My Other Ride Is Your Mom: March 2007

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Macrovision copy protection coming to a download near you

Macrovision, makers of copy-protection technologies for video and consumer software, has announced that they have signed a deal with several Internet video delivery companies. The deal will bring the company's Analog Copy Protection (ACP) technology to video downloads from Netflix, BitTorrent, Movielink, and Instant Media.

Netflix, who rose to fame by offering a convenient movie rental service, will be adding ACP to its fledgling online streaming movie service. The service launched with 1,000 movies available, but Netflix hopes to dramatically increase that number by signing additional deals with movie studios. Movielink, a download service that has not been very popular with consumers, also hopes to increase their available library and perhaps become a more attractive acquisition target. BitTorrent (the company, not the protocol, although the former does use the latter), which launched their online store last month with an unfortunate number of glitches, also hopes to gain a larger library as a result of adding ACP technology.

How can an analog protection system apply to digital video downloads? ACP works by embedding a signal in the vertical blanking interval, the time period after the display has finished drawing the image and is preparing to draw the next frame. For old VHS tapes, this was stored directly on the tape, but when the technology was ported to DVDs, it was stored as an instruction for the DVD player itself to create the signal on the fly. The signal causes analog recording devices to display wildly fluctuating artifacts, and on digital recording devices it triggers a flag that turns off the ability to record. Some DVD recorders have the ability to ignore the Macrovision signal, but most do not.

Macrovision claims that the addition of its ACP technology to digital downloads will help both content providers and online distributors to gain confidence in this form of delivery, which will in turn lead to more movies and shows being made available online. "The key to making movies and television programs available online is first showing the content owners that you can distribute their content in a protected and consumer-friendly manner," said Fred Amoroso, president and CEO of Macrovision.

Will the ACP deal help the struggling online movie download industry? Simply gaining access to a wider library will definitely help increase consumer acceptance. However, consumers may be put off by the inability to back up movies to a DVD—while most existing services don't allow this, Movielink has at least toyed with the idea. On the other hand, the Macrovision ACP may end up being less intrusive and error-prone than the digital DRM schemes currently used by such services. At the moment, downloadable movie sales are weak at best. However, Macrovision has big hopes for the future, citing a December 2006 report by Parks Associates that predicted Internet video revenue will exceed $7 billion by 2010, with services for renting and downloading TV shows and movies accounting for nearly 40 percent of that total.

Netgear Launches Digital Entertainer HD

Cross-platform device streams digital content over home networks to high-definition entertainment systems.

As Apple begins to ship the Apple TV, wireless equipment manufacturer, Netgear is now shipping its Digital Entertainer HD (EVA8000) device in the U.S.

Similar in size to a standard DVD player, the device ships worldwide in the second quarter of 2007, the company confirmed.

Digital Entertainer HD is a cross-platform device for streaming digital content over home 802.11n networks to high-definition home entertainment systems.

The US$399 system works with Windows and Mac, network storage devices, and USB media devices and can stream media from sites like YouTube and Flickr. It will play movies acquired at BitTorrent's new online film marketplace.

Additional features include support for Windows Media Connect and the capacity to stream many unprotected file formats from Macs and Linux computers, flash drives and iPods.

It can play internet radio stations and access RSS news feeds and NOAA weather and maps. It comes with a remote control.

The solution automatically discovers HD movies, TV shows, music files, and photos available to a home network, across multiple computers. It organizes these into a single media library displayed on the TV with no need for media server software running on the computer.

UK Software Uploader Fined in P2P Case

A vast majority of copyright enforcement has taken place against those sharing music, a lesser yet still significant number against those sharing movies, and a very small number against those sharing software. With the exception of prosecuting top sites and BitTorrent tracker administrators, civil actions against those sharing software has been virtually non-existent. However, this appears to be changing.

In a rare copyright enforcement of its kind, an alleged United Kingdom uploader was fined in a summary judgment rendered against him. The case doesn't settle the legality or quality of evidence against the individual, as the accused simply did not respond to initial copyright notifications by an organization called FAST. FAST, or Federation Against Software Theft, is a UK-based outfit which could be considered the equivalent of the RIAA, except representing the rights of software manufacturers.

At issue was a software program valued at £35 ($65.00). Although FAST does not name the software in question, apparently it was worth enough to invest 10 months of investigative time to determine the identity of the alleged infringer.

The alleged infringer eventually did show up to a February 27 court hearing, and attested that he did not receive initial copyright violation notices by FAST. This didn't appear to impress the court, and he was ordered to pay £3,500 to cover FAST's damages and legal fees.

The network used to upload the infringing file was also not mentioned; however, it was likely either eDonkey2000 or BitTorrent. While FAST has cheered this as a victory over file-sharing, it's simply a victory over neglecting to respond to an initial copyright notification.

Update: Slyck spoke with FAST's public relations firm, who informed us that the individual in question used Kazaa (via the FastTrack network) to allegedly publish the software. However, they due to the request of the manufacturer, they would not reveal the name of the software.

Bit Torrent Rents Movies

The BitTorrent Entertainment Network will debut with major film and TV rentals. The downloads are secured with Microsoft DRM. They expire within 30 days of purchase and 24 hours of first viewing.

BitTorrent co-founder and COO Ashwin Navin said the studios had offered to allow BitTorrent to sell digital downloads but they declined. "We don't think the current prices are a smart thing to show any user," he said. "We want to allocate services with very digestible price points."

Digestible? New release rentals are $4, older releases $2, and TV episodes $2. These are the same prices offered at direct download web sites with the same DRM. There is one difference. The user is now contributing HIS bandwidth, HIS storage, and HIS CPU to help distribute the files. Those prices are hardly digestible when the customer receives no incentive in return for helping Bit Torrent sell its flicks.

iTunes adds more movie titles

More bad news for the BitTorrent Entertainment Network.

iTunes, the world's most popular online movie download store, has announced that movies from Lionsgate films will be available for download on the site starting today.

Among the titles to be included are “Terminator 2,” “LA Story,” “Basic Instinct,” “The Blair Witch Project," "Dirty Dancing,” “Total Recall,” " Rambo,” “Monster’s Ball,”“Chaplin,” and “The Boys From Brazil.”

“We’re delighted to offer these incredibly popular Lionsgate films on iTunes, and look forward to adding even more films in the future,” said Steve Beeks, president of Lionsgate. “iTunes lets users download these wonderful films to watch on their computer, TV or iPod, so movie fans can take their favorite Lionsgate films with them anywhere.”

Downloaded movies are still mostly priced at around $9.99 USD each, with older movies usually costing less than the newer releases.

This could mean additional trouble for the BitTorrent Entertainment Network which up until now had a collection of movie download titles that far surpassed that of iTunes. With this news, iTunes can now offer much more than the simple Disney content as it was previously limited to.

Perhaps Disney titles served as an excellent test case for the system itself and that of concerns over copyright protections, finally making a movie studio comfortable enough to come forward and embrace it.

In any event, download speeds aside, if iTunes begins to evenly match movie title selection with BEN, coupled with the fact that playback, DRM, and BitTorrent client server considerations are ongoing issue for it, it just may mean that iTunes will make BEN both irrelevant and undesirable in the minds of most consumers.

P2P File Sharing Ruining Physical Piracy Business

TorrentFreak has a short post up talking with a former physical data pirate, who sold his wares in flea markets and made buckets of money in the 90s. By the end of the last decade, his money flow had dried up, and he places the blame squarely on the shoulders of P2P file sharing. "Tony is very clear about why his rags to riches story has gone back to rags again. 'File-sharing, P2P - call it what you like. When you asked a customer why he wasn't buying anything, 9 times out of 10 it was BitTorrent this, LimeWire that ...' P2P is a very powerful machine and although Tony could see that his operation was feeling its effects, he admits that he sat back and did nothing about it and consequently, his business has paid the ultimate price. Other industries affected by P2P should take note: Don't be a Tony. Overhaul your business model. Quickly." One would imagine overseas media sellers will have similar issues, as P2P networks become more common outside of the Western world.

Azureus 3.0 BETA Guide and Tutorial

Azureus has added a new content and video sharing format to it's ever popular BitTorrent client server in the new BETA version it recently released.

It incorporates it's new video sharing site Zudeo.com directly into the new user interface, allowing users to browse, publish, download, and even rate content all directly from the BitTorrent client server itself.

According to Techcrunch, "Azureus said that they are trying to 'centralize and go viral,'" and "...each listing will have a user rating and an embed code called Azureus Magnet so that users can share the content on other sites."

The article furthers:

"Media companies are embracing digital media distribution,” said Jarl Mohn, current chairman of the board of CNET Networks and an Azureus board member, in a release sent to TechCrunch on Friday. “Zudeo provides a very effective and secure P2P platform to distribute content to their audience.”

"Today, content creators and publishers can use Zudeo to freely promote and distribute their digital creations, with no limitation in length or video quality,” BianRosa said. “Furthermore, they can use our social networking tools to expose their content throughout the web, including blogs and social networks. Similarly, movie, games, and music fans can access a growing catalog of high resolution media content and share it with their friends easily."

The focus of the site will be on high quality DVD and HD content, and will soon be partnering with 20 major TV and film studios to provide additional free programming for downloading.

Exactly what type of content will be offered at and at what price is as yet unclear but, it marks another bold step in the efforts of file-sharing applications to go "legit" and find a viable business model to capitalize on digital video distribution.

SEE STORY: "Could BitTorrent Inc. be the new model for file-sharing legitimacy?"

With more than 1.5 million Azureus users connected on average at any given moment, the potential for this new content fro mat is tremendous.

Big Media DMCA Notices: Guilty until proven innocent

It's no secret that media companies have started to hire companies such as BayTSP to automatically find file sharers and send letters to their ISPs. The goal of this is to use fear to persuade people to use legal methods of getting digital content.

Many ISP's, especially universities, trust the good faith of these companies and will automatically deactivate the Internet connection of those who they get notifications for. As a personal project, and with the help of Carnegie Mellon's Information Security Office (which employs me to work on various computing security tasks), I decided to investigate the reliability of notices from companies such as BayTSP. The answer: the companies do not actually gather the data they claim to. Their standards for sending DMCA notices are very low.

In order to understand the issues, it's first necessary to have a basic understanding of BitTorrent. In order to download something via BitTorrent you download a ".torrent" file from any number of sites that index the content. This file contains a fingerprint for every piece of the file that you are attempting to download. It also contains a reference to a tracker. This tracker is the way that peers (the people downloading the content) find each other. After contacting the tracker, you contact each of the potential peers that the tracker shares with you (and other peers may contact you). The client then begins swapping parts of the file with each of the peers. What the media companies object to is that in the process of downloading the file, your client will offer parts of their copyrighted content to other users -- a violation of copyright law. In order to catch these violations, BayTSP advertises fake clients to the Bittorrent tracker and uses the list of peers which it gets back to find violations

For my investigation, I wrote a very simple BitTorrent client. My client sent a request to the tracker, and generally acted like a normal Bittorrent client up to sharing files. The client refused to accept downloads of, or upload copyrighted content. It obeyed the law.

Big pipe means big download speed

FOR anyone with better things to do than swot up on megabits and the latest geeky acronyms, it's best to think of Labor's broadband plan as a new, bigger pipe.

The internet is a huge vat of data, overflowing with YouTube videos, BitTorrent movies, TV show downloads, music and games. The size of the pipe between you and the internet determines whether you can take a bath in all that enticing content, or tap your feet as it dribbles on to your PC.

Much of what is currently marketed as "broadband" doesn't cut it. At 512 kilobits per second, watching much of the video content on the web requires regular pauses while the "buffer" fills with data.

Online games central to next generation consoles such as the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 are hampered by jumpy gameplay. Innovative online virtual reality worlds such as Second Life, or breakthrough applications such as Google Earth, dawdle and frustrate, rather than fascinate.

And future applications such as IPTV — television over your internet pipe — are flat-out impossible.

We're lagging while others are sprinting ahead. A recent report by the Committee for Economic Development of Australia placed us 25th on a global ladder of average download speeds.

So how do you get a bigger pipe? The speed of broadband is related to the distance from your computer to the fat internet connection at the local telephone exchange. If some of the equipment moves from the exchange to a "node" closer to the home, and those nodes are hooked to an ultra-fast optical fibre network, you get a massive speed boost. Fast forward to 12 megabits per second, the proposed "floor" to the new plan, and you're in a totally different internet.

The latest YouTube video plays as soon as you click the play button. iTunes albums are in your library before you've finished unwinding the earbud cord from your iPod. And companies such as Telstra will soon be knocking on your door with video-on-demand: TV shows available for instant display on your PC or plasma screen.

But that's just the beginning. After fibre-to-the-node comes fibre-to-the-home, already a reality in parts of Japan and South Korea. And that's a different experience again.

Should Labor abandon public ownership of Telstra?

Limewire Tops In P2P Music Downloads

Port Washington, N.Y. — Among P2P file sharing sites, Limewire took a 62 percent share of P2P music downloads in 2006, but torrent services gained in popularity, The NPD Group found.

The average Limewire user downloaded 309 music files in 2006, up 49 percent from the previous year, NPD said.

Torrent services such as BitTorrent account for an increasing number of of files downloaded illegally per user, though some sites have recently begun selling songs authorized by copyright holders, NPD added.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

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