i2hub: Movies in minutes
p2pnet.net News:- “You already know it’s faster than a speeding bullet. But it could also be the worst nightmare of the RIAA and MPAA come true in the cold, hard light of CyberSpace!”.
We wrote that back in April in reference to i2hub.com and, “We are all from universities, so it’s obvious that this service is for educational purposes only,” says a statement in the site.
And yet it’s striking fear and terror, not to speak of loathing, into the hearts of the suits who run the entertainment industry.
Having launched a multi-million-dollar campaign against p2p users and networks, the major movie studios are also using their MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) to try to turn the Net’s fastest highway to their own petty and self-serving interests.
Their latest effort, dressed up as a way to “facilititate research into high-bandwidth hardware and applications” and “helping researchers who exchange huge amounts of data,” is a bid to both subvert and monitor Internet2 because Disney, Warner Bros, MGM, Universal, Fox, Paramount and Sony are deeply worried that lightning-fast In2 traffic will add to their existing overwhelming, and entirely self-made, file sharing worries.
Movie downloads are, they claim, devastating the multi-billion-dollar industry. But they’re nonetheless reporting record profits.
For the first time, US box office takings alone passed the $1 billion mark in June.
One billion in one month alone?
Regular, hard-working folks
“When films are illegally downloaded from the internet, for example, it’s not just the stars who suffer, it’s regular, hard-working folks like the set painter, the stuntman, the grip, the make-up artist, and the director/animator,” say the studios in their fulsome www.respectcopyrights.org.
Suffering stars? Nor have the studios been able to explain how 100, or even 1,000, heavily pixelated, low-resolution movie downloads with half the frames missing, can come close to representing even a single lost sale, or visit to the theatre, or rental.
What the downloads really mean is: for the first time, cinema-goers can sample the studios’ wares in advance instead of paying lotsa bucks for a seat, only to find the movie is a load of old bollocks.
“The MPAA has been talking with the research consortium for several months, with an eye toward possibly joining the Internet2 group as a member, or simply opening up a collaborative relationship,” says CNET News.
In entertainment industry parlance, “collaborative” means “take over”.
“We’ve been working with Internet2 for a while to explore ways we can take advantage of delivering content at these extremely high speeds, and basically manage illegitimate content distribution at the same time,” the MPAA’s Chris Russell is quoted as saying.
“Those would go hand in hand.”
Warner Bros is already a member, as is the terribly troubled Napster II music ’service’.
But why all the fuss? Internet2 – a consortium of schools, industry, and government – is fast FAST! And many of its components are virtually anonymous – to all but ‘members,’ that is.
That’s why the entertainment industy absolutely must penetrate it and turn it from an amazing resource for everyone to a system channelled to the industry’s narrow, entirely self-serving, and completely exclusive interests.
Movies in minutes and music in seconds
As RIAA president Cary Sherman testified before US legislators recently, “Yet, as with other networks, bad actors have begun to hijack it, threatening to turn a beneficial and promising technology into a tool for piracy. Already, P2P systems, such as i2hub, have been set up on Internet 2, facilitating the abuse of advanced networking technology to illegally distribute copyrighted works for free. The speed of these networks – up to thousands of times faster than ordinary Internet networks – allows users to obtain copyrighted movies in minutes and music in seconds. Further, the closed nature of these networks, being available only to those engaged in academia, makes it more difficult for copyright owners to protect their works and to notify responsible parties of their infringement.
“The naturally high speeds of college and university networks has also allowed students to set up local area networks – or LANs – to connect with others solely within their individual schools. The RIAA brought suit last year against the student operators of four such networks, who had effectively used their school’s resources to create ‘mini-P2P networks’ to facilitate the mass piracy of copyrighted works on their campuses. As with Internet 2, the closed nature of these LANs makes it difficult to discover such misuse. College and university administrations are in the best position to determine the pervasiveness of this LAN-based piracy, and to take action to stop it.”
The major studios are already at the throats of file sharers, but, “any relationship with Internet2 would go beyond simply finding and cracking down on copyright offenses,” CNETÂ quotes Russell as saying, going on:
“Hollywood executives are interested in part in figuring out how file-swappers’ behavior might change when extremely fast connections are available, he said. This could help studios guard against future piracy, as well as control today’s swappers.
“The trade association also is interested in testing new video technologies, although no specific projects are under way. The MPAA is already working with the Cooperation for Education Network Initiatives in California group, which is seeking gigabit-speed connections for California communities by 2010, Russell said.
“Some projects are already under way on Internet2 that show promise of expanding the role of networked entertainment with this power available. Researchers at the University of Southern California have demonstrated a high-definition video connection with 10 separate surround-sound channels of audio, streamed flawlessly from Georgia to California, for example.”
Stay tuned.
===================
See:-
worst nightmare - i2hub.com: no limit downloads, p2pnet, April 30, 2004
collaborative relationship – MPAA seeks Internet2 tests, P2P monitor role, CNETÂ News, November 18, 2004
tool for piracy – STATEMENT OF CARY SHERMAN, October 5, 2004
November 19th, 2004 at 5:09 pm
Gee, let’s think about this one for a second. Should they let the MPAA onto I2, allowing them to scan for files and ultimately start doling out lawsuits or prohibit them the access and avoid the lawsuits. That’s a tough one…
How I yearn for the day I can dance on the decaying, dead carcasses of the RIAA and MPAA!
November 20th, 2004 at 10:09 pm
You can be sure that the RIAA and MPAA attack dogs will threaten the universities, and force them to provide them full access to monitor the I2 network , release fake files, and spew bad data to corrupt downloads. Basically everything they are now doing on the regular internet they will insist on doing on I2. The universities, as usual, will cave in to their demands without a fight.
Jon, something that you did not mention, that I think deserves noting, is that with the ultra-high speeds, anonymous P2P networks on I2 will have sufficient bandwidth to be quite useable for even large files. When the RIAA and MPAA inevitably start monitoring the network and suing I2 users, the switch to anon P2P (applications such as Mute, Freenet, Winny, and Ants) will be a given. Then the copyright cops will be powerless to do anything about P2P.
November 21st, 2004 at 4:36 am
That is unless the INDUCE act gets passed in which case the makers of the anonymous p2p programs are screwed…
April 13th, 2005 at 4:23 pm
Right…. Ptooeyyyyyy!!!!