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NBC Universal Patents a Way To Detect BitTorrent Pirates In Real-Time (ndtv.com)
An anonymous reader writes: NBC Universal has been granted a patent, titled "Early detection of high volume peer-to-peer networks in real-time," to try and restrict piracy of its copyrighted content. "Early detection of high volume swarms in a peer-to-peer network, including a data feed of peer-to-peer swarm activity, and an analytics engine processing the data feed and identifying the high volume swarms that have parameters that exceed a threshold. The system can include a pre-processing section for conditioning the swarm data for the analytics section. There can also be a verification section that confirms that the peer download file matches the target file," notes the patent document issued by USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office). "The early detection provides for enhanced anti-piracy efforts, improved allocation of network resources, and better business decision-making," it adds. NBC Universal says that the "P2P infrastructure has many advantages" but it has also led to abuses. Piracy is estimated to cost content owners billions of dollars annually. "These costs are typically passed along to the consuming public in terms of increased costs for legitimate purchased works and higher charges for increased deterrents to the piracy," NBC Universal added. The patent NBC Universal received was applied for back in 2009, but only granted last week.
So, they've had this ability for 7 years. How's that worked out for them? The fact that they're getting a patent on a process that hasn't stopped their content from being pirated doesn't seem like that big a deal. I think the decline in the quality of their content is a bigger deterrent to piracy than anything else they've done.
I see a time when it will be much easier to track this kind of activity and apparently it's not too far off. As sales dwindle for digital content the increase to stop illegal downloads will increase. Heck, is there anything worth downloading illegally anyway? Why risk it when you end up with a lousy copy that maybe doesn't work and has ate up a ton of your data. Just to find out the content sucked anyway.
So when's Universal going to be slapped with a CFAA lawsuit? You just know that they have to be interacting with systems they don't have rights to to do this.
Piracy is estimated to cost content owners billions of dollars annually.
It should read:
Piracy is estimated to cost ADVERTISERS billions of dollars annually.
It's television, folks; the only people making any money off this are the advertisers. Oh and by the way? Most of us aren't paying any attention to your damned commercials anyway. We skip right over them, one way or another. Personally if I couldn't do that, I'd go back to the Old Days of just muting them and paying attention to something else until the program came back on. Or, if I couldn't use a DVR anymore for some reason I'd probably stop watching TV completely, since little-to-none of it would fit into my schedule anymore. So how about you stop whining about 'piracy', NBC (and television in general), at least we're watching your damned shows at all. Look at it this way: You're getting people interested in watching your shows this way. Make it too much of a pain in the ass, and many people just won't bother.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Have gnu, will travel.
They'd have to introduce this at the ISP level, similar to how Time Warner Cable sends cease and desist letters to people if they detect you're torrenting their or their partners' content (a friend of mine got one for HBO shows. They required him to run a script on his computer verifying the file was deleted. WTF?!)
But the thing is, people who get massive amounts of content this way don't BT to their machines! Most use seedboxes and rsync back to their home machines. They're only going to get the people who are not big in the game (relatively).
Plus, once you identify, the next phase may be blocking at the ISP level. Then you get into censorship, network neutrality, etc.
Fuck everything about this.
I'm entitled to a lot more than what they want me to have and throwing their muscle around, so I'm quietly taking things we would have agreed I wouldn't in compensation.
Can we just have the article renamed to Comcast instead of NBC Universal, since they're the same danm company? This is similar how they always file their lawsuits under the the RIAA/MPAA names, to mask who's doing the bullshit.
The reality is that Comcast doesn't want you to use your Comcast connection to download Comcast content without using the Comcast approved DRM software. WOAH, I'M STARTING TO SOUND JUST LIKE THE APPS GUY ON HERE NOW!
"When will the content producers realize that "Pirates" are not lost sales. "
You are wrong. They are lost sales -- just not a 1:1 ratio. I have no doubt that many folks who would download the latest Avengers flick for free would actually purchase it if that were the only avenue to have it. Not all. Probably not most. But I doubt it's an insignificant number.
That's just for the content. For TV specifically, the lost "sales" are not JUST "sales" of the show(s) -- the lost sales are also to ADVERTISERS -- who either will not buy time from a network or will only pay a reduced rate.
Soooo.....
IF people didn't pirate the content, you would sell it for cheaper??
I may have been born at night, but it wasn't last night....
--Hired Net Grunt
Downloading the show that I missed last night on the cable service I pay for is cheating content providers out of their fair share! They are entitled to an extra $15 just because I have to work when they choose to air their show!
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.