BitTorrent Hopes You'll Pay For P2P Streaming Video

BitTorrent may best be know as the leading company behind the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing protocol. However, in one of the company's latest attempts at going to a fully legitimate service, they have announced the launch of a new live streaming TV service with both free and paid options.

As announced today, BitTorrent Live is "a multichannel, live, and linear video streaming platform" based on a peer-to-peer live video streaming protocol that BitTorrent has been developing for a few years. In other words, BitTorrent Live will in effect make every viewer a broadcaster, as you'll be simultaneously sharing the videos you are watching with others.

The company's announcement said that today's live streaming services usually use HTTP Live Streaming and are "notorious for latency issues, also known as lag." The BitTorrent Live protocol is an attempt to solve that problem.

Live television is a communal event that is shared by a society. The vast majority of the most watched television in the history of the medium have been live sports, news, and events, simultaneously consumed. Yet, there has been very little innovation around the distribution of live video on the internet. Currently, HTTP Live Streaming (or HLS) is most commonly used for live video streaming. But it is notorious for latency issues, also known as lag.....

Powered by our proprietary and patented peer-to-peer live streaming protocol, BitTorrent Live allows for large audiences to view live video with sub 10-second latency and without the need for an expensive CDN or pre-provisioning. With BitTorrent Live, every viewer is also a broadcaster. This allows the video stream to remain strong and for the broadcast to be as scalable as traditional Over-the-Air TV.

As for BitTorrent Live programming, the following channels will be available at launch time with more expected down the road:

• AWE: Formerly known as WealthTV, AWE is a 24/7 network devoted to taking viewers on a journey of how wealth is achieved, used and enjoyed.
• Clubbing TV:  The official media partner of some of the planet’s biggest electro festivals, Clubbing TV offers exclusive, quality electronic music content from artists and labels all around the globe embracing the entire the Dance Music lifestyle.
• FAST&FUN is a new Television Channel offering an action-packed, adrenaline-including medley of extreme sports, from car racing and motocross to snowboarding and skateboarding; a large variety of disciplines, shows and competitions from all over the world.
• Fightbox: From MMA and boxing to arm wrestling and sumo, Fightbox is a compilation of the finest combat sports from around the globe all on one channel.
• Filmbox Arthouse: Every month FilmBox Arthouse also airs special presentations devoted to a particular creative movement (German Expressionism, New Romanian Cinema) or individual filmmakers (The Surreal Art of Salvador Dali, Rossellini’s War Trilogy, etc.)
• Heroes TV: Delivers what action, adventure fanatics want.  Heroes TV targets audiences with Multiple programming categories to offer the most comprehensive action, adventure line up on TV.
• Newsmax: Newsmax TV provides the latest news, expert views and live programming from your favorite TV hosts and A-list guests. (conservative programming)
• NUsicTV:  Delivers the finest new independent artists at the forefront of music in a linear broadcast, allowing viewers to discover the vanguard in music without having to search the internet.
• OANN: Features political analysis programming and political talk shows, along with network special documentary-style reports; its news coverage attempts to maintain objectivity while its political shows illustrate a stronger conservative lean.
• One World Sports: It features exclusive, live, world-class sporting events and premier matchups from around the world, with over 3,000 hours of unduplicated sports programming annually. Content focus is on live and same-day action of league, championship and qualification competitions in soccer, basketball, baseball, golf, table tennis, badminton, darts, and more.
• OpenNews TV: OpenNews TV brings you live video talk shows from the best progressive talk radio personalities.
• Pursuit Channel: Pursuit Channel is a television network that airs programming geared to hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation.
• TWiT: The TWiT.tv Netcast Network with Leo Laporte features the #1 ranked technology podcast This Week in Tech, along with over 20 other top-ranked online shows.

BitTorrent Live will add a number of other channels over time, including an as yet details subscription service, ad-supported services, and Pay-Per-View offerings. BitTorrent has not yet announced a launch date for the app, though they have confirmed it will be available on Apple TV, iOS, Android, and Mac later this year. Sorry Windows fans, no word on a release for you as of yet!

CNET Infringement Case Dropped

A major copyright infringement case against CBS Interactive, CNET’s publisher and owner of CNET’s Download.com site, has been dropped. The lawsuit originally filled back in May in Los Angeles by a handful of musicians and filmmaker Alkiviades David accused the company of illicitly profiting from piracy by distributing 220 million copies of LimeWire over the Download.com site since 2008.

According to previous reports the case had been on shaky grounds for months following U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer's request that the plaintiffs specify the content pirated on LimeWire. At the time the plaintiffs submitted just six copyrights as being infringed and could not directly link them to CNET, Download.com or CBS Interactive.

Wired.com has reported that David’s attorney, Adam Wolfson, has threatened to open further proceeding stating in his filing that the case would be re-filed to represent more plaintiffs and “many thousands of songs and other copyrighted works.” (.pdf)

It would appear as though Mr David and the other plaintiffs were barking up the wrong tree on this one. CNET might have helped distribute the already freely distributed LimeWire application. However the company didn't host files, nor did they advocate or facilitate the downloading of illegal or copyrighted content the way LimeWire had.

An Unofficial Version Of LimeWire Returns As 'LimeWire Pirate Edition'

Last month a court order injunction forced Lime Company, the parent company of the very popular P2P sharing application LimeWire, to shut down and halt any further development of the the LimeWire software. Not wanting to let the service slip quietly into the night "secret dev team" of programmers has resurrected the software and furthered it's development.

This "secret dev team" of unknown programmers has released a new version of the software to torrent websites. The software dubbed 'LimeWire Pirate Edition (LPE)' is based off the last LimeWire 5.6 beta and comes with all the features of LimeWire PRO unlocked.

According to a posting on their website the folks at LimeWire are not endorsing the new software, in fact they sound none to happy that it has been released.

We have very recently become aware of applications on the internet purporting to use the LimeWire name, such as the LimeWire Pirate Edition. We demand that all persons using the LimeWire software, name, or trademark in order to upload or download copyrighted works in any manner cease and desist from doing so. We further remind you that the unauthorized uploading and downloading of copyrighted works is illegal.

As we reported last month Lime Company had lost their years long battle against the RIAA and MPAA and had been forced under court-ordered injunction to disable the file-sharing and music-searching features of its P2P software. Years of costly battle had astronomical fines had finally taken its toll.

So Long LimeWire, RIAA Claims Another Victim

Today marks the official death of popular peer-to-peer music sharing service LimeWire, as the service has given up in its fight against the RIAA. The site joins Napster, Kazaa, and all the rest on the mantel as victims claimed by the RIAA's lawyers.

A visit to the LimeWire site shows a legal notice notifying users that the parent company, Lime Company, will abide by a court-ordered injunction and begin to disable the file-sharing and music-searching features of its P2P software. Years of legal battles and the prospects of paying astronomical fines finally did the service in.

A full response posted from LimeWire's CEO George Searle on the Lime Company website:

As of today, we are required to stop distribution and support of LimeWire’s P2P file-sharing service as a result of a court-ordered injunction.

Naturally, we’re disappointed with this turn of events. We are extremely proud of our pioneering history and have, for years, worked hard to bridge the gap between technology and content rights holders. However, at this time, we have no option but to cease further distribution and support of our software.

It’s a sad occasion for our team, and for you – the hundreds of millions of people who have used LimeWire to discover new things.

While we have enabled open sharing and discovery for the past decade, LimeWire is mostly the product of the people who used it. You made LimeWire. Thank you for letting us being part of that. Your support and enthusiasm has fueled everything that we do.

During this challenging time, we are excited about the future. The injunction applies only to the LimeWire product. Our company remains open for business.

We remain deeply committed to working with the music industry and making the act of loving music more fulfilling for everyone – including artists, songwriters, publishers, labels, and of course music fans.

Our team of technologists and music enthusiasts are creating a completely new music service that puts you back at the center of your digital music experience.

We’ll be sharing more details about our new service and look forward to bringing it to you in the future.

This is just one of the latest blows dealt to the file-sharing community. This is one of the first cases in which a company's software has been a major target and the first I know of in which a judge has order an injunction against the software used. For more details on the case you can view our previous coverage from back in May.

LimeWire 5 Adds Private Sharing

The LimeWire 5 Alpha was released earlier this week, improvements include a simpler interface and powerful private sharing feature. The new private sharing feature allows users to set up friends lists and can import contacts from sources like GMail, Jabber or LiveJournal. Once you and your group of friends have Limewire installed, users can decide which files they would like to share and with which friends. User can then access files between their collective group of friends privately.

Of course you can still use it just like the old traditional version as a bittorrent client, to share and download from strangers via the Gnutella P2P network, but the socially networked sharing feature adds another level which could become the main way many people use the program.

By restricting friends lists to people whom you know and trust rather than permitting the addition of large groups of strangers, the new LimeWire private sharing feature could make life harder for the RIAA and MPAA. Friends and family sharing files privately within a group of known individuals should be safe from prying eyes. Making the new feature a great way to share things like family photos, videos documents or just about any other types of files.

As mentioned LimeWire 5 is still in the Alpha stages but it was made public for Windows, Mac and Linux on Wednesday. LimeWire does make it very clear this is an Alpha and it might be buggy:

"This is the Alpha version of LimeWire 5. We encourage you to give it a try. However, because there are still a number of bugs, we do not recommend that you use the Alpha as your primary file-sharing program, to download the current stable version of LimeWire click here."

The program installs fairly easily so just about anyone in the family can use it. Grandma might need a little coaxing but its really not that bad. Once the installation unpacks and gets under way you get the standard LimeWire warning about copyrighted content and there are a few extra clicks here an there. Importing files from your library can be done either automatically or manually, most users would want to use the automatic feature, but oddly enough that feature didn't list any files for me so I had to manually add folders and files.

Sharing with friends is only a few clicks away. Clicking the "share with friends link" gives you the option of logging into GMail, Jabber or LiveJournal. Facebook contacts is apparently also in the works. Your friends show up in a list to the left and is sorted just like any other buddies list. Friends who are online appear in a chat window so you can ask them to download and install the LimeWire application. Once they do, you'll be able to decide which files to share with them and view the files they're sharing with you.

Personally I wanted the ability to add more friends that aren't using any of the above mentioned services. But it looks like the company intentionally left out that option. Correction Wired's Eliot Buskirk writes: "That way people really have to know those they're sharing with. Not only does this discourage RIAA snoops, but it should also result in a more personal experience when using the software, because people will actually have to know their friends."

For a more in depth view as well as a great setup guide head over to Wired.com.

AT&T Wireless Bans P2P Users

AT&T told an FCC official on Friday that it plans to ban wireless phone subscribers from using file-sharing applications and threatens to terminate service of anyone caught doing so.

"AT&T's terms of service for mobile wireless broadband customers prohibit all uses that may cause extreme network capacity issues, and explicitly identify P2P file sharing applications as such a use," said Robert Quinn, AT&T's senior vice president of federal regulatory affairs.

AT&T made the statement last week in response to a question posed by FCC Republican Robert McDowell. McDowell asked AT&T about its policy on P2P traffic over its wireless network at an FCC forum in July.

AT&T tries to justify its actions of banning P2P applications stating "A small number of users of P2P file sharing applications served by a particular cell site could severely degrade the service quality enjoyed by all customers ... " Quinn said.

Quinn noted that AT&T has not terminated anyone because "the vast majority of our customers abide by their contractual commitments."

Source: Multichannel News

Are We Ready For A Nationwide P2P Monitoring System

If Senator Joe Biden, a democrat from Delaware, has his way we might have to be. His new plan for combating kiddie porn on the internet would seek to do just that.

It’s “pretty easy to pick out the person engaged in either transmitting or downloading violent scenes of rape, molestation,” said Biden, because all you have to do is look at the filenames. He cites a piece of software, known as “Operation Fairplay,” which currently sees use around the world and at regional Internet Crimes Against Children task forces in the U.S.

Operation Fairplay is a “comprehensive computer infrastructure” that gives law enforcement officers a view of the “big picture” of child pornography transfers around the country. Biden says Special Agent Flint Waters of the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office developed the program, and describes him as an expert in the field.

Based on Waters' statements to the Senate Judiciary subcommittee, the system appears to work like this: Investigators log onto peer-to-peer file-sharing networks as any other person would and search for files containing certain keywords that are likely to indicate child pornography is involved. Then they download the files--frequently videos, sometimes as long as 20 to 30 minutes, with names like "children kiddy underage illegal.mpg" and much more obscene--to their own machines. They're able to use the Fairplay software to obtain the IP address of the file's sender and, in some cases, display its geographic location in map form.

Once armed with an IP address and date and time of the download, investigators can subpoena the Internet service provider for more information, such as name and address of the subscriber who was assigned it at that moment. "It's not necessarily the suspect but it tells us the physical location to start," Waters said. (He didn't say whether any wiretaps were conducted to monitor ongoing file swapping.)

Fairplay is also capable of tracking the files themselves, monitoring where a file goes by its hashcode – often generated by the P2P client itself as a means of identifying identical files with different filenames.

According to Biden, the FBI’s “Innocent Images” unit only has 32 investigators working on the case – allowing the agency to tackle less than 2 percent of what he calls “known” cases of child pornography tracking on the internet. As a result, Biden is pushing the “Combating Child Exploitation Act,” which would authorize over $1 billion, spent over the next eight years, to hire an additional 250 agents for the child pornography unit and increase child pornography enforcement worldwide. “We can get our arms around it, the worst aspect of it,” said Biden, “if we provide the resources.”

Biden’s stance is unique in that he isn’t directly opposed to P2P as a whole, recognizing the technology’s use in legal situations. “Blaming this problem on peer-to-peer innovation,” he said, “is like blaming the interstate highway system when someone uses it to transport drugs.”

Senator Biden has pushed for passage of a bill known as the Combating Child Exploitation Act. It would authorize more than $1 billion over the next eight years to hire 250 new federal agents devoted to Internet crimes against children, provide additional funding to regional computer forensics labs, and give out more federal grants to the regional Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task forces. The House of Representatives passed a companion bill in October.

More reading

• DailyTech


• CNet New

My thoughts

I'm not against tracking and catching internet predators, nor do I condone child porn, I think its relatively sick and twisted, however tracking someone down and accusing them of being involved in these activities based solely on a filename is something I won't agree on. My long standing opposition to any type of net censorship, tracking ect aside, focusing law enforcement time and resources to track someone just for having a file with a "sensitive" name really borders on civil infringements.

Virgin Media Sends File-Sharers Mixed Messages

UK broadband provider Virgin Media says they'll be the first UK ISP to voluntarily track their users' pirated file-sharing transfers, and will terminate the accounts of repeat "three strike" offenders.

The UK broadband firm has agreed to a test project that will scan for illegal copies of music and other media across the service. The monitoring will follow a three-strike rule that will see users receive a letter for a first violation; a second violation will result in a temporary suspension of Internet access, while a third will force the customer to cancel their service altogether.

However in a complete 180 of tracking file-sharing Virgina announced it will offer an enhanced service which will provide customers get free Usenet binaries access, untraceable by the ISP, music industry or nay other snoops out there.

According to Reuters a Virgin spokesman said: “We’re delighted to be working with Highwinds to build out our newsgroup service. Our expanded access to newsgroups will give our customers a free news feed to newsgroups with exceptional retention, providing one of the best free newsgroup services in the UK.”

The British government has been pushing for legislation requiring ISPs to take action against users using their networks for illegal file-sharing. Virgin media would simply be taking a preemptive stance by teaming up with the UK's version of the RIAA, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

According to The Telegraph, "the BPI has teams of technicians to trace illegal music downloading to individual accounts. It will hand these account numbers over to Virgin Media, which will match them to names and addresses."

News like this saddening, it means a break down in the nature of the internet. While I don't condone nor do I participate in illegal file-sharing I whole heartedly disagree with content filtering, internet censorship or any other infringement on the free and open use of the web.

Comcast Decides To Work With BitTorrent And P2P Users

In a shocking announcement, Comcast and BitTorrent have said they will partner to address issues of network management and architecture, as well as content distribution.

According to the Wall Street Journal Comcast and BitTorrent are negotiating to allow BitTorrent's peer-to-peer software to run more effectively on Comcast's network.

The companies are in talks to collaborate on ways to run BitTorrent's technology more smoothly on Comcast's broadband network, and allow Comcast to transport video files more effectively over its own network in the future, said Tony Warner, Comcast's chief technology officer.

The announcement might come to as a major shock to many users, especially given Comcast's previous stance of blocking P2P content. Several lawsuits have been filled over the past few years over Comcast's alleged blocking of P2P applications and protocols.

The FCC has been looking into issues with Comcast and its content filtering practices. The ongoing inquiry looks into what constitutes "reasonable" network management practices--and, specifically, whether it should find fault with Comcast's special treatment of file-sharing traffic

"This deal is the direct result of public pressure -- and the threat of FCC action -- against Comcast," Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press, said in his statement. "But with Comcast's history of broken promises and record of deception, we can't just take their word that the Internet is now in safe hands. The issue of net neutrality is bigger than Comcast and BitTorrent."

The agreement doesn't protect other P-to-P companies or other "innovative" applications and services, and it doesn't prevent other ISPs from blocking or slowing Internet traffic, Ammori said.

Verizon Adds P2P Improvements

Verizon announced that it will be using an improved form of peer-to-peer management technology to lower the cost of P2P applications used by customers on its network.

While other ISPs have banned, blocked or slowed peer-to-peer traffic in their efforts to keep users from sharing files across their networks Verizon has set out to help its users share files faster, as long as they are doing so legally.

At a conference in New York, the Verizon group will present test results showing that when an ISP cooperates with a file-sharing software maker they can speed downloads an average of 60 percent — though collaboration boosted some downloads six-fold on fast Internet connections.

"This test signifies a turning point in the history of peer-to-peer technology and ISPs," said Robert Levitan, chief executive of file-sharing company Pando Networks Inc. "It will definitely show ISPs that the problem is not peer-to-peer technology, the problem is how you deploy it. It is possible to deploy P2P to their advantage."

Net neutrality has been a heated debate recently, with companies like Comcast and AT&T deciding to fight back against P2P usage. AT&T announced earlier this year plans to block file-sharing and Comcast has been defending themselves against several lawsuits. The move by Verizon to embrace, at least some form of, file-sharing is a big step.

P4P technology does nothing to affect the number of inbound and outbound connections, which doesn't affect Verizon as much as say Comcast. So it probably won't be adapted by many of the other ISPs and Verizon Wireless will still forbid peer-to-peer applications on its network. However should this prove a success it could be a building block for future programs that allow legal file-sharing.

ArsTechnia: $5 a month for legal P2P, Or Mandatory Piracy Surcharge?

The great folks over at Ars Technia published this article this afternoon, "$5 a month for legal P2P could happen sooner than you think". The article is related to the wired story "Music Industry Proposes a Piracy Surcharge on ISPs", however after reading the ARS article it would seem (to me at least) that ARS missed Jim Griffins key points.

He is not advocating a voluntary system, whereas users could pay $5/mo to their ISP and have unlimited P2P downloads. From reading the wired article it looks as though he is in fact suggesting a mandatory collection of $5/mo per user from ISPs regardless of P2P usage. And we know any fees imposed upon them will be handed down to the consumer, P2P user or not.

Griffin's idea is to collect a fee from internet service providers -- something like $5 per user per month -- and put it into a pool that would be used to compensate songwriters, performers, publishers and music labels. A collecting agency would divvy up the money according to artists' popularity on P2P sites, just as ASCAP and BMI pay songwriters for broadcasts and live performances of their work.

Maybe I'm misreading the article but that would be my take on. I see nothing mentioning voluntary action, the way I read it the "Piracy Surcharge" would be mandatory for the ISPs thus becoming mandatory for subscribers. I for one do not need a higher bill from my ISP!

The article has sparked some interesting debate over at the Ars Technia forums.

Bill Seeks Crack Down On College File-Sharing

The College Opportunity and Affordability Act includes provisions to crack down on students downloading music and movies over the school's network.

The College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 not only tries to make college more affordable and loan agencies more transparent it also adds penalties for noncompliance if colleges don't set stricter controls over P2P file sharing.

Many colleges already have policies in place, and try their best to prevent students from illegal file sharing however as well all know that is next to impossible. Once a barrier is set into place it only take a determined mind a few tools and time to find away around it.

Mark A. Luker, vice president of Educause, a nonprofit that works with colleges to promote the intelligent use of technology has said technologies—such as those that Congress, the RIAA, and the MPAA are promoting—just aren't effective yet.

"Monitoring technology touted by the MPAA and RIAA is still in a primitive stage," Luker says, "and the proposed law asks every college to implement these expensive monitoring technologies that simply aren't developed enough to handle the task. These applications often miss music or movie downloads, or they block many transfers that are legal for students to download."

How to Speed Up Movie Downloads

Researchers have designed a new way to get the most out of peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, decreasing the time it takes to download movies and music.

By Brendan Borrell TechReview.com

Let's face it: peer-to-peer file transfers on the Internet are slow. More than half of all downloads fail, and the average transfer time for a 100-megabyte file is more than 24 hours. But now, a team of computer scientists led by Himabindu Pucha at Purdue University, in Indiana, say that they can double the speed of these transfers by taking advantage of overlap in data chunks contained within nonidentical multimedia files posted on peer-to-peer distribution networks. This would improve the likelihood of success of these transfers.

Locating that file with just 10 percent similarity could speed up downloads by 8 percent. For music files with greater than 90 percent similarity, a five-minute download on BitTorrent would take just over two minutes with SET.

Peer-to-peer distribution networks such as BitTorrent and Kazaa allow people to download individual files from others' computers. These systems first locate the copies of the requested file in the network's global lookup table using its "hash"--a unique identifier computed from the file's data sequence. Then, the file is divided into chunks so that each user's computer only has to upload a small piece of it. This technique speeds up file transfers because home users typically have greater bandwidth allocated to downloads compared with uploads. Of course, the overall speed of the transfer will depend on the number of file sources and how much spare upload capacity they have. The more popular a file is, the faster it is to download and the greater the chance of success.

Computer scientist David Andersen, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, worked with the Purdue group to develop a way to increase the size of the pool of uploaders called similarity-enhanced transfer (SET). The approach takes advantage of multiple variants of the same music files, video clips, and software, which are often floating around file-distribution networks. "We hope that SET gives you access to a larger pool of people to download from," says Andersen. "And by doing so, we think you're more likely to find one of these people who have more spare capacity."

Before Andersen and his colleagues conducted their study, it was not at all clear how much redundancy existed in file-sharing networks and whether it could be exploited, says Cornell University computer scientist Emin Gün Sirer, who was not involved in the study. The SET team analyzed almost two terabytes of music and video files from file-sharing networks, and it discovered that similar files typically shared anywhere between 20 and 99 percent of their content. With music files, even misspellings in user-defined header labels that identify artist and song titles are enough to throw off BitTorrent, despite the fact that 99 percent of the file is the same. Similarly, multiple versions of the same video are often available with different language tracks.
Next Page

Joost Is Ready To Go Live

TV, the way you want it

The magic of television, with the power of the internet built right in. Joost puts you in control, and TV will never be the same again. Currently, the software is in beta-testing stage. A beta invite is required to join the Joost community however it should be available to the public soon.

Joost (pronounced 'juiced') is an interactive software for distributing TV shows and other forms of video over the Web using peer-to-peer tv technology, created by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa).

Joost began development in 2006. Working under the code name "The Venice Project," Zennstrom and Friis have assembled teams of some 150 software developers in about a half-dozen cities around the world, including New York, London, Leiden and Toulouse. Joost's CTO is Dirk-Willem van Gulik.[1]

The teams are currently in negotiations with TV networks. It has signed up with Warner Music, Ministry of Sound TV and production company Endemol for the beta.[2] In February 2007, Viacom entered into a deal with the company to distribute content from its media properties, including MTV Networks, BET and film studio Paramount Pictures.

Company representatives have gone on record as saying the name should be pronounced as "juiced"[3]. This differs from the pronunciation of the Dutch first name Joost, which is pronounced 'Yohst.'

The program is based on P2PTV technology and is expected to deliver near-TV resolution images. It turns a PC into an instant on-demand TV without any need for additional set top box. News updates, discussion forums, show ratings, and multi-user chat sessions (often linked to the active stream/channel) are made possible through the use of semi-transparent widget overlays.

The current version of the software is based on XULRunner and the audio management re-uses the ZAP Media Kit. The peer to peer layer comes from the Joltid company, which also provided the peer to peer layer of Skype. The video playback utilizes the CoreCodec, CoreAVC H.264 video decoder.

Operating system support

Currently, Joost beta/alpha software supports:

* Windows XP Home/Professional with SP2
* Windows Vista
* Mac OS X 10.4.6 and above

This support is limited to computers running with x86 processors (Intel, AMD, etc.).

A PowerPC version is planned to open support for Mac users without Intel processors. Linux versions are also reportedly in development, and the port to "Linux and PowerPC" is in the midst of development.

As opposed to streaming technology in which all clients get the feed from the server, P2P TV technology differs in the sense that the servers serve only a handful of clients; each of the clients in turn propagate the stream to more downstream clients and so on. This moves the distribution costs from the channel owner to the internet service providers.

The Joost service will be ad-supported, with advertising analogous to that shown on traditional TV, according to CEO Fredrik de Wahl.

For more information and great reviews visit cybersurge.org

RIAA Opposes New Fair Use Bill

New bill would let customers make limited numbers of copies of copyrighted works
By Grant Gross, IDG News Service

A new bill in the U.S. Congress aimed at protecting the fair use rights for consumers of copyright material would "legalize hacking," the Recording Industry Association of America said.

The Freedom and Innovation Revitalizing U.S. Entrepreneurship (FAIR USE) Act, introduced Tuesday by U.S. Representatives Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat, and John Doolittle, a California Republican, would allow customers to circumvent digital copy restrictions in six limited areas when copyright owners' business models are not threatened, Boucher said in a press release. So-called fair use doctrine allows customers of copyright works to make limited numbers of copies, particularly for reviews, news reporting, teaching and research.

The bill would allow exemptions to the anticircumvention restrictions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed by Congress in 1998. The bill is revamped from similar bills introduced in the last two sessions of Congress, Boucher said.

"The fair use doctrine is threatened today as never before," Boucher said in a statement. "Historically, the nation's copyright laws have reflected a carefully calibrated balanced between the rights of copyright owners and the rights of the users of copyrighted material. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act dramatically tilted the copyright balance toward complete copyright protection at the expense of the public's right to fair use."

But the RIAA said the bill would effectively repeal the DMCA. The bill would "allow electronics companies to induce others to break the law for their own profit," it said in a statement. Advances such digital music sales, online games, on-demand movies and e-books can be traced to DMCA protects, the RIAA said.

"The difference between hacking done for non-infringing purposes and hacking done to steal is impossible to determine and enforce," the RIAA said in its statement.

The Boucher bill would limit the availability of statutory damages against individuals and firms who may be found to have engaged in contributory infringement, inducement of infringement, or other indirect infringement. The bill would allow libraries to circumvent digital locks or secure copies of works that have been damaged, lost or stolen.

The Consumer Electronics Association applauded the bill, saying it would give protections to consumers, educators, and libraries. Without fair use protections, consumers couldn't use devices such as VCRs and digital TV recorders, the trade group said.

BitTorrent, Joost Put Download Tech to Legal Use

By Reuters
SAN FRANCISCO—There was a time when the phrase "peer-to-peer" (P2P) was practically a curse word in the music industry.

But in the past month, two new services have emerged to utilize the technology for the legal, protected distribution of content—specifically video.

One of them is BitTorrent, which developed the technology that at one point was used for one-third of all P2P traffic on the Internet. The other is Joost—formerly known as the Venice Project—which was founded by the same developers who created the notorious Kazaa music-swapping community and later the Skype Internet telephone service.

Both BitTorrent and Joost rely on P2P technology to enhance the user experience. The more popular a file is on either network, the easier and faster it will be to download. Whereas the iTunes store shut down last Christmas because of overwhelming demand, services like BitTorrent and Joost are designed to improve as demand increases.

Despite their history with unauthorized digital content distribution, both services are setting themselves up to provide some of the better digital entertainment services available today. The question is: Will their technology credibility be sufficient to lure into a more legitimate environment the millions of downloaders who previously have used their technology to steal content?

BitTorrent

More than 135 million people have downloaded the BitTorrent technology worldwide. It basically lets people publish content to the Internet in a way that enables multiple users to quickly download large files by sharing the distribution load. While it has several legitimate uses—game publishers use it to distribute software updates—it also is used by such sites as Pirate Bay to allow illegal downloads of Hollywood movies.

The company hopes to convert these users into legitimate customers through the BitTorrent Entertainment Network, which launches Feb. 26. The new service has compiled the rights to more than 3,000 movies, 1,000 games and 1,000 music videos from 34 participating content providers.

The move makes BitTorrent a distributor—connecting content owners to the technology's users in an attempt to monetize their interest in digital entertainment. Like any authorized digital music service, the challenge is to entice consumers away from a free, pirated environment into a paid, legal one. The strategy aims to offer a better experience than the chaotic pirate sites.

"You never saw an ad that says, 'Use iTunes because it's legal,'" BitTorrent COO Ashwin Navin says. "What users care about is getting their favorite content in a digital format. Only a very small percentage of our users are pirating content because they are anti-establishment or want to fight the man."

Users can rent movies at $4 each, download-to-own TV shows and music videos for $2 and get user-generated content free. The company also plans to add a digital-rights-management-free music download service in the near future.

Joost

While BitTorrent works a rental download model, Joost is an ad-supported streaming video service currently in beta testing. Of the many sources providing video at this time, Warner Music Group (WMG), Nettwerk, MusicNation, Voy and now Viacom are all contributing music videos and other music-themed programming.

Joost takes streaming video to a new level, with TiVo-like user controls and a high-quality full-screen display that captured the attention of content partners. Like BitTorrent, it uses P2P technology to optimize the streaming process.

But what really sets Joost apart is its ability to add widgets, or plug-ins—small applications that run atop the streaming video screen, enabling a degree of interactivity.

For instance, a chat tool allows users viewing the same video to discuss it with one another in real time. Joost not only allows but encourages content providers to create their own plug-ins customized for their video.

MusicNation is one such provider. The company conducts an online battle-of-the-bands competition on its Web site and will be providing exclusive content to Joost. It plans to create a live voting plug-in as part of that process.

"It wasn't just about the display," MusicNation founder and chief marketing officer Lucas Mann says, "it was about building a dynamic experience."