the first content category impacted by P2P, where in retrospect, tragically, that was not the case.
TV networks are accustomed to a primary business model where revenue is generated from advertisers, who pay for access to aggregated audiences of consumers who themselves pay nothing. Programming distribution costs are essentially fixed in the form of satellite circuits, local broadcast station towers, cable systems, etc. where there is no incremental cost for attracting added viewers through competitive efforts to increase program ratings, which directly drives greater profitability.
P2P is the only online distribution architecture that can, in fact, replicate broadcast economics.
Record labels are accustomed to a primary business model where consumers pay directly for the rights to listen to each track of music. Content distribution expenses are a combination of fixed costs, in the form of maintaining established retail infrastructures, and variable, in the form of unit costs for manufacturing, shipping, and stocking CDs, etc.
Ubiquitous digital rights management (DRM) and micro-payment solutions, as well as related anti-piracy tools, have been individually developed by a host of companies and now need a coordinated effort to optimize the impact of their implementation. At last, this is within reach to support the business model of paid P2P music downloads.
The confluence of events that will provide both incentives for participation as well as penalties for non-participation, in order for this aspect to be realized, has brought realization of this vision nearer than ever before, and may actually be achievable without resorting to legislative or regulatory measures.
We welcome content owners, from major motion picture studios and record labels, to television and radio programmers, to independent producers and singer-songwriters, to join the DCIA Content Group.
Take advantage of this opportunity to directly provide leadership and direction to the rapidly emerging P2P industry. Help drive and accelerate progress towards the end that we all want, a robust P2P distribution channel where every content transaction is monetized according to terms-and-conditions stipulated by its rights holders. Share wisely, and take care.
Next-Up for P4P: Streaming Video
Excerpted from P2P Blog Report by Janko Roettgers
The P4P Working Group (P4PWG) is planning another round of tests for its technology, this time focused on P2P video streams, according to Contentinople.
P4P is a technology that aims to reduce the stress P2P is putting on ISP networks by, as one example, helping to establish connections among users within the same subnet.
It has proven to work well for BitTorrent-based file downloads; in fact, Pando CTO Laird Popkin told the crowd at last week's DCIA event in San Jose, CA that a recent second field test showed even better results than a first test earlier this year that resulted in improvements of up to 50% related to the amount of traffic routed locally versus though interconnections to other ISPs.
Tuning P4P for live P2P streams could help to get the system ready for prime time. The P4PWG also still has work to do explaining what P4P is and how it will affect the end-user.
Recently, a colleague expressed the opinion that P4P will ultimately become a vehicle to speed-up licensed, commercially viable content. Recent discussions at and around the IETF's latest meeting provide another view.
Benign Intellect - P4P
Excerpted from Matters of Opinion Report by Carl Ford
Matters of Opinion just posted a podcast with Doug Pasko of Verizon, who is also the Co-Chair of the P4P Working Group (P4PWG) sponsored by the DCIA.
You can listen to Doug by going here.
I can't find a reason not to like the technology.
The Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) is a "Who's Who" of P2P operators and it's good to see a forum being used that is part of the overall industry as opposed to the fragmentation that so often occurs.
When a forum works to bridge the gaps among competing views, room has to be made for synergy to occur.
EA Chooses BitTorrent for Warhammer Distribution
Excerpted from TorrentFreak Report
Electronic Arts (EA), the publisher of the upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, has chosen BitTorrent for the distribution of its closed beta client.
Developed by Mythic Entertainment, "Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning" is a long-awaited WoW competitor, due for general release on September 18th.
As with many games of this type, the developer is beta testing the software, helped by players in the US, Europe, New Zealand, and Australia.
To become testers, people were selected via applications, contests, and prize drawings. The first stage of testing took place during the final quarter of 2007. July 2008 saw the activation of "Guild beta" keys, which signaled the start of the next stage of testing, and on August 10th, keys were sent out for Beta 3.
The Warhammer online beta gaming client is quite large, weighing in at over 9.3GB. Providing a download of this size for testers could turn into a needlessly expensive exercise for the publisher, Electronic Arts, and the developer, Mythic, so they have made the decision to utilize BitTorrent, dramatically reducing distribution costs.
There is no other way to download the client, indicating that EA and Mythic are completely confident that their target market will have no trouble using torrents; but just in case, they provide a comprehensive BitTorrent Guide which covers basics like client selection, as well as more advanced techniques such as port-forwarding. The guide also includes advice to follow a TorrentFreak Guide to speed-up transfers.
The Mythic tracker is located at http://torrent2.eamythic.com and currently reports around 1,300 seeds and over 7,000 leechers. A search on the hash value of the torrent reveals the beta is being tracked by other torrent sites, too.
Pando & Intel Enable Energy Efficient Content Delivery
Pando Networks, a leading provider of commercial P2P content delivery services, this week announced the world's first content delivery service to make use of Intel's Remote Wake technology.
This enhancement makes the personal computer (PC) an always-available and energy-efficient extension to content distribution networks (CDNs). The combination of Pando Networks secure content delivery services and Intel Remote Wake will offer content providers and consumers more choice in how they can access, purchase, and download digital media content to the home PC, even when consumers are not at home.
Beyond added convenience, Intel Remote Wake technology will benefit consumers by reducing the energy consumption associated with keeping the home PC always on. Select Intel motherboards with support for Intel Remote Wake technology will be available next month.
In addition to supporting secure content delivery services, the Pando collaboration with Intel's Remote Wake capability is an important technology to enable an elegant and efficient remote media access experience from any Internet-enabled device.
Once the PC "wakes up," Pando Networks' highly secure P2P content delivery service delivers media rapidly and cost-effectively.
Joe Van De Water, Director of Consumer Product Marketing for Intel, said, "Intel and Pando have a common vision to enable technology building blocks that deliver more energy-efficient options for consumers and content providers. Intel is fortunate to be collaborating with Pando Networks on its latest content delivery service release, which supports Intel Remote Wake technology. Together, our technologies enable added convenience and energy efficiency for consumers who prefer 'automatically' downloaded media from content providers."
"The home computer is increasingly a media delivery and playback device. We are very proud to be aligned with Intel on this project, which enhances those capabilities," said Robert Levitan, CEO of Pando Networks.
"Our support of this technology enables media and entertainment companies to offer new choices to consumers in a secure and highly scalable environment, while also being energy-efficient."
P2P content delivery can boost delivery speeds by up to 235% across US cable networks and up to 898% across international broadband networks, according to Pando Networks.
The data was gathered in a recent P4P field test by Pando from more than 3,000 ISPs worldwide. As part of the test that took place in February 2008, the company delivered video content to more than 1 million people across global broadband networks including AT&T, Bell Canada, Bezeq International, BT, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox, Orange, Sasktel, Telefonica, Telecom Italia, Time Warner, Tiscali, and Verizon.
In March 2008, Verizon announced that it will begin using a P2P file-transfer system from Pando Networks to aid with the distribution of large media files to its broadband users. The new system will move material authorized by content owners - such as movies, TV programs, software, or large data bases - faster for consumers and more efficiently for network operators, including Verizon. Significantly, Verizon said it no longer regarded P2P as a "dark-alley distribution system for unauthorized file sharing."
Cisco Completes Acquisition of Pure Networks
Cisco Systems has completed the purchase of Seattle, WA based Pure Networks, a leader in home-networking-management software and tools.
Pure Networks' solutions allow users to easily set-up and manage a home network and connect a range of devices, applications, and services.
The acquisition of Pure Networks provides Cisco with a fully integrated line of home-networking-management solutions that will also serve as the foundation for the development of new multimedia-enabled applications, tools, and capabilities for consumers to use in an increasingly "connected life" at home, at work, and on the go.
The acquisition further advances Cisco's consumer strategy by enhancing the development of the existing Linksys Easy Link Advisor (LELA) platform, which enables a consumer to more easily set-up, organize, manage, secure, and use a home network.
With the close of the transaction, Pure Networks will be integrated into Linksys, a division of Cisco.
TVU Networks Preps Internet Channel for Telemundo
Excerpted from World Screen News Report by Kristin Broznowski
TVU Networks, a provider of live peer-to-peer television (P2PTV), has added a Telemundo channel dedicated to the hit series "Decisiones" to its lineup, available worldwide outside of the US and Mexico.
An original Telemundo production, "Decisiones" features moving stories inspired by real-life heroes who struggle, fall in love, make mistakes, and are able to redeem themselves. The series has been sold in more than 40 territories, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Estonia, Georgia, Honduras, Latvia, and Romania.
Daniel Capriles, the VP of International Digital Media for Telemundo Internacional, said, "Part of the business philosophy of Telemundo Internacional is to identify new development ideas to create content for the industry and generate interesting business for new television platforms. Internet TV is an exciting new platform that allows us to increase Telemundo's distribution and footprint within the Hispanic/Latin community around the world, and TVU is the perfect partner in achieving such an ambitious goal."
Paul Shen, CEO of TVU Networks, added, "TVU is thrilled to have a tier-one broadcaster like Telemundo on-board with us. TVU's platform marks the seamless convergence of the Internet and TV, and it's our hope that the heavy media-using Hispanic-American communities will find tremendous value in the Telemundo programming on the net."
Babelgum Brings History Online
Excerpted from C21Media Report by Martin Buxton
Peer-to-peer television (P2PTV) service Babelgum has reached a deal with the Associated Press to allow users to relive history via seventy hours of historical archive footage.
The collection is said to be one of the largest and most important historical archives in the world with 700,000 clips on topics ranging from war and conflict to social history, the environment, and science-and-technology.
Babelgum CEO Valerio Zingarelli said the AP archive is a "treasure trove" of content, which will be "interesting viewing for everyone from school pupils to amateur historians."
The move is the latest step in Babelgum's campaign to become one of the world's leading Internet TV platforms, especially in independent programming.
It recently opened its first US office in New York, appointing both a dedicated President and an Executive VP for the States. This has already been followed with independent film distribution agreements with Movieola, Underground Film, and Drive In Movies, to add more than 100 hours of content to its online service.
NBCU Measures Cross-Platform Olympic Consumption
Excerpted from Media Daily News Report by David Goetzl
Using a research tool it developed, NBC Universal released figures Wednesday showing widespread consumption of the Olympics across multiple properties. Television was the dominant medium - some 107 million people tuned in last Sunday - but visits to NBCOlympics.com and viewing on mobile devices have been climbing daily.
NBCU is using a Total Audience Measurement Index (TAMI) to try and determine the reach of its coverage - across TV, online, mobile, and video-on-demand (VOD). On Sunday and Monday, the TAMI figure came in at well over 100 million.
On Sunday (the night of the thrilling finish in a swimming relay involving Michael Phelps), the TAMI was 113 million. Here's how it was calculated: more than 107 million people watched at least six minutes of coverage on one or more of the NBCU TV networks; in addition, 5 million people visited NBC's Olympics website, 495,000 tuned in on mobile, and 28,000 watched on VOD.
The 113 million is not unduplicated - meaning that some people may use more than one medium. But from NBCU's perspective, the upside is the opportunity to expose people to more - and different - types of advertising.
Public Usurps NBC with Olympic News
Excerpted from NY Times Report by David Carr
Now every sentient human with access to a mouse, a remote, or a cell-phone decides what's news. Case in point: NBC spent a day trying vainly to plug online leaks of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics to protect its taped prime-time broadcast 12 hours later.
Trying to stop foreign broadcasts and leaked clips from being posted online was doomed to failure because information wants to be free and its consumers will find a workaround on any defense that can be conceived.
Ironically perhaps, the "jail break of information" didn't damage NBC's broadcast. The four-hour ceremony attracted an average of 34.2 million viewers, the most ever for an opening ceremony not in the United States.
Welcome to a media world in which consumers want to be the ones - not the networks - to do the programming. Please click here for the full report.
Millions Download Opening Ceremony via BitTorrent
Excerpted from TorrentFreak Report
The opening ceremony of the 2008 summer Olympics, co-directed by Zhang Yimou, was a truly spectacular event. Not everyone had the chance to watch it live or on TV, but that's where BitTorrent came in. The broadcast of the Olympics opening ceremony has been downloaded more than a million times already, and the download counters go up every day.
The most popular version of the opening ceremony is the high-definition (HD) release, a massive 5GB file. At the time of publication, more than 60,000 people are downloading the torrent, while over a million people have already downloaded the opening ceremony via BitTorrent - even though it was free to watch on TV all around the world.
Other releases of the Olympics ceremony are popular as well, such as an iPod-ready version of the first hour, a standard definition release of the opening ceremony, and an HD capture of the torch lighting and fireworks.
P2PTV Olympics Coverage in China
Excerpted from NewBlogonStuff
There are several ways to watch the 2008 Beijing Olympics in China without television. Following is a list of four different ways Chinese fans can watch the Olympics online live.
These methods use peer-to-peer television (P2PTV), or P2P video streaming, which hasn't fully caught on in the West, but is vastly popular in the East.
First, PPStream. This service offers many channels, has a great interface, and provides viewers with instant access to Beijing 2008 Olympics streams, most of them showing Chinese athletes. It also has many other channels viewers can watch if they're into Chinese TV.
PPStream is safe; it's a very popular software program widely used in China. Some of its channels are premium.
Second, TVants. The service does not have a great interface but allows access to Beijing Olympics streams. TVants is very straight forward to install and run, it just downloads and installs in the traditional way.
Many public TVants channels are also listed on myp2p.eu: CCTV-1, CCTV-2, CCTV-5 (sports), and some non-Chinese channels as well.
Third, PPlive. This service does not have as many Beijing Olympics channels as PPStream and TVants. But PPlive viewers can use it to get several Chinese channels (including sports channels). They can also use it to watch films or random Chinese TV, including some movies with English subtitles.
Most channels are repeated films or TV episodes streaming. There is also a "Live TV" channel. The Beijing 2008 Olympics might not always be playing, although the Shanghai Sports Channel often includes coverage.
Fourth, UUSee. This service also does not have as many Olympic coverage channels as the first two examples. UUSee has a graphical user interface (GUI) allowing viewers to channel-surf; the only problem is that some of the channels are only available for the Chinese mainland. (CCTV-1 and 2 for example), but several channels are also open to the world.
Other Chinese services to investigate include CCTV box beta, Feidian player, and tvkoo.
P2PGSM Media Sharing Overhauled by the Furious Team
The Hong Kong based Furious Team, designers of the award winning Furious Gold mobile phone unlocking software, proudly announce the 2008 release of their updated P2PGSM mobile phone file sharing solution.
The new P2PGSM was designed specifically to provide clients with access to a huge database of software, graphics, ring-tones, games, and media files.
"This is the ultimate Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) file-sharing site," says the P2PGSM team about P2PGSM.com.
The new P2PGSM is hosted on the Furious Team's US based core server, allowing users to upload and download their shared files quickly and easily without having to wait for a P2P connection. The server is capable of hosting over 20 terabytes of software, flash-files, ring-tones, videos, and unlocking software, providing its users with an almost limitless selection.
P2PGSM isn't only good for business at the Furious Team. Since the release of the new P2PGSM, users have reported personal gains of $5 a day or more by integrating it into their personal marketing campaigns. Users can use the site to promote their own personal banners and AdWords accounts, helping to grow both the P2PGSM network and their own profits without paying a penny in advertising costs.
"The key word is share, share, share!" says P2PGSM. "The more you upload hot new files, the more exposure you will give your banners and ads."
The site will also serve as a launch pad from which programmers and product support teams can base their support services, allowing them to quickly and easily share their support files with a huge network of clients, and allow artists to develop, sell and share ring-tones, logos and other media.
The Furious Team is a leader in mobile phone unlocking solutions, including Furious Gold (regular and Bling Bling edition), the FuriouSim, the latest in SIM card technology, and MTunlock, as well as a wide variety of custom designed software and hardware. P2PGSM.com and the upcoming new P2PGSM iPhone application mark the company's next steps in bringing mobile phone solutions to an international community of users.
China Leads in Distributed Computing
Excerpted from CIOL Report
China is leading the march towards distributed computing in the emerging markets, far outdistancing India, Brazil, and Eastern Europe in adoption and adoption-plans according to Evans Data's newly released Emerging Markets Development Survey 2008.
This in-depth survey of over 400 developers in China, India, Brazil, and Eastern Europe shows that 34% more Chinese developers have either adopted distributed computing or expect to within six months than Indian developers, and over 80% more than developers in Brazil or Eastern Europe.
"We've been studying development in China for several years," said John Andrews, President & CEO of Evans Data, "and Chinese developers are always anxious to be in the vanguard. Distributed computing and cloud computing represent the next big movement and it's not surprising to us to see the Chinese developers embracing this."
The survey further found that the primary perceived obstacle to distributed computing is security for developers in all of the regions except Brazil, where complexity was the major issue.
Online Content to Top $6.5 Billion in Asia Pacific
Excerpted from Home Media Magazine Report by Erik Gruenwedel
With much of the world's attention focused on the Summer Olympics in Beijing, a new report says paid electronic entertainment content in the Asia-Pacific region will deliver at least $6.5 billion in annual revenue by 2013.
ABI Research, a New York based media metrics company, said telecommunications companies will spearhead the online revenue surge in an effort to supplant waning phone revenue.
Japan, with more than 67% of the electronic content market share, leads the licensed content revenue market for the Asia-Pacific region and is expected to continue doing so, growing at a 6% compound annual growth rate.
A distant second is China (19.9%), which the report said could inadvertently give rise to unlicensed P2P file-sharing sites that have historically perpetrated widespread copyright infringement.
China ranks among the worst offenders in protecting copyrights in such formats as DVD movies, books, and music. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) says US studios lose about $1.2 billion annually to pirated DVDs in the Asia-Pacific region.
Reports say nearly 90% of all packaged media sold in China is pirated.
Playlouder Could Reemerge in Deal with Virgin Media
Excerpted from Think Broadband Report by Andrew Ferguson
Some will have heard of the broadband provider Playlouder which offers a service with bundled music downloads in the UK. The firm classifies itself as a music service provider (MSP) and is thought to be in talks with Virgin Media over a deal that would see music rights holders receiving payment for material downloaded over P2P networks.
The system would work by using a combination of deep packet inspection (DPI) technology and Audible Magic to allow people to download music from torrents and other P2P networks and even share it with other users while tracking which tracks have been downloaded. This doesn't come for free, however; the idea being that the broadband provider would charge a fee for this unlimited access to music.
Given the recent memorandum of understanding (MOU) that will see warning letters sent out to P2P users by Internet service providers (ISPs), the pressure will build on people to switch to licensed music download sources. If the figure of £5 a month becomes reality, then the chance of households signing up will be fairly high, and in the case of Virgin Media, there may be scope for including the deal for free with the premium services such as the 20Mbps service.
The problem will be that as P2P networks evolve, there is a constant race between these clients and the DPI networks. There will be some who have become so used to getting all their digital content for free that, no matter how cheap a subscription, they will endeavor to employ encryption techniques to evade detection.
Broadband providers are likely to be striking a number of deals like this over the coming months, and if the amount of money flowing towards the record companies improves, then bodies like the BPI may relax the pressure on the government to introduce more restrictive legislation. If full legislation is introduced, we may see people getting blacklisted from having an Internet connection after being caught downloading unlicensed music.
ToPeer Launches Private Internet Application
With all of the privacy concerns and issues around web-based services on the Internet today, a solution has arrived allowing users to harness all of the potential of the public Internet - the ability to create websites, write blogs, and share files - and place it under their personal control.
According to the new service's publicity, "2Peer is your own Private Internet."
"With the 2Peer service there is no longer a need to upload your private photos or videos to a third-party website only to have to give that third party site control over what they do with it. You can share photos and videos of your kids on the public Internet, but do you really want strangers viewing your private media files? Of course not - now there is a private option!" said Parm Gill, Founder & CEO of ToPeer Corporation.
He added, "This version of the 2Peer service is just the beginning, with many new features on the way including creating your own personal and truly private blog or website."
With 2Peer, users can create a private social network with their friends and family, similar to a private home or office network, which allows them to easily manage and share their personal digital content directly from their computers. Consumers can easily edit and resize a batch of photos, or create albums and slide shows with the 2Peer photo tools, and share them from their computers with people they trust - privately, safely, and securely.
The 2Peer service is currently available for the Windows & Mac platform, is compatible with all major web browsers, and it works on the iPhone.
Music File-Sharing Decision to Have Broad Impact
Excerpted from Wall Street Journal Report by Sarah McBride
A coming federal-court decision holds consequences for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the thousands of people it is suing over shared music files.
Last year, a jury in federal district court in Duluth, MN, found Jammie Thomas liable for copyright infringement based on songs the RIAA said it found in her computer. Ms. Thomas was told to pay up, to the tune of $222,000.
But the judge in the case, Michael Davis, says his instructions to the jury might have been wrong.
Judge Davis told the jury that making songs available online for distribution to others was copyright violation and that the record companies did not have to prove distribution took place. He has since learned of a federal district-court case in Phoenix, AZ that ruled that making songs available was not copyright violation. He is weighing granting Ms. Thomas a new trial.
If one is granted, one outcome could be a higher bar for what record labels need to prove to demonstrate that copyrights have been violated. For example, evidence that more than a handful of songs on a shared-file folder were distributed to others may be needed.
"It's going to be more difficult for them to prove" if they can't simply rely on showing that songs were in somebody's shared-file folder, says Brian Toder, a partner at Minneapolis, MN based Chestnut & Cambronne who is representing Ms. Thomas.
Record companies say they already go beyond simply showing that songs were on a computer. Their investigators download a selection of songs, proving distribution, they say. If the songs were unlicensed copies to begin with, they can generally prove that, too, they say.
"Whatever the court decides, it was not the 'making available' issue that prompted a jury to unanimously decide that Ms. Thomas had massively and deliberately committed music theft," meaning copyright infringement, says Jonathan Lamy, a spokesman for the RIAA. "And regardless of this particular question, we do have complete downloads of songs in the case against Ms. Thomas, as we do in all our download cases."
Ms. Thomas maintains "that these songs were never on her computer," says Mr. Toder, her lawyer. He calls the RIAA's evidence "circumstantial" and says somebody else could have hacked into her computer.
Judge Davis said he would decide by the end of September whether to grant a new trial. If he grants one, it would take months for a new jury to figure out what it makes of the charges against Ms. Thomas, whose shared-file folder, the RIAA says, included Green Day's "Basket Case" and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin."
The RIAA has taken legal action against about 40,000 people since 2003. Most are accused of unlawfully uploading music over the Internet by putting it in files where it can be taken for free by other web users.
Nearly every month, the RIAA files several hundred suits in federal court, with seemingly little impact on the amount of online copyright infringement that has eaten away at the legitimate paying market for music over the past decade.
Many of those accused settle the cases for $3,000 to $5,000 rather than going through a costly court battle. Others simply ignore the RIAA's notices; the courts eventually make default judgments against these people. Only about 5% of those targeted by the RIAA choose to fight back, says Ray Beckerman, a New York, NY lawyer who represents some defendants and writes a blog on the lawsuits.
The RIAA first used the "making available" argument in a case three years ago involving Mr. Beckerman's client Denise Barker, whom the RIAA says had a computer with more than 600 songs available in a shared folder. That means anyone else on her file-sharing network, Kazaa, could take the songs they wanted, free.
The RIAA says simply making the songs available constituted a copyright violation. Mr. Beckerman argues it did not.
Mr. Beckerman's argument appears to be making headway. In a recent federal-court opinion in Manhattan in the Barker case, which was otherwise generally favorable to the RIAA, Judge Kenneth Karas wrote that "the support in the case law for the 'make available' theory of liability is quite limited."
The case, still in pretrial stage, has just been assigned to a new judge, Richard Sullivan, because Judge Karas has moved to another district.
The Thomas case in Minnesota is important because if it moves forward quickly and changes the previous decision, it could set a precedent that could help Ms. Barker and dozens of other defendants. Many defendants are already trying to chip away at the RIAA's argument that making songs available is enough to prove copyright violation.
At the University of Maine, for example, law students working at a legal clinic are helping some of their fellow students caught in a batch of lawsuits filed by the RIAA last year. The clinic staffers assigned to the case are using several arguments to fight the charges, including the position that making files available doesn't equal distribution.
In some courts, judges have sidestepped the issue. And in at least one court, the defense has not panned out. A federal judge in Eugene, OR, upheld the RIAA's position on availability in late 2006.
And many legal experts cite a 1997 ruling from the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals, in which the judge ruled that making a copyrighted work available for library lending does amount to copyright violation, even if nobody borrows it.
However, appeals-level decisions in other circuits contradict that ruling.
Because of the legal fog surrounding the issue, some, including Mr. Toder, say the Minnesota case could wind up in the Supreme Court.
Coming Events of Interest
International Broadcasting Convention - September 11th-16th in Amsterdam, Holland. IBC is committed to providing the world's best event for everyone involved in the creation, management, and delivery of content for the entertainment industry. Uniquely, the key executives and committees who control the convention are drawn from the industry, bringing with them experience and expertise in all aspects. DCIA Member companies are exhibiting.
Streaming Media West - September 23rd-25th in San Jose, CA. The only show that covers both the business of online video and the technology of P2PTV, streaming, downloading, webcasting, Internet TV, IPTV, and mobile video. Covering both corporate and consumer business, technology, and content issues in the enterprise, advertising, media and entertainment, broadcast, and education markets. The DCIA will conduct a P2P session.
PopKomm - October 8th-10th in Berlin, Germany. The international music and entertainment business trade show, conference, and festival. Decisive developments within the business. Think forward: for three days, experts will be appraising and voicing their opinions on creation, communication, and commerce. Over 400 showcase performances.
P2P & MUSIC CONFERENCE - October 10th in Berlin, Germany. The DCIA proudly presents an all-new day-long conference within PopKomm, focused totally on P2P solutions for the music industry. How to protect and monetize musical content in the steadily growing P2P marketplace.
Spirit of Life Award Dinner - October 15th in Santa Monica, CA. The City of Hope Music and Entertainment Industry Group will award the 2008 Spirit of Life Award to Doug Morris. Dinner packages and advertising information can be obtained through Mary Carlzen and 213-241-7328.
Digital Hollywood Fall - October 27th-30th 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.
P2P MEDIA SUMMIT LV - January 7th 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. This DCIA flagship event is a Conference within CES - the Consumer Electronics Show.
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