Kickin' it at da OTC

Here is the full list of pages on kickin-it-at-da-otc.phoolish.org Part 4

2008-07-23T02:05:00.000-07:00

Here is the full list of pages on kickin-it-at-da-otc.phoolish.org Part 3

2008-07-22T02:05:00.000-07:00

Here is the full list of pages on kickin-it-at-da-otc.phoolish.org Part 2

2008-07-21T02:05:00.000-07:00

Here is the full list of pages on kickin-it-at-da-otc.phoolish.org

2008-07-20T02:05:00.000-07:00

bikini girls get WILD!

2007-06-04T00:50:00.004-07:00

these girls don't let their bikini'd state stop them from going hogwild on each other. it's amazing, tara reid blinks and her boob falls out, and not one boob fell out during this fight. oh well. more videos

redneck chicks throwing blows

2007-06-04T00:50:00.003-07:00

yee haw, where the hell is this at? more videos

edit: this is in athens georgia! thank you athens.

half naked girls water wrestling

2007-06-04T00:50:00.002-07:00

half naked girls water wrestling, i really don't see why they bother with the formality of actually having them wrestle in something. more videos

chinese girls fighting

2007-06-04T00:50:00.001-07:00

chinese girls fighting, little disappointing, i didn't see any karate at all. more videos

girls fighting over shoes

2007-06-04T00:50:00.000-07:00

here's some girls fighting over shoes. as you might expect. more videos

Minor League Manager Goes Nuts

2007-05-23T18:20:00.003-07:00

Minor League Manager Goes Nuts more videos

Hilarious Conan I-phone Commercial

2007-05-23T17:47:00.000-07:00

the iphone does it all! yee haw. more videos

Two vulnerabilities in KDE BitTorrent client KTorrent

2007-03-29T11:26:00.009-07:00

Version 2.1.2 of the open-source BitTorrent client KTorrent for KDE removes two vulnerabilities. The first one is said to enable an attacker to cause the application to crash. According to the bug report by Ubuntu the vulnerability also allows code to be injected onto a system and executed. The vulnerability is found in the module chunkcounter.cpp and is triggered by large idx values.

The second vulnerability is said to allow the deliberate overwriting of files on a system. The problem occurs because KTorrent does not correctly validate the destination file paths or the HAVE statements sent by torrent peers. Inserting the string .. into the filename is said to be all that is needed to break out of defined directories.

The source code of the new KTorrent is available for download at ktorrent.org. The Linux distributor Ubuntu has also released debugged packages.

RIAA casts off logic amid sinking sales

2007-03-29T11:26:00.008-07:00

Losing sales? Customers leaving in droves? Just sue!

Wrong answer. While the Recording Industry Association of America is blaming file sharing for sinking sales, it might want to look at its own efforts to sell music. Certainly, if people are stealing music in droves rather than buying it, the industry must be making some large mistakes.

First off, the lawsuit tactic alienates customers while driving others to new methods of theft. The RIAA have little means to control other new file-sharing methods. OurTunes is cited in RIAA reports as a new threat. This is because it is an intra-network program. OurTunes can only be accessed by those in a local network. As such, unless your housefellow is actually being contracted by the RIAA, there are no prying eyes. Secondly, options like SendShare allow large groups of people to share songs, albums and box sets with anyone who has the correct link. Then there’s the BitTorrent site Pirate Bay, which has survived numerous attempts to shut down its massive database of links to BitTorrent files. Limewire users may be scared off by lawsuits, but anyone with enough patience to surf the web for more than 15 minutes can find a quick loophole out of the recording industry’s arms.

Why are these people abandoning the market? Simply put, the industry has failed the consumer in every way — in quality, distribution and access. The industry has become so consumed with increasing profits that the best method of doing that — putting out good music at a reasonable price — has become a lost art.

File sharing doesn’t destroy the record industry; it just applies “survival of the fittest” to albums and singles. Good music is downloaded and bought; bad music is downloaded and dumped. In 2000, Radiohead’s album Kid A leaked three months prior to its official release. Experts predicted poor album sales with the leak and no singles. It did exactly the opposite. Radiohead became the first British band in three years to top the U.S. album charts. A more recent example is Arcade Fire. Their first album, Funeral, peaked at No. 135 on the U.S. album charts. When their latest album leaked nearly two months before its release date, disaster was predicted again when marketing plans had to be rushed. It debuted two weeks ago at No. 2. People still buy albums, but only the ones they know are good. File sharing encouraged those sales.

The record industry refuses to raise standards of quality in artistry because they’re focused on profitable marketing. The Arctic Monkeys may have been right when they said, “There’s only music so that there’s new ringtones.” The industry is concerned with marketing music in ways that sell, which is fine. They are corporations, after all. However, that doesn’t mean cultivating artists, but instead shoving flavor-of-the-month artists into whatever commercial niche fits.

The only problem is how it sells. Catchy may sell quickly and easily, but it doesn’t have a long-lasting effect. It’s easy to get new artists to the top of charts, but it’s much harder to keep them there. Quality music stays at the top — Dark Side of the Moon not only spent nearly 1,500 weeks on the Billboard 200, it still sells around 9,600 copies a week in the United States.

Quality music exists, but so does mediocre music. Repetitive, lackluster music still sells — ask Nickelback — but the overall market suffers because of it. So what should they do?

First off, dump terrestrial radio. Considering Sony-BMG got caught paying radio stations to get Audioslave and Bow Wow on the air, radio can’t be trusted to play what is demanded. If Clear Channel blankets a radio station with 40 songs all day, every day, some songs are bound to stick. However, it provides options far too narrow for those with Internet or satellite radio. For all intents and purposes, FM radio was the industry’s workhorse. By working it the same way in a thicker soil, they’ve just about killed it. Introduce new and innovative artists through the outlet or bury the horse.

Second, give in to the digital music formats. If the industry is afraid of a complete switch leading to more file sharing, then they should have made it impossible to rip CDs to a computer — something they now claim is copyright infringement. The RIAA is relying on a dying format that is actually easier to share than legally downloaded music, which is encrypted to limit multiple users. The industry needs to switch to digital formats completely, before the death of CDs takes them down as well. Record executives have the opportunity to lead the charge and stop the bleeding, but only if they change paths and dive headlong.

The RIAA lawsuits are the sign of an industry holding on to the old way of doing business. The game has changed, and the players have to switch strategies. Otherwise, consumers and artists will use their new tools — which provide cheaper advertising, recording and distribution — to make music without the old guard.

Bram Cohen of BitTorrent ranked 3rd most important person on the web

2007-03-29T11:26:00.007-07:00

PC World created a list of what it considers to be the "50 Most Important People on the Web," and Bram Cohen is listed at number 3 behind Steve Jobs and the founding trio of Google.

With reports that BitTorrent is responsible for more than 35% of all internet traffic it's no wonder that Bram Cohen, creator of the BitTorrent protocol, and CoFounder of BitTorrent Inc., has recently been ranked as the 3rd most important person on the Web today.

In making the list, PC World said that it "...considered hundreds of the Web's most noteworthy power brokers, bloggers, brainiacs, and entrepreneurs to figure out whose contributions are shaping the way we use the Web."

Now that BitTorrent Inc.'s new legal movie download store, The BitTorrent Entertainment Network (BEN), is up and running, BitTorrent has the power to drastically alter the way that the average guy and gal buys and watches movies at home.

Long the bastion of pirates everywhere, BEN now offers a legal way of getting movie content and thereby drawing in the masses that were previously afraid to do so out of fear of breaking the law. Buying and watching movie content has never been so easy, and so too therefore may just perhaps be able to forever change what our concept of a "video store" is forever.

Without further ado, here's the top 10, check out PC World for the rest of the list.

1. Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and Sergey Brin, Executives, Google

2. Steve Jobs, CEO, Apple

3. Bram Cohen, Cofounder, BitTorrent

4. Mike Morhaime, President, Blizzard Entertainment

5. Jimmy Wales, Founder, Wikipedia

6. John Doerr, Venture capitalist, Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers

7. Craig Newmark, Founder, Craigslist

8. Peter Levinsohn, President, Fox Interactive Media

9. Marissa Mayer, Vice president for search products & user experience, Google

10. Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, Founders, YouTube

BitTorrent Ratio Exploit Software on the Increase

2007-03-29T11:26:00.006-07:00

Despite over a year for site administrators to deal with the exploit, tools for falsely increasing ratios at private BitTorrent sites are becoming increasingly easy to use.

Tools for exploiting the weak system used by private BitTorrent trackers to monitor user ratios are becoming increasingly user-friendly and available. Despite being a widely publicised problem for nearly a year, there are still no obvious solutions.

The exploit was first publicly highlighted in September last year, at Xyflar.

RatioMaster, who develops cheating software, explained to Zeropaid. “Private trackers keep statistics about how much you’re uploading and downloading. Those stats reported by each client. There are many ways to report wrong statistics.”

Private BitTorrent trackers rely on individual clients for information on how much the client has uploaded. Due to the decentralised nature of a BitTorrent swarm, trackers are unable to monitor the actual uploaded and downloaded data, so have to rely on the each client being honest.

By interrupting messages to the tracker, cheaters can change the reported upload and download statistics.

Xyflar explained how to exploit this weakness last year. By using freely available software, the site demonstrated how to increase the amount of uploaded data reported, hence giving a better ratio.

Despite being reported by major technology and file sharing websites, the exploit’s publication did not cause the predicted flood of leechers. Arguably this is because the exploit requires unfamiliar software and lots of time to execute. Each time a user wants to fake their upload, they must “catch” and then edit a packet sent to the tracker. Falsify the upload by too much, and anti-leeching scripts will catch the exploiter. Falsify by too little and the exploiter would need to catch and edit too many packets to make the exploit feasible.

This process has been automated by groups of cheaters, mostly in small communities who require a minimum number of forum posts to access the files. Steadily these cheats are becoming more readily available from a new wave of developers.

Theoretically, since the exploit does not require any abnormal code to be sent to trackers, the exploit is virtually impossible to detect.

Seba14 develops freely available hacked versions of uTorrent to help people with slow or restricted upload. Using his software is no different to using the standard version of uTorrent, making it shockingly easy to use. The software cheats by multiplying any upload by a factor of ten. He told Zeropaid, “If you use leecher mods carefully, the admin's of tracker sites have no chance to detect you at this time, because the tracker scripts don't know if the sending data of mods is real or fake, they see only a number.”

Another developer called RatioMaster creates ratio cheating software of the same name. Unlike the uTorrent hack by Seba14, his software is free standing and does not actually download or upload any data. Instead, a randomized speed within user defined parameters is reported to the tracker. RatioMaster automatically cuts off if the number of leechers on the torrent falls below a given figure.

RatioMaster is more cautious than Seba14 about the possibility of being caught.

“Some trackers have some anti-cheating scripts, which work on some cases of particularly suspicious reporting, like for example someone uploading too many too fast. If an anti-cheating script is good, I believe it can catch 90% of cheaters,” he told Zeropaid, before conceding, “Most of the time they ban people who don’t even cheat.”

Zeropaid tested both pieces of software at Torrentleech.org, Ilovetorrents.com, Filelist.org, Bitsoup.org and Oink. RatioMaster was set to spoof as Azureus. All testing was done at semi-realistic upload speeds.

Despite reaching a ratio of nearly 15 on some sites, the only ban came from Oink. This came after RatioMaster was left running for a long period of time, without the minimum leech safety catch enabled.

“It's impossible for all users to have ratio above 1. In reality 99% of users can barely stay above 0.5 by seeding 24/7,” said RatioMaster.

“Good tracker scripts can calculate the average upload speed between the tracker updates and so find ‘heavy’ cheating. Scripts exist which show the admin which users have an upload speed more than specifically value,” Seba14 explained. “So the admin can ask the user, ‘what's your connection?’, if the user lies, then the admin can do nothing.”

Feelings about the availability of this software run strong, as people feel that any leeching is anti-P2P. In an extreme case, one post on the RatioMaster forums compares the developers to child molesters.

However, Seba14 is defensive of releasing his software publicly. “Because the mods on my blog are free for all, the tracker administrators can test them and search for a way to detect them. Maybe they will find something,” he said.

RatioMaster agrees that increased availability of the software will lead to more solutions. “Some of the private trackers will employ anti-cheating measures that will catch most cheaters, it’s not that hard,” he justified.

However, no adequate solutions to stop people leeching have been implemented yet, despite the exploit being publicly known for nearly a year now.

Since the exploit relies on standard protocol code, the only solution may be to change the BitTorrent protocol to force clients to inform the tracker how much it has downloaded from each peer. Although the large private tracker sites could easily afford this, for many bandwidth is at a premium. Furthermore, that would leave users vulnerable to hacks developed to deliberately get other users banned.

“The only way to protect private trackers is by banning all clients which have modifications. Another way is the programming of an own client for each tracker,” Seba14 suggests. However, many sites already ban a long list of clients and are reluctant to ban popular clients like Azureus and uTorrent.

RatioMaster feels that stopping leeching is the wrong focus. Administrators should instead focus on encouraging seeding.

“Tools like mine and other cheating utilities and modifications will hopefully make torrent trackers consider applying things that encourage people to share,” he rationalized. “Lately torrent sites that really care about users more than about money have started to apply mods that encourage actual sharing. Like a mod that improves your ratio regardless of how much you upload, just by seeding (even if nobody leeching from you), so it encourage people to seed. Otherwise you can seed for days, but if nobody is downloading from you, your ratio will be the same.”

In the short term it does not look like there is going to be the doomsday scenario of leechers flooding and destroying private trackers. Like the rest of file sharing, the site owners will need to rely on good human nature for the sharing.

Zeropaid spoke to a contact close to the administrators of large private trackers, but the administrators refused comment.

BitTorrent's DRM troubles

2007-03-29T11:26:00.005-07:00

BitTorrent now has its video store online peddling DRM-loaded movies and TV shows.

And it's also providing an opportunity for BT president Ashwin Navin to, "experience first hand that DRM isn't too great for platform operators either, since Bittorrent.com has run into some major problems with their own copy protection scheme," says freelancer Janko Roettgers, among other things, the author of Mix, Burn & R.I.P. - Das Ende der Musikindustrie (the end of the music industry),

Here's what he has to say:

The first time I got aware of these problems was early last week when I tested the Bittorent.com download store. I downloaded an episode of the FX show 30 Days, which sells for 1.99 USD per episode. My Windows Media Player had no problems acquiring the license for the episode. But when I tried to play the show the screen stayed black, and a generic error message directed me to an even more generic Microsoft.com page.

First I thought something was wrong with my test system. It's a slightly older notebook after all, even though it still passes the Bittorrent.com system requirements. But then I read that other folks were struggling with the very same issues - and I got curious. Finally I found a possible explanation in the Bittorrent.com support section:

"The reason for this is an issue with Windows DRM, the rights management tool BitTorrent uses to authorize your viewing of the file you downloaded. Some of our content (like those from Fox and MGM for example) has tighter playback restrictions than others. In this case it is seeing your display settings as not allowed by the license."

The site goes on by saying that this is an issue that can be solved by updating your graphics driver:

"If you have older video drivers (pre-July 2005) and are using a laptop and/or a VGA output device there is a chance Windows Media Player will think there is something wrong."

So the obvious solution would be to do a system update and just get going, right? Well, if it only was that easy. First you have to figure out the release date of the driver you are using, and then you'll have to manually find a newer version:

"The Update Driver button in the window is unlikely to do this properly. You should go to your computer manufacturer's web site to download the latest drivers, or to the site of your video adaptor manufacturer."

Looks like watching a TV show on your computer just got really, really complicated. Especially in my case, since I'm using a four year old Sony notebook for all my Windows needs - and Sony lists the newest video driver being from 2003. Chipset manufacturer ATI apparently doesn't even remember they ever made such a chip. Seems like I'm out of luck.

Or am I? Just when I'm about to give up an email from Bittorrent's support folks comes in. They suggest to use some third party tool to modify and install ATI's drivers. Sounds adventurous, but it's supposed to work. Says the support guy whoose name I won't mention here:

"I had the same issue you had and used this tool to update my laptop's graphics card."

You know your download shop is in deep trouble when even your own support folks can't play your movies because of flawed DRM. And trouble it is for Bittorrent.com. The website confirms that content from Fox and MGM is affected, but some test reports also mention problems with rentals from Paramount. (Note: I've been trying to get an official response about this from Bittorrent for a week now. I've been told that they are still working on the issue, and I'll update this post as soon as their response comes in.)

Judging from a quick tally of the site's catalogue this means that some 800 titles may cause major playback problems for anyone who happens to own a notebook with a graphics driver that is more than 20 months old. That's about 25 percent of their total video catalogue.

But there is an upside, too. All of this will soon be over - at least if we believe Aswin Navin. Bittorrent's president wrote in his blog last year that we'll soon see the dawn of a new, DRM-free era. Maybe we should just wait things out until then and get our TV shows via The Pirate Bay Tivo like we used to. At least then we won't have waste our time with complicated driver updates..

Slashdot Slashdot it!

If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the end (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you're Chinese and you're looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php | | And use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don't buy their 'product'. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you're into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep's doorstep, making sure you've contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don't just complain. Do something!

Does the BitTorrent Entertainment Network's DRM only encourage piracy?

2007-03-29T11:26:00.004-07:00

With the increasingly beleaguered prospects for the viability of the BitTorrent Entertainment Network, it seems worth pondering why it needs DRM and playback restriction in the first place, and also who and how they impact it's ultimate long-term success.

BitTorrent Inc opened up it's new BitTorrent Entertainment Network video download store to much hype and hoopla almost 2 weeks ago, with it and movie execs heralding claims of "peace in our time." Yet, as we have all discovered, peace is a fragile creature, and the strains of DRM and media player compatibility are destined to end the love affair of the two parties.

BitTorrent Inc. is company that thirsts for profits just like any other yet, the restrictions placed upon it by its movies studio partners have effectively neutered its ability to succeed as envisioned and realize its true potential as a legitimate alternative to piracy and illegal file-sharing.

If it does fail, which I sadly predict will be the case, it will serve as future fodder for movie studio arguments that people don't want to pay for downloads, that downloading in and of itself is the real problem and must be curtailed. Rather than realize that it's the quality of the service being offered, they will no doubt determine that it's simply a lack of demand that was the cause of its failure, that pirates can never go "straight." It will then be a long time before we see the movie studios turning out in droves with such eager anticipation to embrace the digital download medium again.

What's sad is that we see this time and time again it seems with the movie and music industries, that they claim to embrace the future, even peeking out from their office windows and noting how nice it all looks, but then much like "Punxsutawney Phil" of groundhog fame, they quickly retreat inside afraid of nothing more than their own shadow.

I mean what is it that they fear? Is it fear itself like the famous phrase long ago uttered by FDR? I think what they really fear is losing the iron fisted control of their operations that they have long enjoyed..

The record industry is another perfect example.

The record industry secretly longs for the days that it recorded an album, manufactured it, put it on a shelf in the local record store, and then was able to dictate an oftentimes inflated an arbitrary price. The consumer had essentially no recourse or alternative, and was saddled with $20 dollar albums that usually had only a handful of tracks actually worth listening to.

The movie industry is guilty of the same thing.

The movie industry has fought all new technologies tooth and nail until somebody realized that they could make a buck if they tried it. Videocassettes and DVDs eventually became huge money earners for the industry and they learned to embrace them over time. But, now they have encountered a new medium, the digital one, and just like always they fight that which they don't understand.

Sure they have partnered with BitTorrent Inc. to deliver content to digital video content to consumers but, I think they are so afar id of what it may mean for their existing partners like Wal-Mart and also for the future of how consumers obtain content in general, that they are purposefully hamstringing the BitTorrent Entertainment Network's chances of succeeding.

Janko over at P2P Blog tried to buy a simple episode of 30 Days, only to find out that even Windows Media Player couldn't overcome Microsoft's own anti-piracy DRM software. Not a very good way to greet new customers.

So what should the movies studios do? What should a viable digital download service look like?

Well, as Ashwin Navin, BitTorrent Inc. CEO and co-founder, noted previously, "If were no competing effectively with piracy we're not going to win." He also pointed out that it needs to provide value to its customers, not compete against them.

The BitTorrent Entertainment Network as is fails miserably in its goal of "competing effectively against piracy" and providing any sort of value to its customers. The main types of downloads that BEN offers are essentially of two sorts, DVD movie releases and recently aired TV show episodes.

By the time a movie is released on DVD, any self-respecting pirate has long since downloaded a copy of the movie to watch already, and so any sort of DRM or playback restrictions are simply hampering BEN's ability to sell what is thereby essentially an inferior product. I mean let's cut to the chase, we're basically talking about a service that is selling DVD releases, which are already the most prevalent form of movie release on BitTorrent tracker sites.

All the reluctance by the movie studios to release DRM-free movies does is make people continue to download movies for free. Why hassle with paying for it if all it is is a bad version of a Blockbuster Video store rental?

TV shows are the other type of video media that BEN sells, and it too has no need for DRM restrictions. Why? Again, any self-respecting pirate already gets his episodes the night of its first airing(east coast time), or by waiting a few days and using sites like TV Links or PeekVid to stream episodes at ones leisure. Where's the incentive to spend hard-earned cash on buying TV shows if all you get is a bunch of hassle and heap of headache in return?

It seems to me that the movie studios are really only hurting themselves. If they are already losing money to piracy then wouldn't it make sense to try to recoup some of those costs even if it means loosening what kind of control you have over your content? If history has proven one thing when it comes to DRM security, it's that in the end none of it is ever secure.

The new Blu-ray disc format for instance, despite the best efforts of cryptography experts, was hacked in matter of months, and it no doubt took years of trial and research to design and perfect the system. It provides another example of how DRM is really meaningless in the end. Sure it stops the average guy from ripping and transferring "Top Gun" but, is that the type of person that they should really be concerned about in the first place?

Three people you are trying to lure into the fold of paying customers already have means at their disposal to get content of their choice that lacks any DRM or playback restrictions so why not try to compete on at least that much of an equal footing? It doesn't make any sense not to.

Lastly, to tell you truth, I think BEN's real customer base won't be the average guy anyways. There are far too many technical hurdles when it comes to using a BitTorrent client server that many non-tech savvy users will be able to understand. Can you imagine being a BEN tech assistant trying to walk a middle-aged lady in Indiana on how to try to forward her ports? Yuck and more yuck.

So when it comes down to it, the DRM and playback restrictions of BEN content really only has an impact on people who not only won't stand for it in the first place but, also are the very people the BitTorrent Entertainment Network was intended for. It's beyond bad for business, it's actually a business killer.

Navin knows DRM is bad for business, and has said as much before.

In an interview with PC World several Months ago he noted:

The bottom line is that DRM is bad for the content provider and it's bad for the consumer...

The reason it's bad for content providers is because typically a DRM ties a user to one hardware platform, so if I buy my all my music on iTunes, I can't take that content to another hardware environment or another operating platform. There are a certain number of consumers who will be turned off by that, especially people who fear that they may invest in a lot of purchases on one platform today and be frustrated later when they try to switch to another platform, and be turned off with the whole experience. Or some users might not invest in any new content today because they're not sure if they want to have an iPod for the rest of their life.

Well said. DRM only hurts the BitTorrent Entertainment Network's ability to lure the very people it had in mind when it was conceived. It's more than ironic, it's MORONIC.

I just hope that someday the movie studios listen to Navin and allow the BitTorrent Entertainment to do as it envisioned, and that is to provide a "better experience than piracy." So far it only encourages it as fails to yet provide pirates with a legitimate legal alternative to piracy.

People will always download movies and music - here’s how to address it

2007-03-29T11:26:00.003-07:00

In the times we live in, it’s a fact that a lot of people download music and movies from the web through P2P or BitTorrent. The music and movie industries naturally see this as a threat and try to stifle it, but it seems these attempts are in vain.

The idea is that companies, artists, actors and others should get paid for what they do, which is a fair assumption. The problem, though, is that the industry is stuck in old distributional chains where they had a lot more control. With the advent of Internet, however, things are bound to run out of control. My belief is that no matter how hard they try to legislate and to hunt people who fileshare down, the phenomenon will continue to exist, and also grow stronger in its rebelliousness against the “higher power”.
“We’ve lost so-and-so much money”

The basic, let’s be outright honest about this, crap is that companies lose so-and-so much money on people who have seen, for instance, a movie by downloading it instead of going to the cinema. Just because someone has watched a movie illegally doesn’t mean that they otherwise would have paid to see it. Most people watch movies in a casual manner, and instead of having some kind of fake hopes that this would have been money in the bank for the company, just see the enormous marketing benefit of this!

If they like the movie, they will tell their friends and recommend it. Their friends, in turn, might watch it in the cinema or buy the DVD; they might also just download it. Either way, if they like it, they will spread the word, and so on. Never underestimate viral marketing!
Which road to take

To me it seems like there are two fundamental paths to choose from; either, try and hunt down and punish people who fileshare, or find a new angle and offer a product that supersedes the illegal alternatives and instead makes people addicted to the “real” thing. In many cases, it comes down to availability:

Is what I want available when I want it? If not, how can I get it?

That’s the core mindset of the audience, so it’s time to listen to them. People love using the Internet for accessing their favorite music and movies, but the services today aren’t well-developed enough and/or are so ridiculously overpriced that, as an example, a movie download will cost the same as buying the DVD in a store, but without the packaging and actual DVD record. What makes you think people would pay the same money for less value? Really?
Digital Rights Management (DRM)

DRM is a joke. Really. Whenever a legally bought product, in any way, becomes harder to use than something that can be downloaded “for free”, why would people pay? Throw away all your demands for restrictions, because they simply won’t work. Let people share a movie or a song as many times as they want, through whatever medium they want.

Forget about proprietary solutions that limit the user to a certain computer platform or digital music (e.g. MP3) player. If, for any reason, the distribution channel forces the end user to use a product from a certain provider, you’ve lost. There will always be cracks, hacks and workarounds, so you have to live with it. Tough, but that’s the reality; never think you can outsmart such a vast community of people who are very technically skilled. DRM of any kind is the road to failure.
People do want to do the right thing

Some people will never pay, and that’s the way it is. A witch hunt will never make a difference, since their main goal is to get something for free, not the actual experience of what they’re getting. However, I sincerely believe that a majority people want to go the legal route and pay for what they watch/listen to. Anyone, who is, say, 25+ of age, have grown up in a world where you actually had to buy what you wanted, in terms of records and movies. Kids who are teenagers now, and the coming generations, learn to download things from the Internet before they learn to pay. And they are really the gist of the problem.

If such a habit becomes a de facto standard for accessing any entertainment material, we will have to face a downward spiral with less and less income for companies producing music and movies. And then, at the end of the day, less quality content will be produced and distribution companies will go for the quick profit. Everyone loses.
What users want

Whenever a music record, or, more importantly, a movie is released/having its premiere, people want it. Immediately! The buzz is right then, and as with all hypes, you have to let it work for you instead of against. Instead of fighting vigorously to quench it, music and movie companies have to start providing what people want. My humble take is that, if not already, the situation is on its way overboard. Listen to opinions, and try to meet the mass market’s need and desires, to able to outcompete illegal file sharing.

In the area of TV shows and movies, people don’t want to wait for it to come to their country, or to wait another week for the next episode of their favorite series. We live in a on-demand world and if the audience wants to watch several episodes in a row, let them have it (given that it’s already produced, of course).
My advice

* When a movie (or TV show) premiers, make it instantly available as a download to all the world.
* Make it available in a format so attractive that searching through P2P and/or BitTorrent sites for a good quality copy is a waste of time.
* Reasonable pricing: maybe $0.50 for a song and $5 for a movie.
* Alternatively, offer free ad-sponsored solutions, which will be a good complement to buying.
* No DRM or any other lock-ins. Seriously.
* General availability. Everything that’s accessible through any other channel has to be available through the Internet as well.

A good example

Some TV companies in the US made their TV shows available, ad-sponsored, online the day after they were shown on TV, which is, in general, a great idea. The problem with this, though (except for the fact that they haven’t been able to watch as the exact same time as the program), is, again, availability. Sure, US citizen could watch it, but what about the rest of the world? Sure, I understand the problematic situation that they can’t make it available to all the world simultaneously, while also trying to sell it to international networks. But this is most likely something that has to be changed to be able to cater to the whole world at once.

So, the only good example I’ve seen so far of thinking in the right terms is Joost. It is ad-supported but otherwise completely free for the end user, who can choose to watch whatever he/she wants no matter the time (I’ve been beta-testing Joost for a while now, and will write a review about it in the future; stay tuned). However, Joost doesn’t yet offer movies so there’s a wide open field there to target.

And I think this solution is one of the ways there are to go: offer good content as easily available as possible, with a different financing plan than current alternatives have.

BitTorrent/NetGear Venture Goes Live

2007-03-29T11:26:00.002-07:00

BitTorrent, Inc. continues to permeate throughout the home entertainment market. The BitTorrent protocol, already the de facto standard of file-sharing, has become a household name nearly on the same scale of Napster. To truly become a household name, BitTorrent has been pairing up with hardware manufacturers, notably NetGear, to deliver content throughout home networks.

One of the more self-proclaimed notable events of CES (Consumer Electronics Show) back in January was the NetGear Digital Entertainer HD (EVA8000). Today, NetGear announced the first shipments of the Digital Entertainer HD (DE HD). So what exactly is the DE HD?

Think of the DE HD as a device that eliminates the CD/DVD burning process or routing cables from the graphics card. The DE HD is a wireless interface to one's computer or media storage, which then streams audio or video content to either an HD TV or stereo system.

BitTorrent has been heavily promoting the device, which it hopes the consumer market will use to stream their content throughout the end user's home theater. However the DE HD is more versatile than just streaming paid content from the BitTorrent Entertainment Network (BEN). The device is compatible with an array of formats - both protected and unprotected. End users may be interested to know the DE HD supports MP3, AVI, and perhaps most importantly, XviD.

A foreseeable problem with the DE HD is that High Definition content is only displayed over the HDMI (High Definition Media Interface). Before this device becomes a "must have", the end user must have an HD monitor that supports HDMI. The press release is a bit vague when it comes to the DE HD's ability to play unprotected HD content, however the wording suggests this shouldn't be a problem.

"The Digital Entertainer HD can also stream many unprotected file formats from Macs, Linux computers, the NETGEAR Storage Central Turbo (SC101T), many USB storage devices such as flash drives and the iPod(R), and other portable music and video players."

The DE HD is certainly a step forward. However, consumers may question the need. To emulate the DE HD, the consumer can establish a wireless network, with the advantage of using a greater array of output interfaces supporting an HD signal.

BitTorrent Goes Legit With Online Store

2007-03-29T11:26:00.001-07:00

In the last month, about 30 million people have used BitTorrent's peer-to-peer software. And some unknown number of them were using the application to slurp down pirated TV shows or movies.

Now, BitTorrent has reinvented itself with an online storefront intended to sell those same Internet users versions of the stuff they may have been stealing a few weeks before ' and some of which is still floating around on illicit BitTorrent-based cyberspace hangouts.

Launched in late February, BitTorrent's consumer site will sell or rent encrypted video and music content, downloaded over its peer-to-peer networking software, from 35 content partners, which include major studios and TV programmers like MTV Networks and Fox.

The San Francisco-based startup, incorporated in 2004, incurred the wrath of entertainment companies because its software allows anyone with an Internet connection to download full-length, pirated movies or TV shows.
Internet Video: A Mix of Models Distributors of TV shows and movies are employing different delivery mechanisms and business strategies.

Peer-to-Peer Deliver

Sever Downloads

Server Streaming

Download-to-Own or Rent

BitTorrent, MediaZone

Apple's iTunes, Amazon.com Unbox, CinemaNow, MovieLink, AOL, Wal-Mart

Netflix's WatchNow

Ad-Supported

Joost, Babelgum, Azureus' Zudeo

none

YouTube, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, CBS Innertube, Comcast's FearNet, Brightcove, Metacafe, Veoh

But in the past year, the firm has reached a détente with at least some entertainment companies, striking distribution deals in the past year with MTVN, 20th Century-Fox, Lionsgate, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, among others.

BitTorrent "was never intended to be a piracy tool," said Eric Patterson, vice president and general manager of BitTorrent's consumer services. "But because it was an open-source piece of software, that's the direction it took."

Patterson said BitTorrent uses automated filtering tools, developed in conjunction with the Motion Picture Association of America, to find illegally copied material and remove it from the company's site. "We put together a business plan and extended an olive branch to the industry," Patterson said.

For Comedy Central, the opportunity to reach a new online audience ' and develop a new sales channel ' outweighed any concerns that users of BitTorrent's software may continue to steal its content via unauthorized, third-party sites.

"We want to get our content to consumers when they want, where they want it," said Comedy senior vice president of strategy and business development Caleb Weinstein. "You also want to show the audience the right direction and empower that legal alternative."

BitTorrent "had the aptitude to say they would filter and work with us to get legal strategy," he added.
BOOTLEGS ABOUND

But BitTorrent isn't just competing against the iTunes and YouTubes of the online world. It's also vying for business amid a backdrop of dozens of Web sites ' made possible with BitTorrent's own software ' that offer "torrent" directories of illegal content that is copied and shared among individual users.

These include the shamelessly named ThePirateBay.org, hosted by a group of self-described "anticopyright" Swedes. In an "about us" section, the site's stewards claim that because it only provides links and hosts no files on its own servers, "it is therefore not possible to hold the people behind The Pirate Bay responsible for the material that is being spread using the tracker."

The Swedish pirates add a nose-thumbing parting shot: "Any complaints from copyright and/or lobby organizations will be ridiculed and published at the site."

Using BitTorrent's software, Multichannel News successfully initiated downloads through ThePirateBay.org of many movies and shows that BitTorrent is now promoting prominently on its own site and charging for, including Borat , Superman Returns , Jackass Number Two , Saw III and recent episodes of South Park , although the software indicated that each of those downloads would have taken more than 15 hours to complete.

BitTorrent director of communications Lily Lin noted that sites such as ThePirateBay.org have no connection at all to BitTorrent and that the company is able to police only its own Web site.

Patterson, meanwhile, compared the BitTorrent software to a Web browser, which similarly can let someone access illegally posted material as well as legitimate content.

"If we're doing our jobs, we will be converting people who were looking for pirated content," Patterson said. "Will that happen overnight? No, but we have enough feedback from our current user base that we know it will happen."

He said that according to BitTorrent surveys, 34% of the software's users said they would pay for content if it were possible.
LOCKED DOWN

Initially, BitTorrent is offering about 3,200 programs for sale or rent, about one-third of the 10,000 to which the company has lined up online distribution rights. "We felt we had to get the production and [digital rights management] done to get a critical mass of content to get out the door," Patterson said.

Files are protected with Microsoft's digital rights management software, embedded into the Windows Media Player software. The videos may only be played on a single physical computer, and require subscribers to have Windows XP or Vista PCs. And they won't be playable on portable video devices, like an Apple iPod.

The service will rent movies, with new releases such as Superman Returns running $3.99 and catalog titles, such as A Clockwork Orange and The Blair Witch Project , at $2.99. Movie rentals are viewable within 30 days and expire 24 hours after someone starts watching them.

TV shows and music videos will be sold as "download-to-own" files for $1.99 each, which has become the standard price for television programs sold online. BitTorrent's offerings will include episodes of Comedy Central's South Park , MTV's Jackass and Fox's 24 .

The early results of BitTorrent's online sales confirmed that the research it did was "dead on" in terms of the type of content sought by predominantly male, 16-to-34-year-old users, according to Patterson. He said popular new releases are doing well, including the films Little Miss Sunshine and Superman Returns , as well as TV episodes of Beavis and Butt-head and 24 .

Most of the content is available only to subscribers in the United States. Patterson said BitTorrent has worldwide distribution rights to about 20% of the titles under contract and will enable access to non-U.S. customers in the next few weeks.

Besides the for-pay content, BitTorrent is nurturing a community of 3,000 producers ' amateurs and professionals alike ' who use the peer-to-peer software to distribute content. Adam Sandler's production company, for example, developed a pilot for Comedy Central called Gay Robot , which wasn't picked up but is now one of the top downloads from BitTorrent.com.

On the other hand, he conceded that BitTorrent's service could be easier to use. He said the company is developing a version of the BitTorrent client software that will be available as a Web-browser plug-in, rather than as a standalone application. The company is hoping to release the browser plug-in in June.

That's what will really determine how successful BitTorrent will be as a business, said Gartner analyst Mike McGuire. "The long-term challenge for BitTorrent is making the service compelling and useful to people," he said.

Syllable Gets a BitTorrent Client

2007-03-29T11:26:00.000-07:00

Thanks to improvements in PThreads support in the new version 0.6.3 of the Syllable desktop operating system, the Transmission BitTorrent client could be ported. Currently only the CLI version works. The project is looking for a volunteer to put a GUI on it, possibly by porting the BeOS GUI. Transmission is included in a new version of the Network Necessities package collection. Furthermore, there are new versions of the Developer's Delight and PERL Pit collections, with many updated packages. Most notably, GCC is now the new version 4.1.2. Also, a new version was released of the sIDE native integrated development environment. Lastly, there is now a driver for the popular SysKonnect/Marvell Yukon1 gigabit ethernet chips.