Various publications are reporting that Microsoft is developing a P2P application not unlike BitTorrent and the less well known Kontiki. This article in PCPRO (UK) is typical:
Software giant Microsoft is developing an alternative to BitTorrent, the high-speed p2p software driving the sharing of video through broadband connections. The twist is that with the Microsoft version, code-named Avalanche, downloading will not be possible without a 'publisher's certificate'. In other words, it will have built in DRM technology.
In the late '80s and early '90s, InterTrust founder Victor Shear had the vision to see that the world would have to become P2P. There were too many advantages. And rights management would have to be P2P rather than client/server as well.
In 1995 the original InterTrust team - Shear, David Van Wie, Karl
Ginter, and Frank Spahn filed a patent application that was over 300
pages of text and drawings when the first installment issued in '99.
One of the largest computing-related patents with which I'm familiar,
for example, this Ginter et al. patent [warning: large file]
described (among many other things and without limitation) inherently
P2P architectures for securely associating rights with digital
information and enforcing those rights at a distance in time and space, in other words, for rights management.
Although InterTrust failed as a product company, it has thus far succeeded quite well as mainly an IP licensing company. There are many reasons why the InterTrust IP portfolio has substantial value -- Microsoft licensed it for nearly a half billion dollars. Chief among those reasons was the brilliance of founder Shear in being able to predict the future and having the team design rights management in accord with that P2P vision. The Avalanche news is further confirmation that Shear was right well before most, including Microsoft.
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