Taiwan’s largest P2P operator, as we’ve covered)with P2P software distributor Grokster in the US, Web services should perhaps consider adopting their model to clearly benefit three parties – record labels, P2P operators and consumers – paying careful attention to copyrights.
Category: P2P
Movie Studios to Sue File Sharers
The major Hollywood studios have vowed to sue people who illegally download movies from the Internet. In a similar move, to the way the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is using lawsuits to fight online piracy (they have filed more than 6,000 lawsuits against file sharers since September 2003), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) announced that the major Hollywood motion picture studios would be filing hundreds of lawsuits against individuals using peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing software to share films online.
Rather than embracing P2P technology by looking for new ways to generate revenue, such a lowering the cost of movie rentals and DVDs, Hollywood is intent on further imposing its iron fist on movie fans. However, help is at hand. In connection with the music industry lawsuits, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has intervened in court to defend the privacy and due process rights of the individuals being sued, although it’s not yet clear whether the MPAA lawsuits will make similar actions necessary. Hollywood is pinning its hopes on federal legislation that would target file-sharing technology. If passed, the so-called Induce Act would close the legitimate-copying loophole and empower the MPAA to sue P2P file-sharing services such as Kazaa, Grokster and Morpheus.
The MPAA announcement comes on the heels of a recent study by the University of California, Riverside, and San Diego Supercomputer Center that shows that the music industry lawsuits have had no effect on the popularity of file sharing among US users, estimated at over 20 million. Movie studios can’t exactly argue that file sharing is about to put them out of business, as DVD sales grew 33 per cent last year and box-office receipts have never been stronger.
“These lawsuits are misguided,” said Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Staff Attorney Wendy Seltzer, who has been involved in the music industry suits. “The music industry experience shows that the lawsuits don’t reduce the amount of file sharing. And it’s certainly not good PR to sue movie fans for non-commercial sharing when the studios are rolling in record profits.”
“In the end, what protects the studios from piracy is the what attracts people to buy or rent movies in the first place – a good product at a good price point,” said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. “As long as you can rent a movie on DVD for $2, movie file sharing is not likely to take a major bite out of studio revenues.” www.mpaa.org
Sony Eyes P2P Venture
A new partnership of opposites may be in the offing, one that will allow you to download pay-for and free songs from the Internet. The partnership called Mashboxxx, first reported in Friday’s Los Angeles Times, will happen between Sony BMG Music Entertainment and online peer-to-peer software distributor Grokster. This is quite an historical venture really, being the first earnest public partnership between a major recording company and an established file-sharing outfit. There have been many rumours (whispered behind the hand) of these schemes already being run.
Yes, Sony BMG has broken ranks with the rest of the entertainment industry by embarking on this venture with Grokster, that combines free music sampling with paid downloads. The free downloads will be promotional versions of songs by Sony BMG acts, and / or you can buy licensed, higher quality versions. Punters already use Grokster to search, download and distribute a wide variety of music files, but most of these are only copies of CD-quality recordings.
To many, this looks like a case of joining the enemy when you can’t beat them – a tactic that has worked well in many instances throughout history. As it happens, Grokster only recently settled a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against them by recording companies, over a Spanish Web site that was selling music downloads without permission.
But why go down the expensive and lengthy road of litigation when, like Sony BMG and Grokster, you can settle on a legitimate business model that allows you to work together, using each other’s expertise in a mutually beneficial way?
Well finally the music industry is starting to acknowledge that Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are very efficient at distributing files. Not only that, but they get to save money by not paying all of the bandwidth charges for distributing the files, as the consumer bandwidth is used to share the files around.
Mashboxxx is expected to employ some kind of digital fingerprinting technology that will be able to filter out unauthorized song copies from file-sharing networks, and a version of this type of filtering technology has been developed by San Francisco-based Snocap Inc.
RIAA Files 750 New File-trading Lawsuits in the US & CD sales up 10%
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), on behalf of the major record companies, has just issued a new round of copyright infringement lawsuits against 750 illegal file sharers using peer-to-peer (P2P) software. Including 25 users on 13 different university campuses, who used their university servers to perform the dreaded deed. This brings the total number of lawsuits filed by the RIAA against alleged file sharers since September 2003 to over 6,200.
The file sharers that were sued were using (P2P) services such as eDonkey, Kazaa, LimeWire and Grokster, although maybe Grokster miscreants will receive universal absolution if the deal between Grokster and Sony BMG to make file sharing respectable goes ahead. In keeping with practice used in previous cases, the RIAA suits have been filed against ‘John Doe’ defendants – a method used to sue defendants whose names are not known. They will instead be identified by their numeric Internet Protocol (IP) address. Names can only be obtained by music company lawyers’ issuing subpoenas to Internet access providers.
In addition to the 750 ‘John Doe’ litigations, 213 separate lawsuits were filed against named defendants who were already identified through the litigation process but then declined or ignored an RIAA offer to settle the case before it proceeded any further.
This is despite the fact, that legitimate downloading services seem to be doing rather nicely, with the RIAA’s recently released mid-year figures showing that 58 million single tracks were downloaded or burned from a licensed service for the first half of 2004.
Furthermore, the figures also show that full-length CD shipments to retail outlets increased by 10.2 percent this year, compared to the amount of shipments over the same time period in 2003 – the first time in five years that the first half of the year has experienced such an increase.
People are still flocking to the record store to buy their music, as overall, CDs and all other audio and video music products shipped to retailers increased by 8.5 percent in the first six months of 2004 compared to the same period in 2003.
It’s a funny thing that while all this litigation is going on, that the RIAA has just given out the first-ever Gold and Platinum awards for digital downloads, albeit for legally sold ones.
Court Orders New Protections for People Targeted by RIAA
A district court in Pennsylvania has forced the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to rethink the privacy and due process rights of people it has accused of copyright infringement. The impasse arose after the music industry filed a flood of lawsuits against anonymous individuals who they claimed were sharing copyrighted music, but because the industry did not know the identities of the file sharers, it served subpoenas to the individuals’ ISPs seeking their names. The court held that before the ISPs turn over these names, they must first send notices to each file sharer advising them of their rights.
The judge ruled that the RIAA cannot sue alleged file sharers simultaneously, since they had grouped 203 of them, called “John Doe” because their identities are not yet known – into one lawsuit last month. The RIAA must now identify alleged file swappers by their Internet Protocol addresses.
On Friday a subpoena was authorised in the case of John Doe No. 1, but the RIAA will have to make separate requests to seek the identity of each of the remaining 202 alleged file sharers, and must pay court fees of $150 for each lawsuit filed.
“Piracy, both online and on the street, continues to hit the music community hard, and thousands have lost their jobs because of it”, said Mitch Bainwol, Chairman and CEO of the RIAA in a recent press statement. The RIAA and its partners in the music community have continued a variety of public education efforts. These include joining with the FBI to unveil a new anti-piracy warning and seal; expanding the acclaimed “I Download…Legally” media campaign; and working with the university community to develop new programs to educate students about intellectual property laws, discourage illegal peer-to-peer use, and offer legitimate online music alternatives.
Notwithstanding, the RIAA, for the first time ever, included digital downloads in its semi-annual shipment report. For the first half of 2004, there were 58 million single tracks downloaded or burned from licensed online music services.
Targeted adverts for P2P
AlmondNet, Inc. and Intent MediaWorks will separate the appropriate from the irrelevant to exclusively bring you only the good ads.
Should your browsing habits make you fair game for any advertiser or should you only be subjected to ‘relevant, targeted interactive ads’? The latter option is obviously a lot more preferable, and if done in the right way, it shouldn’t be too much of a nuisance.
Two technology companies in New York and Atlanta are trying to achieve the latter option and have consequently signed a deal whereby advertisers can target specific ads to P2P users.
During the download process users are served ads via the INTENT MediaWorks client, using AlmondNet’s technology, which is cookie based and they say doesn’t collect personally identifiable information, adverts should be targeted.
The two companies involved are AlmondNet, Inc., a New York-based advertising technology company that offers web publishers targeted ads based on audience attributes, and Intent MediaWorks, an Atlanta-based company that provides a technology platform for secure distribution of content via legal peer-to-peer networks. They have signed a co-operation agreement whereby Intent MediaWorks will use AlmondNet’s patent-pending behavioural targeting technology to target ads to P2P users who use their secure distribution platform.
Intent MediaWorks already has technology that allows recording artists and music companies to distribute their digital content securely via major P2P systems like Kazaa, Gnutella, and Bit Torrent. INTENT say they already has 600 artists on its books for music distribution.
Ads come in good, bad and ugly flavours, not to mention irrelevant and downright inappropriate. As usual it is the 18-34 year old that is being targeted in this space, and while one has to be slightly suspicious about users being targeted based on their online behavior and interests, since no ad campaign is altruistic, at least they are being spared the irrelevant and inappropriate.
We’re not certain that anyone who is downloading via a P2P network will be looking at their screens while the files are coming down, it’s normally a fire-and-fire operation. If this is widely-so, we’re not sure who is going to pay to advertise?