Tech- David Winslow
Ethics- James Holcombe
Legal- Erin Conway
Friday, March 2, 2007
Check Point 2 (cont)
http://www.bittorrent.org/bittorrentecon.pdf
http://www.pam2004.org/papers/148.pdf
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1015508
http://research.microsoft.com/%7Epadmanab/papers/msr-tr-2005-03.pdf
http://www.zhenxiao.com/papers/jsac2007_bt.pdf
Basically, the salient points are
* BitTorrent doesn't allow for sending individualized files to clients, because it copies data from client to client. This is a non-issue because iTunes applies DRM after downloading the file anyway.
* BitTorrent is fastest initially (when lots of people are uploading so that the protocol will allow them to download) and tapers off later as less people connect to the torrent. This will not be a problem with iTunes, because (a) uploading will be legal (assuming Apple does the appropriate licensing) so people will not 'turn off' their uploads, and (b) iTunes can force people to upload all media on their systems.
* BitTorrent is slower for unpopular files. Apple can deal with this by having its own, high-bandwidth seeds for all files. In the case where only a few clients with little to none of the data are connected to a torrent and there is one seed, the service becomes very much like a traditional download.
As far as experimentation, I plan on comparing the download time for a reasonably popular, but not recently released movie (namely, the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie) via both iTunes and the official BitTorrent client on the same system and comparing the total download time and system characteristics (ie, slowdown) while downloading. I expect the time to be somewhat slower for the BitTorrent because performance will be degraded by the fact that people avoid uploading due to the illegality and lawsuits brought by the recording industry.
http://www.pam2004.org/papers/148.pdf
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1015508
http://research.microsoft.com/%7Epadmanab/papers/msr-tr-2005-03.pdf
http://www.zhenxiao.com/papers/jsac2007_bt.pdf
Basically, the salient points are
* BitTorrent doesn't allow for sending individualized files to clients, because it copies data from client to client. This is a non-issue because iTunes applies DRM after downloading the file anyway.
* BitTorrent is fastest initially (when lots of people are uploading so that the protocol will allow them to download) and tapers off later as less people connect to the torrent. This will not be a problem with iTunes, because (a) uploading will be legal (assuming Apple does the appropriate licensing) so people will not 'turn off' their uploads, and (b) iTunes can force people to upload all media on their systems.
* BitTorrent is slower for unpopular files. Apple can deal with this by having its own, high-bandwidth seeds for all files. In the case where only a few clients with little to none of the data are connected to a torrent and there is one seed, the service becomes very much like a traditional download.
As far as experimentation, I plan on comparing the download time for a reasonably popular, but not recently released movie (namely, the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie) via both iTunes and the official BitTorrent client on the same system and comparing the total download time and system characteristics (ie, slowdown) while downloading. I expect the time to be somewhat slower for the BitTorrent because performance will be degraded by the fact that people avoid uploading due to the illegality and lawsuits brought by the recording industry.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
check point 2
We believe that using a bittorrent in conjunction with an iTunes client to distribute movies is an ethically, technologically, and legal way for consumers to gain access to high definition movies.
Ethics: The ethics of downloading movies illegally have been long debated. Copyright holders claim gross infringements to their creative expression, while consumers have debated to what extent their rights as consumers guarantee them access to products. However, we will examine both the Kantian and Utilitarian arguments in this memo, in union with the knowledge that the service we will offer will not break any court precedents or infringe copyright holder’s rights.
Legal: While we do plan to recommend the use of BitTorrent to iTunes for use with HD movies, there are many legal issues which must be considered with the implementation of this new use.
Initially, the legal problems associated with the use of BitTorrent for iTunes HD movies seem to outweigh the benefits of usage. However, the many court cases which have been filed against BitTorrent are ones of illegal music distribution (such as those filed against Supernova.org, EliteTorrents.org, and LokiTorrent). As long as iTunes allows for regulations that prevent such abuses with the HD movies, these types of cases can be avoided (regulations should prevent the sharing of illegally downloaded movies, prevent the purchase and sharing of HD movies which are not otherwise available to be run on computer programs, prevent the purchase and sharing of HD movies available in the US to those outside of the US to whom they are not yet available, and generally ensure that all DRM standards are met).
Becoming a safe harbor under DMCA Title II would also ensure that Apple is not responsible in the case that these measures are circumvented. This clause provides protection for online service providers against copyright liability “if they adhere to and qualify for certain prescribed safe harbor guidelines and promptly block access to allegedly infringing material (or remove such material from their systems) if they receive a notification claiming infringement from a copyright holder or the copyright holder's agent.”
Finally, Apple must consider the antitrust implications which could accompany such a decision. Apple has already faced monopoly charges in the past (such as the lawsuit regarding the iTunes-iPod link, in which Apple’s motion to the court to dismiss the suit was denied just this December, and other very similar suits in Europe). Further litigation would not help their case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9006985
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorrent
Stephanos Androutsellis-Theotokis and Diomidis Spinellis, "A survey of peer-to-peer content distribution technologies", ACM Computing Surveys, (36):4, 2005.
Bob Rietjens, "Give and Ye Shall Receive! The Copyright Implications of BitTorrent", SCRIPT-ed 327, 2:3, 2005.
Fred von Lohhman, IAAL*: What Peer-to-Peer Developers Need to Know about Copyright Law EFF, January, 2006
Ethics: The ethics of downloading movies illegally have been long debated. Copyright holders claim gross infringements to their creative expression, while consumers have debated to what extent their rights as consumers guarantee them access to products. However, we will examine both the Kantian and Utilitarian arguments in this memo, in union with the knowledge that the service we will offer will not break any court precedents or infringe copyright holder’s rights.
Legal: While we do plan to recommend the use of BitTorrent to iTunes for use with HD movies, there are many legal issues which must be considered with the implementation of this new use.
Initially, the legal problems associated with the use of BitTorrent for iTunes HD movies seem to outweigh the benefits of usage. However, the many court cases which have been filed against BitTorrent are ones of illegal music distribution (such as those filed against Supernova.org, EliteTorrents.org, and LokiTorrent). As long as iTunes allows for regulations that prevent such abuses with the HD movies, these types of cases can be avoided (regulations should prevent the sharing of illegally downloaded movies, prevent the purchase and sharing of HD movies which are not otherwise available to be run on computer programs, prevent the purchase and sharing of HD movies available in the US to those outside of the US to whom they are not yet available, and generally ensure that all DRM standards are met).
Becoming a safe harbor under DMCA Title II would also ensure that Apple is not responsible in the case that these measures are circumvented. This clause provides protection for online service providers against copyright liability “if they adhere to and qualify for certain prescribed safe harbor guidelines and promptly block access to allegedly infringing material (or remove such material from their systems) if they receive a notification claiming infringement from a copyright holder or the copyright holder's agent.”
Finally, Apple must consider the antitrust implications which could accompany such a decision. Apple has already faced monopoly charges in the past (such as the lawsuit regarding the iTunes-iPod link, in which Apple’s motion to the court to dismiss the suit was denied just this December, and other very similar suits in Europe). Further litigation would not help their case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9006985
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bittorrent
Stephanos Androutsellis-Theotokis and Diomidis Spinellis, "A survey of peer-to-peer content distribution technologies", ACM Computing Surveys, (36):4, 2005.
Bob Rietjens, "Give and Ye Shall Receive! The Copyright Implications of BitTorrent", SCRIPT-ed 327, 2:3, 2005.
Fred von Lohhman, IAAL*: What Peer-to-Peer Developers Need to Know about Copyright Law EFF, January, 2006
Monday, February 26, 2007
Tech Report
So far I have read over the papers listed at http://www.cs.duke.edu/courses/spring07/cps082s/assign/tech_links.html . Based on the data shown there, which I hope to verify with empirical data of my own, the BitTorrent protocol seems to have some promising properties as a potential media distribution system. Bram Cohen's paper from bittorrent.com lists bandwidth requirements of around 1/1000 the total amount transferred. However, the nature of the BitTorrent protocol requires that individual downloaders receive the exact same stream of bits. This poses a problem for many DRM schemes since any individualized protection such as per-user encryption must be applied after downloading, making it easy for moderately skilled hackers to circumvent the DRM simply by copying the data before the encryption is applied. Another issue is that, while BitTorrent can greatly improve performance over centralized downloads for extremely popular content, rarely downloaded files achieve much lower rates than traditional methods, since individual users are unlikely to have comparable bandwidth and uptime to commercial webservers. Two potential methods to ameliorate this problem are to either require users to download files that they do not purchase (which would require some sort of protection to keep them from accessing the data) or having the service provider (such as Apple) have servers dedicated to 'downloading' all the files to ensure availability.
-David, Technical Liaison
-David, Technical Liaison
Legal Standings
So far it seems there are a range of different issues that must be considered in this case:
Due to the nature of Bittorrent, how will regulations be placed on legally purchased iTunes HD movies to other users over the network? Is it the job of Apple or of BitTorrent to ensure DRM standards? How will HD movies that are limited in availability to other computer applications be treated? How will regulations be placed on international sharing of HD movies that are not yet available in other countries? How will foreign violators of the regulations imparted by either iTunes or BitTorrent be punished according to the terms of the DMCA?
Here is an overview of some relevant court cases I've looked over so far:
(Wikipedia)
-Erin
So far it seems there are a range of different issues that must be considered in this case:
Due to the nature of Bittorrent, how will regulations be placed on legally purchased iTunes HD movies to other users over the network? Is it the job of Apple or of BitTorrent to ensure DRM standards? How will HD movies that are limited in availability to other computer applications be treated? How will regulations be placed on international sharing of HD movies that are not yet available in other countries? How will foreign violators of the regulations imparted by either iTunes or BitTorrent be punished according to the terms of the DMCA?
Here is an overview of some relevant court cases I've looked over so far:
Suprnova.org, closed in December 2004 because the Suprnova computer servers were confiscated by Slovenian authorities. After threats tothe webmaster of this site and its counterpart, lokitorrent, were ordered by the court to pay a fine and supply the MPAA with the IP addresses of visitors.
EliteTorrents.org was shut down by the US FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At first it was thought that a malicious hacker had gained control of the website, but it was soon discovered that the website had been taken over by the US government. Ten search warrants relating to members of the website were executed.
In 2005, a 38-year-old Hong Kong BitTorrent user allegedly distributed the three movies in violation of copyright, subsequently uploading the torrent file to a newsgroup. He was convicted of breaching the copyright ordinance, Chapter 528 of Hong Kong law. He was sentenced to jail for three months but was immediately granted bail pending an appeal to the High Court, which was dismissed.
In November, 2005, the movie industry and BitTorrent Inc., whose CEO is the creator of BitTorrent, signed a deal they hoped would reduce the number of unlicensed copies available through bittorrent.com's search engine, run by BitTorrent, Inc. It meant BitTorrent.com had to remove any links to unlicensed copies of films made by seven Hollywood movie studios. As it covered only the BitTorrent.com website, it is unclear what overall effect this has had on copyright infringement.
The Pirate Bay is another popular BitTorrent website. The site also contains torrents which point to copies of copyright-protected material. In May, 2006 however, The Pirate Bay's servers, which are based in Sweden, were raided by Swedish police; the site owners might be facing charges for copyright infringement or facilitating it according to the accusations on the search warrant. No charges have been made so far. However, after securing new servers in The Netherlands and using a recent backup, The Pirate Bay was back online in less than 72 hours. Recently, The Pirate Bay has returned to Sweden. The return has been facilitated by the public and media backlash against the Swedish Government's actions. The Pirate Bay is now, supposedly, going to counter-sue the Swedish government for millions of Swedish kronor lost from having their website shut down.
HBO, in an effort to combat the distribution of its programming on BitTorrent networks, has been sending out cease and desist letters to the ISPs of BitTorrent users. Many users have reported receiving letters from their ISP's that threatened to cut off their internet service if the alleged infringement continues. HBO, unlike the RIAA, has so far declined to sue anyone for sharing the files(Wikipedia)
-Erin
Guru/Ethicist
As the guru/ethicist of the group, I have researched different types of ethical mores, and have sought to compare the use of bittorrents to those different types of ethics. For instance, I have looked into a Utilitarian and Deontological viewpoint of the problem. In this instance I have compared the expected utility from using a bittorrent to being caught using a bittorrent. In this way could it be considered moral for individual users to use a bittorrent? How much disutility, for instance, do bittorrents cause copyright owners, and could they be compensated by the consumers using their products illegally?
In addition, I have looked into a Deontological viewpoint of the bittorrent problem. In doing this I examined the intentions of the users of bittorrents, and their sense of duty to following the laws.
In addition, I have looked into a Deontological viewpoint of the bittorrent problem. In doing this I examined the intentions of the users of bittorrents, and their sense of duty to following the laws.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
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