Future of P2P: What Comes After The Pirate Bay
The verdict against The Pirate Bay could turn out to be something of a game changer for P2P file sharing. Granted, the four defendants have already filed their appeals, and the site is currently up and running. In fact, there are 22 million peers connected as I write this, which suggests that most Pirate Bay users don’t feel threatened in any way by the court’s decision.
However, history has shown that court verdicts against high-profile file-sharing services can lead to the emergence of newer and technically superior platforms. This trend could be accelerated by renewed attempts to take down The Pirate Bay’s infrastructure. So what’s in store for the future of P2P?
Vuze Moves to the Big Screen
P2P video platform Vuze today announced that users can now watch content downloaded to their Mac or PC on mobile and TV screens. The Vuze software update supports viewing via iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, PS3, and Xbox 360.
In the latest version of Vuze, there is a “Devices” tab listing the various viewing options. Users drag and drop videos from their Vuze library to one of these destinations and the software will determine whether the file can play on the device selected, convert the file and make it available for playback. For iTunes users, the video will be pushed into the iTunes library, where it can be moved around to various Apple devices. For Xbox and PlayStation users, the content will be streamed to the game console from the computer.
Last year was a rough one for Vuze as the company went through two rounds of layoffs, losing half of its work force. In October, Vuze launched a revamped client that was aimed at both beginners and power users (read: pirates), and around that time switched from a paid download model to ad-supported content in an effort regain some of the losses it experienced as users moved to other BitTorrent clients.
Vid-Biz: iTunes, Watchmen, Adidas.tv
Why Being a Hit on iTunes Isn’t So Great; Robert Seidman looks at the economics of being number one at Apple’s download store and find there just isn’t enough there yet. (TVbytheNumbers)
FYI Signs Six-Figure Watchmen Promo Deal; deal includes integration into three episodes of Kyle Piccolo: Comic Shop Therapist. (Tubefilter)
All Day I Dream About Streaming? Adidas to launch Adidas.tv as a global hub for video content produced by the shoemaker. (AdWeek)
BitTorrent Rules the P2P School; BitTorrent protocol responsible for 45 – 78 percent of all P2P traffic. (TorrentFreak)
Economy Hits Comcast; cable company loses more basic subscribers and gains fewer digital subscribers than Wall Street had hoped. (GigaOM)
Five Million Homes Not Ready for DTV; despite 641 stations going digital as of yesterday, 4.4 percent of the country was unprepared for the switch. (Broadcasting & Cable)
Why YouTube and Music Companies Can’t Get Along; like most disputes, it boils down to fear and money. (paidContent)
Why the End of the RIAA Lawsuits Won’t Change Anything
The Recording Industry Association of America has decided to end its five-year-long lawsuit campaign against music file sharers, the Wall Street Journal reported today, with the major record labels opting to instead work with ISPs to combat the practice. Some major ISPs have apparently already agreed to take part in a graduated response program: Share once, and you’ll get a slap on the wrist. Get caught the third time, and your contract gets canceled.
Mathew Ingram over at GigaOM thinks this is a bad idea because it privatizes copyright enforcement, meaning that alleged offenders won’t have any clear recourse when they’re wrongly accused. That’s true, and definitely something to be worried about, but it’s not exactly new. ISPs took on the role of copyright cops a long time ago; for some, the new agreement only formalizes policies that are already in place. And not much changes for the users, either. They can still get sued, despite the agreement. And yet, they will still continue to share music, and a whole lot of video as well.
Joost Abandons P2P – Or Not?
Joost has informed its users via email that it will discontinue the support of its desktop client today and instead completely concentrate on its new web site. This is a big step for a company that once aimed to revolutionize online video with P2P technology, and whose founders previously succeeded with P2P apps like Kazaa and Skype. But it’s way too early to declare the death of P2P video streaming, as some seem eager to do in light of Joost shifting course.
Not only are others far more successful with P2P video clients, but it looks like Joost may bring back some elements of its software sooner or later. This includes P2P distribution, but also other social and interactive features that made Joost’s software unique. Maybe we’ll have to hold off writing the obituaries for both Joost and P2P just a little longer.
2008: The Year ISPs Got Real About P2P Video
In 2008, ISPs started to really feel the heat when it comes to video file-sharing. Comcast got reprimanded by the FCC for blocking BitTorrent transfers and consumers rebbelled against P2P throttling. Meanwhile the entertainment industry has been demanding harsher enforcement and HD-swapping users have been eating up more and more bandwidth. In other words: It’s been a big mess.
The good news is that the increased pressure from all sides has forced ISPs to come to terms with the reality of file-sharing and other forms of P2P video distribution, which is essentially: You can’t stop it, so you might as well find ways to make it run more smoothly on your network. Read more of this story
Whatever Happened To P2P Set-Top Boxes?
2008 was supposed to be the year when Internet video finally reached the living room, thanks to a whole bunch of set-top boxes. Part of that mix was supposed to be P2P, either in the form of distributed streaming, or good old BitTorrent downloads. Well, guess what: It hasn’t really happened — at least not on a large scale. Most of us still watch YouTube and Hulu on our laptops, and file-sharing continues to be almost exclusively PC-based.
So whatever happened to all those P2P set-top boxes that were supposed to revolutionize not only how we watch video, but also how those bits reach our living room? With the year coming to a close, we decided to check back, report about progress (and failures) and give an outlook for the fate of these boxes in 2009.
Adobe Makes P2P Flash Video Available to Developers
Adobe officially unveiled the P2P video streaming capabilities of Flash 10 to developers this week. The technology itself is still in its infancy, but the mere fact that Adobe decided to embrace P2P for Flash 10 made a lot of headlines earlier this year. Many people, including Om over at GigaOM, wondered whether Adobe was taking aim at the CDN market with this technology and whether we will soon all watch our YouTube videos in a P2P fashion.
The short answer is: We won’t — at least not with Adobe’s help. The current P2P implementation, which goes by the name Real-Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP), isn’t really suited for mass-scale video delivery. Instead, it focuses solely on scenarios in which one client exchanges live video or audio data with another client. Think video conferences, Flash-based VOIP or even multi-player games. Just not YouTube. Not anytime soon.
Mac Version of uTorrent Released
The popular BitTorrent client, uTorrent, is now available for Macs. TorrentFreak writes that the long-awaited Mac version only runs on Leopard/Intel Macs right now and is in beta.
UTorrent for Windows has been around since September of 2005. BitTorrent Inc. acquired uTorrent in 2006, and roughly two years ago work on a Mac version began. An alpha version of the Mac client leaked on to the public earlier this year, but this version has significant improvements.
A BitTorrent Inc. rep told TorrentFreak that the company is now working to fix bugs with the PowerPC as well getting uTorrent to run on the Tiger OS.
The new Mac uTorrent can be downloaded here.
Boxee Wants to Enlist TV Pirates to Grow Hulu’s Audience
Forget filters, DRM and locked-down set-top boxes. The makers of the open-source media center Boxee have a novel approach aimed at getting people to watch TV from legitimate sources. The idea behind it is not to punish pirates, but to instead use them as taste makers that could drive others to Hulu, Joost and similar streaming media web sites.
I sat down with Boxee’s head of products, Dave Mathews, at the DCIA’s P2P and Video conference a few days ago. Boxee has been enjoying a busy month, issuing a major announcement almost every week. First it was unveiled that Boxee is now running on the Apple TV platform. Then Hulu came to Boxee, and most recently, the Boxee team won the CES i-stage competition, earning not only $50,000 but a booth at the next CES in Las Vegas. Boxee won the award, in part, because of its social features, which could help turn potential pirates into Hulu users.
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- 2 Days Till the NewTeeVee Hollywood Meetup [NewTeeVee]
- Apple Opens Drive-Thru iPhone Screen Replacement [jkOnTheRun]
- Task.fm Updates, Adds Twitter and Email Support [WebWorkerDaily]
- Snow Leopard in Depth: Grand Central Dispatch [TheAppleBlog]
- Google Phone Designers Envision Self-Driving Electric Concept Car [Earth2Tech]
- DOJ Wants to Probe Telcos? It Should Take a Number [GigaOM]
- The European Commission's Open Source-Friendly Stance Draws Fire [OStatic]
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