Managing Rights Management

Ericsson and CEA Smart Contracts and Rights Management Patent Applications

New pending patent applications are published on Thursdays. This week's Spotlight Applications continue the theme of smart contracts (blockchains, distributed ledgers) and rights management broadly construed. Assigned to Ericsson (SE), the first application discloses techniques for managing service access authorization using smart contracts. Assigned to Commissioner For Atomic Energy And... Read more →

Verizon and Telepathy Labs Blockchain and DRM Patents

New patents are issued by the USPTO on Tuesdays. Today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of blockchain (distributed ledger, smart contracts) and digital rights management broadly construed. Assigned to Verizon, the first patent addresses techniques for using blockchains in conjunction with virtual SIM cards. Assigned to Telepathy Labs, the second patent... Read more →

AT&T and SonicWall Digital Fingerprinting Patents

New patents are issued by the USPTO on Tuesdays. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of digital fingerprinting. Assigned to AT&T, the first patent addresses techniques for sharing timed fingerprint location information. Assigned to SonicWall, the second patent addresses techniques for image based spam blocking. 10,206,113, "Sharing timed fingerprint... Read more →

CES 2010: DRM Is Alive And Well - Part 1

The 2010 Consumer Electronics Show was very upbeat, perhaps more so than two years ago (last year doesn't count given the economic implosion resulting in widespread malaise and depression). Of course the purpose of the these shows is to drum up excitement. 3D TV (not quite ready for prime time... Read more →

RIAA Stops Suing Consumers - Not!

The NYTimes and other outlets reported that the RIAA is ending its lawsuits individual music downloaders. Not so, says Slashdot: According to a report on Wired.com, the RIAA spokesman claims that the RIAA has not filed any new lawsuits "for months"; according to the Wall Street Journal report the RIAA... Read more →

CNET: The RIAA's Letter to ISPs

cnet.com has obtained a copy of letters sent by the RIAA to ISPs regarding P2P downloading of music files. Please bear in mind that this letter serves as an official notice to you that this network user may be liable for the illegal activity occurring on your network. This letter... Read more →

Backdooring Skype

[tip o' the hat to Dave Farber's IP list] Speculation abounds that Skype has incorporated backdoors so that national security agencies can listen in on Skype calls. So much for privacy. An article posted by Daniel AJ Sokolov on the heise security site says in part: At a meeting with... Read more →

ISP Targeted Advertising

One example of the current discussion regarding ISP efforts to participate in revenue streams based on advertising is this overview article that appeared in MediaPost. Charter and others are looking into ad insertion based on capturing information about the web browsing behavior of their customers. In the U.S., ad company... Read more →

Warner Music Hires Jim Griffin To Herd Music Industry "Cats"

Sam Gustin reports on Conde Naste's Portfolio.com site that Warner Music's head honcho Edgar Bronfman, Jr. has hired noted music industry exec Jim Griffin, formerly Geffen Music's digital chief, to lead Warner's drive to fix the music industry's business model. Griffin will reportedly focus on getting the ISPs to add... Read more →

Comcast Capitulates On Net Neutrality

According to this NYTimes article and other sources, Comcast has said that it will move to application neutral network management and disclose publicly its bandwidth management techniques. Tests by the Associated Press and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (among others) showed that Comcast was disrupting P2P traffic with forged packets. The... Read more →

Verizon Set To Improve Legal P2P File-sharing

According to the AP and NYtimes, Verizon is set to announce later today support for legal P2P filesharing companies and applications. Working with companies that use P2P and researchers at Yale University, Verizon will reportedly help P2P applications make more efficient use of the Net. Verizon shared details about the... Read more →

Surprise! MPAA Against Net Neutrality

Ya just have to love Variety-speak: "MPAA topper blasts Net neutrality." "This effort is being called by its proponents 'Net neutrality,'" Glickman [MPAA's 'topper"] continued. "It's a clever name. But at the end of the day, there's nothing neutral about this for our customers or for our ability to make... Read more →

Delaying the Canibalization of The Cable TV Business

One of the high level themes underlying today's FCC hearing on net neutrality is what's motivating Comcast to interfere with P2P traffic? Their answer is that they manage the use of a small number of users whose traffic my otherwise degrade the experience of the many more users who are... Read more →

Morning Session Main Points

This morning's session boiled down to whether Comcast and cable operators can manage their network by discriminating against specific applications such as Bit Torrent. Some argued that such discrimination is OK as long as the application discrimination is disclosed to consumers. Others argued that in a duopoly, disclosure isn't sufficient.... Read more →

Markey's Comments

Congressman Ed Markey's comments include an emphasis on free markets as the foundation for solving bandwidth and pricing issues. This should be No Country For Old Broadband. And Bit Torrent should not be Bit Trickle. Also, check out the SaveTheInternet.com site and their FAQ on Net Neutrality. Read more →

Blogging From The FCC Hearing on Net Neutrality

I'm at the Havard Law School today. Thanks to the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the FCC is conducting a public en banc hearing at the Harvard Law School on Net Neutrality (NN) and broadband management. There will be a live audo feed for those interested. I'll be blogging... Read more →

UK: ISPs To Be Held Responsible For Piracy - Maybe

The Beeb reports that the government has indicated that ISPs must take steps to curb piracy or face legal sanctions. The culture secretary said consultation would begin in spring and legislation could be implemented "by April 2009". Representatives of the recording industry, who blame piracy for a slump in sales,... Read more →

Snooping on Skype

[tip o' the hat to Digital Freedom Campaign] Jeremy Reimer writes on ArsTechnica that the Bavarian government sought assistance from software vendor Digitask in snooping on Skype conversations. So much for privacy. The method outlined involved the installation of malware referred to as the "Skype Capture Unit" that would be... Read more →

What's Going On In The Living Room? DRM.

Investor's Business Daily has an overview article on the digital living room. The article rightly views the Macrovision / Gemstar TV deal as a natural outcome of convergence between copy protection technologies and Internet on-demand TV distribution. It concludes with a discussion of Marlin-based DRM interoperability and quotes Scott Smyers,... Read more →

MPAA, ISPs, and Content Filtering

[tip o' the hat to Lauren Weinstein's post on the Net Neutrality Squad list]. Nate Anderson writes in Ars Technica that the MPAA expects ISPs to reduce piracy by implementing content filtering technologies (e.g., deep packet inspection and/or fingerprinting-based filtering). Case in point: AT&T and its publicly-stated plan to implement... Read more →

China jails man for ad stripping software

As noted earlier, ad stripping is practiced in the US through browser plugins. At least until recently, Norton Internet Security provided a robust ad stripping capability. [Tip o' the hat to Dave] Now the Wall Street Journal reports that Chen Shoufu, a 28 year old computer science instructor, has been... Read more →

The NetNeutrality Squad

I'm a big fan of Pixar's The Incredibles, which is about the exploits of the Parrs, a family of superheros. Apparently in response to revelations that Comcast was disrupting BitTorrent traffic, several Internet and technology luminaries, including Dave Farber, Paul Saffo, Bruce Schneier, Peter Neumann, and Lauren Weinstein have created... Read more →

FCC Urged to Stop Comcast Internet Blocking

CNet reports that a coalition of Internet scholars and interest groups has petitioned the FCC to stop Comcast from continuing to disrupt P2P traffic on their network. Sadly, But the truth is there isn't much that the FCC can do at this point. Under the current regulations and laws, the... Read more →

Comcast Admits Delaying Some Traffic While Confessing to Some Blocking

In response to accusations by the Associated Press and EFF that it interrupts certain P2P traffic on its network, Comcast denied blocking BitTorrent traffic. Instead, the nations largest ISP said that it employs traffic shaping technologies to manage bandwidth during peak traffic times. According to the Associated Press, however, a... Read more →

Comcast Blocking Or Delaying P2P Traffic

The Associated Press reports that Comcast blocks and/or delays P2P traffic when its subscribers try to upload an entire file to another Comcast subscriber. Comcast's technology kicks in, though not consistently, when one BitTorrent user attempts to share a complete file with another user. Each PC gets a message invisible... Read more →

How To Unlock An iPhone

Several outlets including the AP/Boston Globe and the New York Times are reporting that 17 year old "hacker" George Hotz has figured out how to unlock an iPhone. His now runs on T-mobile rather than on ATT. The steps for unlocking can be found here. Read more →

Skype Deconstructed / Hacked

[tip o' the hat to Dave Farber's IP list]. Phillipe Biondi and Fabrice Desclaux have reversed engineed Skype. The details are in a highly technical presentation online here. Skype apparently makes use of several software obsfucation techniques and defensive security mechanisms. For those interesting in details, worth the read. Read more →

How IPTV May Change The Role Of Telecom Infrastructure

This longish article in Billing World addresses how telecom (broadly construed) back office infrastructures are evolving to address the delivery of video programming over the Internet (IPTV) and over cellular networks. There are lots of 3- and 4-letter acronyms and vendor names, but the main points include that back office... Read more →

Oracle Implementing DRM

This article in The Inquirer says in passing that Oracle is implementing DRM, in part to address the telecom market. Snippet: [Oracle] ... will continue to introduce more software products aimed at Telcos. For example it is building DRM (Digital Rights management) software based on the recent open standard -... Read more →

Entitlement Management For Next Gen Broadband Systems

Telephony Online says in a worthwhile article that entitlement management systems are the next important evolution in back office systems for broadband services. Snippets: Providers are now beginning to discover that while billing systems can provide a basic level of entitlement support, the systems are not optimized to perform in... Read more →