BBC hires Kazaa confederate
p2pnet news | DRM:- The BBC, already in trouble over its new ‘on demand’ iPlayer service, may have inadvertently dug the pit even deeper.
Count number one against iPlayer, recently released as a public beta, is: it’s loaded with Microsoft DRM (Digital Restrictions Management) consumer control technology.
Count number two says the BBC claim that iPlayer is free isn’t true.
Count number three says ISPs are, “threatening to restrict access to the iPlayer unless the BBC helps to fund the cost of the bandwidth,” says Broadband Watchdog.
Now comes count number four, namely: the BBC has named Altnet chief technology officer Anthony Rose head of digital media technology at the BBC, says MediaGuardian.co.uk.
‘Spyware or adware’
Altnet is a wannabe DRM purveyor closely linked to the infamous Kazaa p2p file sharing application owned by Sharman Networks, the Australian company with offices at Port Vila, Vanuatu, the island tax haven, and which is named in most of the equally infamous RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) file sharing cases under which the Big 4 are trying to sue their customers into becoming compliant consumers..
“Altnet is a program that came bundled with Kazaa,” says the Wikipedia., going on:
“The program, founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, would display ‘related’ songs and videos upon a user’s search that were actually advertised songs that usually cost money to play. Denoted by their gold color as opposed to the traditional green for non-Altnet files in Kazaa, the downloads would come not from fellow Kazaa users’ client computers, but rather from a localized content server paid for by the advertising companies.
“Like many programs bundled with Kazaa, Altnet has been labeled spyware or adware by many organizations and individuals.”
Altnet, and another Sharman associate, Brilliant Digital Entertainment (BDE), “tried to persuade p2p operators to license their TrueNames DRM by in effect threatening to sue them if they didn’t,” said p2pnet in 2005, going on:
Entertainment lawyer Jay Flemma said at the time, I believe they [Altnet] are grossly overreaching in attempting to turn the world of IP into the wild, wild west and effectively mug these companies by trying to make them pay for something which they do not have the rights to defend or prosecute.
The story was picked up by the Washington Post which said:
A pair of software companies linked with the Kazaa peer-to-peer network are claiming that they hold patent rights to technology behind much of the world’s Internet song-swapping and are demanding that several smaller file-sharing networks obtain licenses in order to continue operating.
Freenet founder Ian Clarke called TrueNames a lame duck.
These days Altnet is a ‘digital media store’ and touted by BDE, which describes Altnet as, ” the best way to promote and sell your media online,” also saying it, “distributes licensed content into leading peer-to-peer applications and internet web sites, providing their users with access to Altnets library of Digital Rights Managed content and payment processing platform”.
The ‘final step’
Stories centering on the many fruitless efforts by the three companies to get into bed with the corporate entertainment cartels are legion, and now Rose has been hired by the BBC to be responsible for creating a “unified embedded media experience” across the BBC’s online properties, says MediaGuardian, also observing:
“The appointment marks the final step in a reorganisation of the BBC’s future media and technology arm, undertaken by the group controller, Erik Huggers, since joining the corporation from Microsoft in May.”
“His [Rose's] knowledge and expertise in the digital media field is world class,” Digital Spy has Hugger stating.
“I look forward to working closely with him to take our on demand services to the next stage.”
What an interesting duo. One has to wonder who’s advising the Beeb.
Meanwhile, no doubt many intriguing developments will follow the Huggers and Rose appointments.
Definitely stay tuned.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
Also See:
loaded with Microsoft DRM – BBC DRM – on demand, July 27, 2007
isn’t true – BBC with DRM, July 19, 2007
Broadband Watchdog – BBC iPlayer could have access restricted by broadband providers, August 13, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk – BBC recruits Kazaa’s Rose, September 17, 2007
sue their customers – Pay us $8M, Santangelos tell AOL, Kazaa, September 13, 2007
Brilliant Digital Entertainment – Path of Light: by Kevin Bermeister, July 26, 2006
p2pnet – Altnet gets into p2p sharing, March 1, 2005
Washington Post – Letter Applies Peer-to-Peer Pressure, January 12, 2005
lame duck – Altnet `extortion` attempt, January 12, 2005
Digital Spy – Kazaa CTO joins BBC Future Media, September 17, 2007
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