ManyMedia

Vudu will be depending on telco DSLs and cable modems to deliver P2P video-on-demand (VoD) “instantly”. But telcos and cable companies routinely impair P2P packets. I understand that a relatively few users account for the biggest single category of Internet traffic-namely, P2P traffic. Arguably, ISPs really do need to siphon P2P through a narrow pipe to keep traffic flowing smoothly for the rest of the user base. I could easily see where this might be true. If BitTorrent worked faster, more people would use it and that might really slow down Web traffic for everybody else.

So I’m not saying that telcos and cable companies are completely evil. But considering that the duopoly seems to have the legal right to impair any packets they choose; and considering that both cable franchises and Baby Bells are trying to promote their own VoD services; it seems to me that the duopoly has the means, motive, and opportunity to legally kill off Vudu.

Of course, another possibility might be for Vudu to cut the broadband ISPs in on the deal. If they do, so much for the cost advantages of an independent Web service delivering VoD. Besides, cable and telco VoD services could use P2P themselves to cut down on server costs. In fact, Sky Anywhere (affiliated with the BSkyB satellite service) in the UK already does it, using the (much criticized) Kontiki P2P client. Ditto BBC’s trial run of its Internet Media Player. Likewise, Warner Bros. will supposedly distribute using BitTorrent. Maybe cable and telephone equipment makers just need to integrate P2P into their set top boxes, and stonewall any patents on the topic that Vudu might have.

The only missing link then would be Vudu’s idea of storing the first few minutes or so of many movies on the hard disk in your set top box. Maybe Vudu has a patent on that too? Even if they do, I’m not sure it’s that big a deal. Telco and cable servers could easily get around any such patent, using centralized servers to perform the equivalent task of buffering video before the P2P kicks in. Besides, I don’t see a huge advantage of using local storage of the opening scenes, as opposed to doing it on a server.

But if there is an advantage, maybe cable franchises and telcos could upload lots of opening scenes to your set top box’s hard disk, without worrying about whether Vudu patented that idea or not. Personally I consider the idea to be obvious. Before I ever heard of Vudu. I had a conversation with at least one other engineer about prestoring the first few minutes of many programs to reduce start-time latency of any kind of Internet video, and constantly refreshing the library of prestored opening scenes as studios release new videos.

Content, Network cable, choice, closed networks, Internet, network neutrality, open content, telecom, video on demand

From http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1382423,00.html

Murdoch’s BSkyB has announced a “new” Tivo-like technology:

The satellite group BSkyB has patented new technology that allows television viewers to record favourite programmes without any ad breaks.

News that the pay-television company controlled by Rupert Murdoch could allow viewers to eliminate commercials will alarm rival broadcasters such as ITV, Channel 4 and Five which derive most of their revenues from ads, as well as the advertising industry itself.

Why would it do this? And what’s so wierd about this announcement?

Unlike its main commercial rivals, Sky earns only 10% of its revenues from advertising. The use of the new technology, likely to attract viewers of channels supported by advertisements, could increase Sky’s dominance of the pay-television market.

However, the company has repeatedly said it is committed to advertising and is working with the industry to develop ways of grabbing consumers’ attention through sponsorship deals, for example.

A Sky spokesman said it had no plans to deploy the new technology. “If other people want to use [the property], they can license it from us.”

Scenarios closed content, open content

From NY Times, Business, Your Money

IBM’s Semantic Analysis Workbench and related software, and a similar proposal from Sony, propose to improve Internet searching by detecting underlying meanings, rather than keyword search, page rank, and the like. They therefore could help people find what they’re looking for in an abundant universe of user-created content, but they are also proprietary solutions rather than on the roadmap of the W3C’s Semantic Web project.

Scenarios closed networks, open content

Cory Doctorow, EFF’s European Outreach Coordinator, is doing a column for Popular Science on technology and policy. His first column is on why DVDs can’t be backed up. He says:

No matter how pretty its picture, what you’re expected to do with a DVD today is the one thing you could do in 1994: watch it on your TV. Why? Because when tech companies created the DVD, they sold you out. They let Hollywood hold its content hostage so that they could control who gets to build players and what those players can do. Tech execs have not only rolled over, they’ve joined the other side, advocating laws and restrictions that serve the entertainment conglomerates first and us second.

If that doesn’t seem like such bad news, think about the way it used to be. When Sony created the VCR in 1976, it enabled anyone to make near-perfect copies of movies. Sony did this without permission, and Hollywood went nuts. The Motion Picture Association of America launched an eight-year battle against the VCR that culminated in a 5-4 Supreme Court decision declaring the device legal and changing copyright law to address these new capabilities. That ruling is the reason you don’t get sued for recording a TV show. (During one Congressional hearing, MPAA spokesman Jack Valenti uttered this infamous hyperbole: “The VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.” Today, pre-recorded media earns the studios more revenue than box-office ticket sales.) …

Scenarios closed networks, open content

1-2-3 Music Store provides cheap way for small record companies to sell MP3s online.

Scenarios open content

Court of Appeals rules P2P software legal

Scenarios open content

Wiki contributors moving toward Creative Commons licenses

Scenarios open content

Where will you find the inspiration and motivation to create the future? If you’re making decisions and seeking opportunities, how do you go about planning for 2007?

Scenarios are alternate visions of the future that you can use to test your strategy. You can think of a set of scenarios as a series of wind tunnels. Put your strategy into each wind tunnel: You can use scenarios to discover whether the future will be friendly or hostile to your long- range plans. And you can change your plans in such a way that you come out OK in any likely outcome. If you are a very innovative organization or individual, perhaps you can even affect which scenario occurs, and try to steer the future toward that scenario.

This Web site is concerned with the future of networks and content. It’s a complicated topic with many possible outcomes, but we’re going to make some assumptions to avoid paralysis by analysis. The key assuptions are:

1. It’s uncertain whether content will be dominated by works having corporate-owned copyrights that appeal to the mass market, versus whether niche content and user-created content will become more abundant, searchable, and economically sustainable.
2. It’s uncertain whether network access and platform technologies will continue to be dominated by telcos, cable TV companies, Microsoft, and incumbent cellular services, versus whether alternatives will spread, including WiMax technology, municipal-owned networks, Linux, and open- source content-creation tools.

With two axes of uncertainty, that makes four scenarios:

:                   Corporate-Copyrighted
:                         Content
:                        Prevails
:
:                           ^
:                           |
:         Incumbents        |    10,000
:            Rule           |    Mickeys
:                           |
:                           |
:                           |
:  Dominant                 |                  Abundant
:   Access   <--------------------------------> Access
: and Platform              |                and Platform
:  Suppliers                |                   Choices
:                           |
:                           |
:         Benevolent        |     Paradigm
:          Dictators        |      Shift
:                           |
:                           |
:                           V
:
:                      User-Created
:                        Content
:                        Prevails

(There was) a wiki with some capsule summaries of each scenario. What may happen to your particular situation in each?

Scenarios closed content, closed networks, open content, open networks

Television broadcasters thought they had it bad with the introduction of VCRs, and later TiVo and the likes. Now some in the radio business will be caught off-guard as record-now-play-later capability, called time-shifting, comes to digital audio broadcasting.

“Today’s and tomorrow’s consumer will expect a lot out of radio,” he said. “They’ll expect the highest quality sound.” …

Consumers are also asking for enhanced services, such as title and artist information on their receivers, as well as the ability to record and store content on a receiver hard drive.

Wonder if Hillary Rosen or her pals at the RIAA stopped in at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, or have had a chat with the National Assn. of Broadcasters recently?

Uncategorized open content

A few random links to give context to this blog.

In the CONTROL IS SOMETHING YOU DECIDE corner:

• Creative Commons (in the news)
• O’Reilly Publishers (in the news)
• Cory Doctorow (in the news)

In the CONTROL IS WEALTH corner:

• Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA in the news)
• Motion Picture Association of America (MPA, also MPAA, in the news)
• Disney (in the news)

Content closed content, open content