Content exchange online is evolving profoundly. P2P solutions are constantly being perfected. New platforms, such as news groups, stock & share platforms and video sharing sites, are developing at a rapid pace and private solutions, such as closed communities and the use of instant messaging, are now becoming more available.
The piracy ecosystem is complex: it combines specialists in the acquisition and distribution of content; legal technologies which are distorted for illegal exchange; and an extensive community dynamic.
All the indicators seem to imply that the level of illegal exchange continues to grow, in spite of being more complex to measure. However, growth is observed in the different levers for countering piracy: clarification of legal status, evolving “competitive” pay offerings, and especially fingerprinting solutions that make Digital Rights Management more credible.
Some illegal sites are consequently opting to develop legal solutions.
IDATE’s report presents the added-value chain of content exchange on the Internet, technical innovations and key players based on a number of case studies. It offers components for measuring piracy and sets out the main tools for countering illegal exchange. It concludes by describing the challenges facing the content and telecommunications industries in the
fight against piracy.

Key issues

What are the new content exchange platforms?

What are the practices of piracy on the Internet?

What are the most popular platforms for non-authorised content exchange?

What are the tools used to counter illegal exchange?

What impact does piracy have on the legal market?

What are the challenges for the content and telecommunications industries?
[Studien Infos ausblenden]

1. The Internet and the era of circumvention

2. Content piracy: the value chain

3. Acquiring and processing content
3.1. Acquiring content 15
3.1.1 Physical media 15
Case study: the Warez community 15
3.1.2 "Live" sources 15
Case study: Total Recorder 16
3.2. Modifying content 17
3.2.1 Re-encoding content 17
3.2.2 Subtitling audiovisual programmes 17

4. Illegal content exchange and distribution platforms
4.1. Decentralised content storage: public P2P exchanges 20
4.1.1 Main P2P networks 20
Case study: BitTorrent 21
4.1.2 Innovation on P2P networks 22
Protecting P2 exchanges 22
Streaming P2P for redirecting TV channel feeds 22
4.2. Decentralised content storage: private P2P exchanges 23
4.2.1 Closed exchange networks 23
Establishing a private virtual network between users 23
Case study: Hamachi 23
Establishing a permanent closed network 25
Case study: Tribal Web 25
4.2.2 Exchanges via instant messaging 27
Case study: Pando 28
4.3. Hosted content exchange 30
4.3.1 Newsgroups (Usenet) 30
4.3.2 Video sharing platforms 31
4.3.3 Stock&Share sites 32
Case study: RapidShare 32
4.4. Illegal content web referencing 35
4.4.1 Blogs and links sites 35
4.4.2 Forums 35
4.4.3 Groups 35
4.4.4 Search engines for Stock&Share sites 35
4.4.5 Referencing of Torrent links 35
4.4.6 Directories for streaming programmes online 36

5. Measuring components P2P exchanges continue to grow…
…to the benefit of BitTorrent in particular 37
Stock&Share sites are growing at a rapid rate 38
Newsgroups are still largely restricted to experienced user 39
but users of newsgroups are using them increasingly for exchanging content 40
The number of private exchanges is also massive… 40
…and physical media continue to play an important role 40

6. Countering illegal content exchange
6.1. Clarifying the legal issues 41
6.1.1 International treaties 41
WIPO treaties (World Intellectual Property Organization) 41
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) 41
The European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD) 42
6.1.2 The French DADVSI Law (Copyright and related rights in the information society) 42
6.2. Technical responses 43
6.2.1 Marking and identifying content 43
Watermarking 43
Fingerprinting 45
6.2.2 Protection of physical media 46
CDs 46
DVDs 47
The analogue hole 47
6.3. Where is DRM now? 48
Gradual abandonment of DRM in the music world 48
DRM, hostilities in video gaming 49
Audiovisual world: technical tools for advertising 49
6.4. Conclusion 51
Shifts in the value chain: towards a user centric model 51
A variety of offers on an assortment of devices 52
Innovative business models must prove viable 52
Transfer of added-value to services 53
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Table 2: Overview of services for redirecting feeds from TV channels 22
Table 3: Features overview 24
Table 4: Hamachi's tariffs 24
Table 5: Features overview 29
Table 6: Usenetserver tariffs (depending on commitment) 31
Table 7: RapidShare Features overview 32
Table 8: RapidShare technical features, for both business models (data as at 11/07/2007) 33
Table 9: RapidShare download-links locations 33
Table 10: RapidShare Search process 33
Table 11: Share of Internet homes using at least one P2P application in the previous three months 37
Table 12: The top 100 binaries Usenet groups according to daily unique access – 20 November 2007 40

Figure 1: Piracy value chain 13
Figure 2: Typology of the main platforms used for hosting and exchanging illegal content 19
Figure 3: Sending attachments using the standard version 28
Figure 4: Rise in download requests on MiniNova 36
Figure 5: Changes in the number of visits to mininova.org sites 37
Figure 6: Changes in the number of visits to the rapidshare.com and megaupload.com sites over a 12-month period (percent of daily pageviews) 38
Figure 7: Changes in the number of visits to the rslinks.org site over a 12-month period (percent of daily
pageviews) 38
Figure 8: Daily traffic on Usenet servers (Gigabytes) 39
Figure 9: Changes in the number of posts per quarter for the top 2 500 "alt.binaries" newsgroups 39
Figure 10: Medialive’s solution 44
Figure 11: INA Signature solution: operating mode 45
Figure 12: Move Networks solution for distributing content in catch up TV mode 50
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