BitTorrent essentially works by harnessing unused network capacity on end-user computers. Anyone downloading or streaming a file also distributes the file to other users, which is broken into smaller chunks and reassembled upon delivery. BitTorrent has long used the distributed peer-to-peer approach for file sharing, and the same idea is employed by companies like Joost for streaming media.

DNA's first client is Brightcove, a CDN that powers video streaming for companies like CBS, Fox, the Discovery Channel, Buena Vista (Disney), Reuters, Warner Music Group, Sony-BMG and others. It's mildly amusing that BitTorrent, thought by many in the music and film industry to be an enabler of illegal file sharing, should now be providing a technology backbone for the legit delivery of industry content.

Aram Sinnreich, a media industry analyst with Radar Research, told Forbes that just a year ago dealing with BitTorrent would have been anathema for industry execs, but now they realize that the company can save them money by turning downloaders into distributors.

CNET sees BitTorrent DNA has a competitor to existing CDNs writing, "BitTorrent DNA will square off with industry leaders like Akamai Technologies." But that doesn't seem to be the company's goal. According to BitTorrent, their DNA technology compliments existing CDNs rather than replaces them.

BitTorrent has been taking strides recently to repaint themselves as a legit business. In February, they partnered with companies like Fox, Warner Brothers., MTV, and Paramount to create a download store that uses their P2P technology to deliver paid downloads. Now, with their new DNA service, they're hoping to get cozier with Hollywood and avoid the type of anti-piracy litigation that caused Napster to close down in 2002.

In an extensive guest post on TorrentFreak, a well known BitTorrent blog, Dan Morrill told his experience with offering his latest eBook, 'Selling Books On Amazon, Tips and Secrets' on popular BitTorrent tracker Mininova. Dan explains that his initial reason for releasing his eBook using BitTorrent was not for marketing purposes, but "to control the release and gather good stats on the process." We don't think he could've picked a better service. Within the first 24 hours, Morrill's eBook had been downloaded close to 700 times.

Based on the stats he received from Mininova, Morrill was also able to pinpoint the countries in which the eBook was being downloaded the most. Africa ranked high on the list, which is understandable because of the relatively large amount of e-commerce businesses that are set-up in Africa. Morrill was surprised to see India contributing to 5.2% of the overall downloads.

Operation BitTorrent a Success

Morrill rated his overall experience as highly satisfying and recommends using BitTorrent as a great content distribution channel for those that don't mind. The expansion of the BitTorrent network will only increase in the next few years. In doing so, we think this may be a tool that publishers will eventually start taking a lot more seriously than they do now. It's undeniable that BitTorrent can prove to be an effective marketing tool for a cheap price when used correctly. Nine Inch Nails concluded the same in March of this year when they uploaded part 1 of their 4 part album Ghosts I-IV to numerous BitTorrent sites. It became the #1 most downloaded album on The Pirate Bay, which helped to increase their sales tremendously for the rest of the album.

We can only wonder when others will catch on to the effectiveness of using BitTorrent sites to market and distribute content. You can download Dan Morrill's eBook 'Selling Books On Amazon, Tips and Secrets' here.

BitTorrent releases SDK for set-top-boxes and other devices: BitTorrent, the company behind the popular peer-to-peer file sharing technology, has announced the availability of its Software Development Kit (SDK) for consumer electronics devices. Perhaps the most enticing part is the chance for licensee’s products to become officially BitTorrent certified.

Microsoft rebrands its IPTV plaftorm, adds PC to TV functionality: This week Microsoft announced the availability of Microsoft Mediaroom, a re-branded version of its IPTV software platform that enables service providers to deliver interactive IPTV services into the home.

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Red Swoosh claims to offer the most efficient P2P file-sharing system on the internet. One of the investors behind the company is Mark Cuban, who recently wrote a long post about why BitTorrent is doomed (via TorrentFreak). His point was that the bittorrent protocol is actually no more efficient in terms of bandwidth than the client-server setup. Incidentally Cuban doesn't mention his affiliation with Red Swoosh in that post (he may've done so before, I'm not sure). But Cuban's post is clearly aimed at pumping up Red Swoosh over BitTorrent, albeit indirectly, so a disclosure would've been in order.

"Bandwidth is a bottleneck. That didn't matter to much when we were just sending and receiving pictures and music, but video is going to break the camel's back."

In the post they looked at Apple's iTunes store and calculated how much money is spent on bandwidth for the millions of songs, movies, and TV shows being transferred. They believe that $15 M is being "wasted" by Apple not converting to p2p.

The Red Swoosh team seems very confident of their chances in the P2P and video file transfer business:

"At Redswoosh, we're commited to making the best p2p system on the web. We're already hitting akamai numbers, and that's in small tests where the network effect of p2p hasn't really kicked in.

If you think BitTorrent is fast, just wait till you try Swooshing."

What do you think of the technology - does it have as much potential as BitTorrent?

But now, Renolds has returned and this time he's expanded on the original concept to create what appears to be a full-on App Store replacement application.

It's that last one, "Store," where all the shopping will take place. And unlike the official App Store, nothing is rejected. That's right - there's no approval process whatsoever and all apps will be added to the store within one week. The only exception to this rule will be releases not made free by their developers, says Alec. That means that appDowner isn't about to become a resource for sharing cracked copies of games that you would otherwise have to pay for.

But even without the illegal goods (a rule we're happy to support), appDowner has a lot of potential to compete with the other popular repositories/stores for jailbroken apps like Cydia and Icy. Because it uses BitTorrent technology, apps will always be available for download with no need for developers to worry about hosting issues. In addition, the technology will be able to be used for more than downloading just apps alone, if you're so inclined.

To kick start the launch, appDowner will include several popular apps like Steven Troughton-Smith's killer Stack application and Lights Off game. They'll even have some exclusive content from Nullriver, Inc., promises designer Miles Lorry, who teamed up with Renolds to work on the app.

No word yet on an exact release date, only that it will be arriving "very, very soon."

Stack for iPhone

In my testing, westream worked perfectly with nary a hiccup. I was able to quickly stream any track, start to finish (I picked a torrent with an ample amount of seeders from Legit Torrents for my tests). Of course, the quality of audio and level of gaplessness you experience will be totally dependent on the health of the torrent you're trying to stream.

The volume control seemed a bit wonky (going from very soft to very, very loud without much in between) and it would be nice to have the option to download the torrent straight away if you like what you're hearing. But in general, westream performs very well.

Westream is a useful BitTorrent innovation that lets users essentially "try before they buy." Presumably, the same idea can be applied to video -- imagine: streaming video distribution over BitTorrent. Very cool.

Source: Mary Meeker presentation, via CacheLogic

I followed up by checking out the CacheLogic webpage, which has an interesting research presentation on its homepage entitled True Picture of P2P Filesharing. Also note that there is an updated 2005 version of the report on the site.

The larger trends at play here (as outlined by CacheLogic) are:

• P2P is not in decline, in fact it is growing at a sharp rate (see Meeker's slide above).
• The "vast majority" of P2P traffic is of files > 100MB. While most of this is video, there are other things such as CD images for open source software (see graphic below).
• CacheLogic says that a "significant proportion of the user population" is using P2P, not just a few heavy users.
• They call it the "killer application for broadband"

Source: Mary Meeker presentation, via CacheLogic

Do you use P2P?

Read/WriteWeb would love to know from our readers if you use P2P, and if so:

a) What do you use it for? (music, movies, etc)

b) What P2P network and/or application do you use?

Please leave a comment, because it'd be interesting to see what Web-savvy people use P2P for.

For their part, the defendants, site operators Justin Bunnell, Forrest Parker, Wes Parker and Valence Media, put forward multiple arguments for why they should not hand over server logs. Initially, they argued that because their servers were located in the Netherlands they were under the jurisdiction of Dutch law and were protected by a US court order to turn them over.

Later they told the judge that they could not comply with an order to turn over certain server logs because it was temporary information and was not able to be retained. The lawyer for the defendants said that they were reluctant to turn over records of IP addresses to protect the privacy of their users.

The BBC reports that TorrentSpy is expected to appeal. The MPAA was predictably pleased by the ruling, calling TorrentSpy a "one-stop shop for copyright infringement" in a statement.

About a year and a half ago, we reviewed the site, which then allowed users to download torrents without a BitTorrent client and allowed users to instantly stream audio and other non-video content from those torrents. In the closing remarks from that post, we noted, "Presumably, the same idea can be applied to video -- imagine: streaming video distribution over BitTorrent. Very cool." And behold, Bitlet has made this suggestion very real and quite simple, as well.

Although the service is still in an experimental stage, users are invited to test out the service and view sample videos at the Bitlet video page. This page also gives instructions for those "brave enough" to distribute content through the site.

Standard torrent caveats apply: Less bandwidth, higher quality, and fewer peers/seeds will make for more lag time. Nevertheless, it's a great implementation of Bitlet's technology (queuing bits sequentially so users get the first parts of the content first) and the implications are exciting.

As the folks at TorrentFreak wrote, "Although current bandwidth prices are dropping, most video services such as YouTube are paying millions of dollars for traditional server side streaming. Especially high quality video is costly to stream, and peer-to-peer technology can certainly make a huge difference there."

We can't help but wonder how this news will go over with the entertainment industry, especially in the aftermath of the conviction of the Pirate Bay crew. In addition to offering a serious incentive for users who currently use other torrent clients, Bitlet will be in direct competition with legal streaming video sites such as Hulu.

Last week, CBC released an official DRM-free BitTorrent of a prime time show -- a first for a major north American broadcaster (see last100 coverage). Since then we’ve been getting hundreds of emails of support and one clear resounding message: give us more. This begs the question, why aren’t broadcasters doing more? Why in the year 2008, seven years after BitTorrent’s birth and a lifetime in Internet years is this a groundbreaking thing? Let’s break down what it takes to get a legal torrent going and maybe we’ll get some answers.

The post is worth a read, and be sure to subscribe to the Last100 RSS feed to keep up to date on all the latest digital lifestyle news and commentary.

That's very much like the advice that Marshall Kirkpatrick gave to Reznor writing on this blog in January after Reznor complained about the download-to-pay ratio the pay-if-you-want Saul Williams album that Reznor produced received late last year. "Times are changing and if you can, it's better to work on innovating along with them than it is to make dragging your feet and suing people your business model," advised Kirkpatrick.

At the time, Reznor wrote that he was "disheartened" that just 28,322 of the 154,449 people who downloaded Williams' album chose to pay the $5 for a higher quality copy. At the same time, though, that's nearly as many as who bought Williams' previous traditional CD release in 2004 (which sold 33,897 copies) and far more who are hearing his music -- which could theoretically translate to increased concert ticket and merchandise sales. Further, because by not dealing with a label the artist is likely taking a much larger cut of the download revenue than they would receive of CD sales revenue, Williams probably made more money on fewer transactions this time around.

Clearly, Reznor was not disheartened enough to forgo trying a similar type of release for his own new album. Ghosts I-IV part I is available as a free download on the NIN site, as well as on BitTorrent. The entire album is available as a $5 download, a $10 double CD, a $75 "deluxe" package with CD, DVD, and Blu-Ray copies, and a $300 "ultra-deluxe" edition that also includes vinyl copies and signed giclee art prints. The $5 download can also be had via Amazon -- where the album has quickly shot up to the #1 spot on the sales charts.

The 9-track free edition of the album is licensed under a Creative Commons license and is free for non-commercial use. "We encourage you to share the music of Ghosts I with your friends, post it on your website, play it on your podcast, use it for video projects, etc." said the band in release notes.

Conclusions

While it is impossible to predict how this release will fare compared with previous traditional NIN releases, that may not be a fair question. The dynamics of the music industry have changed and artists like Reznor and Radiohead are blazing new trails as they attempt to figure out how to best release music under these changing market conditions. If 18.3% of downloaders pay -- as they did for Williams -- then that's probably not a bad number for NIN, who can bet that they'll get far more downloads than Williams (Ghosts is already the most downloaded torrent at The Pirate Bay) and will presumably be pocketing most of the revenue.

What do you think? Is Reznor's release a harbinger of the future of the music industry? Let us know your thoughts on the issue in the comments.

In particular Skyrider states in its press release that "P2P has the potential to be the dominant network architecture of this century" - which of course Skyrider is poised to take advantage of. This is echoed by Tim O'Reilly on his blog, in which he likens Skyrider's potential to that of Google:

"Just as Google crystallized a new vision of how to monetize the web, leading to the explosion of innovation that we now call Web 2.0, Skyrider is building technologies that could bring a rich new commercial ecosystem to P2P."

Those are big claims, especially as the dominant network architecture currently is the client-server model of the Web (i.e. one to many). P2P is about many-to-many distribution and has so far been most useful for distributing music and other large multimedia files. And when it comes to video and audio, I don't think many would argue that P2P is more efficient than a client-server model - as long as it's managed well.

Other P2P contenders

Perhaps Skyrider will be the platform to bring P2P to the fore again, but there are others in the game too - like Red Swoosh (TechCrunch review here), AllPeers (the Firefox plug-in), Enfra (a Korean app founded by Hyung Yong Jun, the guy behind Cyworld - hat-tip Danny for the info), open source Dijjer, and let's not forget the BitTorrent network.

Opera has also integrated BitTorrent into its browser and there are rumors it'll be integrated into Apple's new Leopard OS too (hat-tip Steve O'Hear).

Note that there is a difference between a P2P network (like BitTorrent) and a P2P client (like KaZaA). I can't claim to fully understand this market, but Zeropaid.com has more info if you're interested:

"P2P clients like Grokster, KaZaA, Linewire, Morpheus and eDonkey do not make a P2P network; they only allow the user to connect to an existing network by using common protocols. There are a large number of P2P networks out there: Gnutella, Gnutella 2, Ares, FastTrack, eDonkey2000, BitTorrent and even Freenet. Clients are applications used to connect to those networks. [...]"

Skype's P2P success

An example of a P2P success story in the '2.0' era of the Web is Skype (Tim referenced them in his post). Developed by the same people who created KaZaA, the music-sharing P2P network that recently went 'legit', Skype calls itself "the first P2P telephony network". They claim P2P has enabled them to raise call completion rates and call quality "to levels exceeding that of POTS (“Plain Old Telephony System”)".

Summary - untapped P2P market

I have no doubt that P2P networks will be vitally important in our increasingly networked world of media. Early P2P pioneers like Napster and KaZaA have now 'gone clean', after years of overbearing pressure from the music industry. Likewise the movie and tv industry has been keeping a close eye on video-sharing websites. But beyond all that fear and loathing by media companies, there is a largely untapped market for media search and distribution via the Internet.

So are we at a turning point on the Web, where P2P comes into serious play again? I think we are and this will be one area of innovation to look out for. Contact me if you know of a current innovative P2P technology doing big things on the Web.

A major problem that plagued the release of Spore was the inclusion of a DRM system. This has caused multiple reviews of Spore to be disappointing for Electronic Arts (EA), the developing and publishing company of Spore. If EA hoped the problem would go away, it hasn't. Fans and "pirates" have taken things one step further to make Spore one of the most pirated games ever.

The DRM system included in Spore has caused an outrage in the gaming community. We stated in our review of the game that the DRM system would have to go if Spore wanted to succeed. Apparently, consumers of the game seem to feel the same way. As of today, Spore has been downloaded over 500,000 times on various bittorrent sites and doesn't look to be slowing down. The first 300,000 downloads of Spore happened after just one day of the game being released. These pirated versions of Spore remove the DRM system that users encounter when installing the game. While it's not uncommon for popular games to hit those type of numbers on P2P sites, it's unusual for it to happen so quickly. Currently, the game has been the most popular download all week on The Pirate Bay, one of the most popular and controversial bittorrent sites around.

DRM is Not the Answer

The Sims 2 currently holds the record for the most pirated game. Pirates and disappointed fans are looking to change that. According to the TorrentFreak blog,

[Spore's] download rate exceeds that of any other pirated game in history, and in a week or two from now it will be the most pirated game ever on BitTorrent.

Spore is still one of the worst rated games on Amazon. Since its release it has been given a rating of only 1 star by more than 50% of its reviewers. The majority of these ratings address problems with the DRM system. DRM is not the answer and continues to provoke "pirates" to release what publishers should have given to customers from the beginning.

There's no doubt that Spore would've been pirated regardless of the DRM system. However, users of P2P networks are now encouraging others to pirate the game in order to teach EA a lesson. A commenter on the Pirate Bay known as "deathkitten" stated,

"You have the power to make this the most pirated game ever, to give corporate bastards a virtual punch in the face."

Yes I know there are many legitimate reasons for doing so, but that's not always the reason for hitting up sites like The Pirate Bay.

When you begin a search on YouTorrent, you'll see the engine work in real time to display the results. The date, size, seeds, peers, and engine are listed for each torrent. By default the results are ordered by popularity (seeds and peers) , but you can quickly sort results by any of the other options just by clicking on the column header.

YouTorrent searches all the top torrent engines, including Mininova, The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, SumoTorrent, myBittorrent, Monova, Vuze, BitTorrent, LegitTorrents, SeedPeer, and BTjunkie. On the results page, you'll see a green check next to the ones where torrents were found. Underneath the listed engines, a related searches section can help guide you by providing similar queries to try.

Since the site has just launched, you can expect to see new features in the future like Boolean searches, advanced search, more engine selections, and a Firefox plugin (can't wait for this!), and maybe they will even finish their FAQ.

YouTorrent's design and clean user-interface makes this site one of the best torrent search sites I've seen. It's definitely worth checking out...just remember to buy the DVD later.

The new Vuze client includes some really useful search and social features that are worth a look. It's remarkably easy to use and includes access to both affordably priced and free content from around the world.

The two new features that are most interesting are the ability to search other BitTorrent sites and the ability to add friends on Vuze. While the service itself has a fair amount of content available, including a good selection of BBC video for rent, users can now search for content on Mininova, Sumotorrent, BTJunkie and Jamendo. Not all of the content on those sites is rights-holder approved but that's how it goes. It's a very useful feature.

Second, the ability to add other Vuze users as friends looks truly useful. Friends are able to show each other the content they've discovered, something that will no doubt save time exploring the huge world of torrented content available. Most important, friends are able to get priority access to each other's shared downloading power - meaning that friends and family can help accelerate access to content of mutual interest. That's a great idea. As Janko Roettgers pointed out in his lengthy review of the new features on Vuze, the social features could use some more richness like the ability to share reviews of content - but it's a great start.

People Will Pay for Good Content Online

While most of the content available through the new Vuze is available for free, there's a lot of it that you have to buy or rent. A notable UK study released last night found that 80% of young people surveyed would be willing to pay for a legal P2P service . As Nate Anderson wrote at ArsTechnica last night: "What the respondents appear to want is an unlimited download service free of DRM that could be legally accessed for a monthly fee, something that doesn't yet exist."

This author can agree with that. After watching all the free episodes of The Office on the wonderful service Hulu, I'm ready to pay for some more. Unfortunately, there's no such option. Renting the original UK version of the show can be done on Vuze and we'll see what kind of search results come up there.

Sign me up for "an unlimited download service free of DRM that could be legally accessed for a monthly fee" - if content owners would get on board then it could very well end up being a great deal.

For now I'll keep using Vuze; I've found some great things on there before - now if I can make some friends my downloading will go faster. Vuze has raised $34 million in venture funding, has the co-founder of Tivo on its board and reported having more than 15 million installs at the end of last year.