Slashdot Mirror
Next-gen Copyright-aware P2P System Whitepaper
meier73 writes "A whitepaper has just been released detailing a secure (OpenSSL/digital signatures), copyright-aware P2P network. The paper claims that this system enables legal file trades, something that isn't guaranteed by Kazaa, Morpheus or eDonkey. The whitepaper goes on to state that the long-term goal of this system is to catalog
every human creation in existence that can be expressed by a digital medium. Project stats: a super-computing cluster that will scale to more than 900TB of storage, 300M transactions per day and trade music, television, movies and books.
Doesn't this constitute a responsible and legitimate use of P2P?"
A whitepaper alone doesn't say much. Trying to scale to that level hasn't been done before and is very ambitious for it to do. It could possibly be done but the better question is when.
My UID is prime is yours?
Why would I want to stop using current systems? FastTrack, Gnutella, and OpenFT let me exchange any files I want, and there just doesn't seem to be any reason I would want to switch.
This article sounds like more like FUD to distract from the existing file-sharing networks to me. Specific examples of lameness in the article:
"The paper claims that this system enables legal file trades, something that isn't guaranteed"
Their system doesn't "guarantee" it either -- for example even "copyright aware" tech can't know if Linux is covered by SCO copyrights without help.
"that the long-term goal of this system is to catalog every human creation in existence that can be expressed by a digital medium"
Absurd. Personally, I wouldn't want to give them a license to distribute all my copyrighted works; and I doubt Enron would use them to share internal memos. And wonderful human creations like sandcastles and orchestral productions and a good meal have their beauty in their transience.
Even better, make it open standard, mix copy righted and non-copyrighted material, and allow people to purchase copy righted stuff for a small fee. Really, who doesn't download their favorite show when they miss them these days? Hell, even my mother who's 3 thousand away is asking me how to download her favorite show. She would pay for it too.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
well, your sig is a bit misleading. at least the number is taken out of ass, since how can you LOSE money if you're not yet even SELLING anything(later release date for europe).. you're just guess-estimating the number on how many people will not buy it because they could download it with torrent - but since they weren't going to buy it anyways how it was loss is beyond me(they could just as well have calculated that OMG every chinese guy skipped buying this game because of bad crop - WE LOST GAZILLION BILLION DOLLARS. or that a million people will play it in net cafes: another 20 million 'lost').
It's just a big number they invented for some pr.
but it is true, if I was _paying_ I wouldn't want to bother with p2p since I'm already _paying_ for it I could easily pay the cent or two that would go into the necessary bandwith to get it from the centralised server and certainly wouldn't bother with donating bandwith to their business volunteraly.
if the material were legal(licensed with $$) and there were a working micropayment(hell, it's not going to be micro when the mpaa/riaa gets around) there wouldn't be need for p2p since you could finance the fat pipes and buying the bandwith from akamai with the money.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
ID Software will not let you run the game on a computer with legal CD emulation software installed.
Thus the only version of the game I can run on my system is a pirate version.
Thanks, guys!
I know of a number of people who won't use P2P as it is now for the very reason that you don't know if you're breaking copyright laws or not.
Furthermore, there are a heck of a lot of applications for such a system in the commercial art & design world.
Probably because it is based on/inspired by BitTorrent. Look at the diagram on page1 (introduction).
The "System load balansers" ARE trackers. The clients can share content, but only under the control of the tracker. What is new is that all connections are encripted.
You can see that if you want to distribute something you should make contract with them (probably not more sophisticated than eBey) and upload the content on their server. Probaly they will water_mark it.
I must say that I admire them. They are willing to support all platforms and that is already good start. They are more probably not going at the BIG FAT movie and music distributors. Instead they will collect more copyrighted works from individuals or smaller entitels that are ready to take risk. If they keep the prices low and deliver content fast, they may succeed. Wish you luck boys.
And something more - 900TB are good start but are not enough. The local content server of my ISP is about that size and it is still growing. I'm sure you guess i'm not from US and i'm not going to tell you more. Taina maina.
Also, clients must be registered with us to be used on the network. We give each piece of software a private key to sign with -- and we won't be giving any keys out to software that violates copyright :).
Dave Longley
CTO
Digital Bazaar
In addition to a per-transaction fee (a sample one is given as $0.15 on a song perchase), there is this paragraph at the very end of the How It Works Seller document:
You can use the money you earn on Bitmunk to buy digital files that you want, or you can transfer the money in your Bitmunk financial account to a banking institution of your choice. It can take anywhere from two days (if you're a highly trusted seller) to one month (if you're new, are selling newly registered creative works, or have complaints logged against you) to withdraw your money to a banking institution.
So Bitmunk also makes money on interest. Not unreasonable in principle. For example, it defeats the purpose of micropayments if someone's credit card is hit on each purchase. On the other hand, 2 days to 1 month sounds long to outrageously long for a modern system. And much like a brokerage account, one might additionally expect interest for funds held there over some length of time.
Why don't we try this instead?
A proposal for a collective licensing scheme, complete with technical infrastructure.
Criteria:
1. minimizes the changes required to existing and future software
2. capable of being securely implemented in software released under open-source licenses.
3. runs on existing hardware and networks without modification
4. preserves the capability to innovate new software and hardware
5. provides consumers with the digital content access to which they have become accustomed with file sharing
6. provides publishers and artists with the access to consumers and promotion to which they have become accustomed (whether they admit it or not).
7. fairly compensates publishers and artists for providing digital access to their works based on popularity of the works.
8. does not interfere with consumer's established fair use rights, including those of first sale, or the abilty to make copies for purposes of research, education, citation, review, format, device- or time-shifting, or data backups.
9. is reasonably robust against technical attack.
Send me some feedback.
How would one watermark vector graphics, MIDI files, XML files, or any other file containing discrete expression rather than expression derived by sampling a signal?
Perhaps files could be submitted to them reviewed and then authorized to enter the network. If it really took off they wouldnt even have to host much on their servers after the initial seeding was completed
C'mon. Let's take a concrete example:
- How will your system (both techcnology and human processes) know if it's "legal" to distribute the kernel today?
Hint, the best IP lawyers in the country don't have an answer for that question yet." You're making the false assumption that we use some sort of file detection software to figure out if something is copyrighted or not - which is not the case (you might want to read over our website before making statements like this). "
Sorry, no such assumptions were needed. The only assumption is that it's difficult to track down and verify the copyright holders involved in many if not most works.
"We clear each and every creative work on the network. When you select a creative work (such as The Beatles, Penny Lane) and associate it with a file (such as an MP3) - that creative work has been cleared for sale on the network by the artist. "
Clear with who? The Beastie Boys, or James Newton ? SCO or Novell or Linus or IBM? The author of this work, or the Tolkein estate. Don't tell me you'll be the courts, juries, and judges who will define the outcome of such cases. Or that you'll have psychic powers to guess when such cases will come up.
I don't doubt that your technology (as well as Kazaa's) could choose not to distribute some works; but to track down and maintiain the moving target of what's owned by whom is not "guarantee"able by encrypted tunnels and supercomputers. Unless you can answer the manual processes about keeping up with the legal system, I'd stay away from the word "guarantee" unless you have pretty deep pockets to fullfil the guarantees you offer to people like SCO who might expect billions for their disputed copyrights.