Telematics Freedom Foundation -

From piracy to the disintermediation of the content market

Max — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:52:38 +0000

Proposal for a substantial disintermediation and expansion of the content market, and a democratic and fair remuneration of authors and producers, through collective licensing systems inclusive of legalization of digital contents sharing.

This Saturday, March 19th, in Rome, in the cinema Capranica, near Parliament, the Feast of the Pirates will be held to discuss multimedia piracy and the future of copyright with the participation of various political figures from the right and the left, associations and activists who are part of a very broad and diverse movement in the country.
The event will take place, apparently, in absence of representatives of authors and producers, who, by the way, are starting to surface proposals that include legalizing free content sharing.

This absence is symptomatic of a serious lack of dialogue with them, which has encouraged the spread in the "movement" of a position that promotes a mere legalization of piracy, without considering the problem of a decent and fair compensation for those who decide to live on culture, as if this didn't matter or was somebody else responsibility.
In theme with the debate which will be raised by this event, we are here to present a solution which we believe should solve the dilemma of how to legalize content sharing and, at the same time, fairly remunerate authors and rights holders, besides promoting a strong disintermediation of the content market.

PROPOSED SOLUTIONS AS OF TODAY

For a long time there has been an intense debate on how to fairly compensate authors and producers should piracy continue its rapid spread and, as it seems, no measures can be applied to prevent it which are both constitutionally and technologically feasible and sustainable. Especially in the case of music, some solutions of this kind are already a common practice among many mobile operators worldwide, with a monthly fee of a few euros entitling users to a "collective license" for millions of songs. Most of these solutions provide a fixed fee for the user, either mandatory (through taxes, also applied to products) or voluntary (contributions) – which would then be allocated between the authors, based on some set criteria and procedures. Almost all of the proposed solutions require allocation of these revenues to be based on monitoring and counting of individual content as it travels through IP networks.

This monitoring presents enormous challenges for the citizens' privacy and the fairness of compensation of authors and producers, and more. In fact, it would be technically impossible to carry out thoroughly, verifiably, constitutionally, and fairly. It would be:

Seriously incomplete, because more and more content moving online is encrypted and therefore is not monitorable;
Subject to fraud, since it would be very unlikely that citizens and associations could discover possible large scale manipulation by third parties, when contents are counted within proprietary computer systems;
Severely invasive of privacy, as private or public bodies should constantly monitor the content shared by citizens with increased opportunities for a large or very large scale abuse of the right to secrecy of communications as established by Constitution.
Unfair to the authors, because it is far from clear that contents most downloaded are also the most appreciated (many people are actually downloading contents in the wake of advertising campaigns to never play back them anymore)

OUR SOLUTION

Our proposal draws heavily on a proposal made in 2009 by Francis Muguet and Richard Stallman, who created many free/open source software licenses and the GNU/Linux operating system, as clearly pictured in an article by Gaia Bottà, published on the Punto Informatico website on 19 March 2009.
Instead of relying on monitoring contents conveyed in the network or played back on user appliances, it is expected that this fee, however acquired (mandatory or voluntary), is shared among authors and producers on the basis of citizens' choices, expressed in part directly and in part through private interviews to random samples of users. For example, the direct expression of that preference could be made public over the internet, at the citizen will, or privately offline, while paying yearly income taxes.
This solution would not only have the effect to equally reward the rights holders, but more importantly, would greatly contribute to democratize, decentralize and liberalize the contents market, thus alleviating the tremendous influence that nowadays many subjects - publishers, advertisers, broadcasters etc. - exercise on promoting and monetizing contents, and indirectly on its chances to be financed and produced. This solution, if implemented, for instance, on a nation level, would result in a significant disintermediation of digital contents market, establishing a direct financial relationship between the producer/author and the consumer/citizen, "from producer to consumer".
Every author and producer will benefit from an increased freedom to create, knowing that the actual monetization and distribution of its cultural product will be more than ever dependent on the appreciation by an appropriate number of citizens.
Two additional political economic occurrences would be key factors in further realizing the huge potential for democratization and liberalization of culture through the spread of Internet-based multimedia fruition. These are: (1) the adoption of effective laws supporting the neutrality of fixed and mobile networks, and (2) a wide adoption of networked appliances to play back digital contents which are built exclusively on free/open source software, or which primary software platform is managed and administered by an "open consortium" of content producers.

Over-the-Top TV Projects Spread in Europe

giovani — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 22:58:36 +0000

In recent months, several European broadcasters have undertaken initiatives to implement Over-The-Top (OTT) TV services. e-Media Institute has devoted a new research product (Web-TV Intelligence & Strategies Weekly Brief) to tracking and analysing such operations.

The research has identified more than 20 projects in the pipeline throughout Europe, with major UK and French broadcasters leading the way in the larger European TV markets. Research has also highlighted two parallel trends. The first is the development of distribution agreements between rights holders and hardware providers, including manufacturers of game consoles, set-top-boxes, TV sets, broadband consumer equipment and media centres (e.g., Five-Sony; Sky-Microsoft; TF1-Apple).

The second trend is the direct involvement of broadcasters in projects aimed at developing an open technical standard for the implementation of shared OTT TV services, including the Canvas Project in the UK and the pan-European Hybrid Broadband Broadcast TV Project (HbbTV).

For more information on the report and how to purchase, please write to info@e-mediainstitute.com.

XBMC Architecture Summary

giovani — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:16:52 +0000

In July we have sponsored a paper to describe the XMBC Architecture. We needed it to use in a grant proposal so why not paying the XBMC Community to have it?

During the time we were writing the proposal and working on the paper, we noticed that many other people were looking for something similar. Of course all information you will find in this paper is available somewhere on the XBMC wiki, support pages, foruns and trac... What we intended to have was one summary document that can serve as a base for new developers and companies when researching or planning to get involved in the project.

Hope it could be useful to you, or anyone you know that might be interested.

XBMC Summary Architecture
Download PDF

Microsoft Finally Joins HTML5 Standard Efforts

giovani — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:37:45 +0000

In a recent message that has come as a shock to many, Microsoft endorsed the use of <video> and <audio> tags. Adrian Bateman, the Program Manager for Internet Explorer, posted about this a few weeks ago.

The new HTML5 specification includes these <video> and <audio> tags to allow for both video and audio to be played from the browser without the use of a plugin, like Flash or QuickTime. This allows for open, royalty-free codecs like Ogg Theora to be widely utilized. It also frees video and audio from its current, largely proprietary grasp, which reduces the legal and technological costs of entry, allowing for more participatory media. Many new browsers support these HTML5 elements, such as Firefox 3.5, Safari 4, Chrome, and Opera 10. Internet Explorer, which holds the largest market share for browsers, was conspicuously missing from this list. By announcing its support, IE has potentially allowed for a much larger base upon which this new HTML5 framework can be built—though what will actually happen remains to be seen.

Source: Open Video Alliance

TFF presents updated FLOSS Media Center Study at OVC

giovani — Fri, 29 May 2009 09:42:08 +0000

Since the first publication in September 2008 and the last 2 revisions, our study on FLOSS Media Centers State of the Art was downloaded over 35,000 times.

It is now time for a third revision, and we found no better place to present it than the Open Video Conference in New York City from 19-20 June.

With 60 different features under comparison in the 10 most prominent media centers in the free/open source community, we consider all the aspects that matter to you - the end user - to pick your preferred system. Whether it runs on a HTPC or in a set-top box, you have all the parameters to ensure the right choice spending little or nothing. Oh, did I mention this work is released under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license?

So stay tuned, we see you at the OVC.

20.000 downloads in 120 days

giovani — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:11:08 +0000

We launched the first version of our FLOSS Media Center Comparison Chart last year, on September 18. Four months later, we are pleased to announce that we just passed 20.000 downloads.

This is an impressive number for a niche used to see fragmented, disconnected initiatives here and there. Some flourishing, some dead. Free/Open Source Media Centers suffered for a long time from the lack of dedicated (and compatible) hardware to run on, and we are glad to see that 2008 brought us new players (like Boxee) and new products (like Neuros LINK), aiming to increase awareness and use of such home entertainment applications.

We bet 2009 will bring FLOSS Media Centers to a next level. From Home-Theater PC's to set-top boxes, we hope they reach the consumer mass-market pretty soon, and help users to discover new media, enjoy high quality content and connect even more using the internet.

So, thank you for your interest in our work. Thank you specially for those who are constantly telling us about the new features within your community. We'll be compiling the next paper update pretty soon, and we'll let you know through this blog. Subscribe to the RSS feed.

Tiscali TV Shutdown: a strong opportunity for Open Source Set-Top Boxes

giovani — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:50:00 +0000

The recent decision taken by Tiscali Italy to shutdown their IP-TV service, and the few subscribers acquired during the period in which the company promoted its Internet+IP-TV package is an important signal to the Free Software community.

It's a sign that the already fragmented market for Set-Top Boxes leaves no room for closed solutions (the so-called "walled gardens"). There are many solutions available today for those who want to bring to the living room a system to manage their multimedia content. The problem is, however, that all these solutions are closed in some way or have major limitations, because of the difficulties in development and production processes.

Perhaps it is time now that the big players in the market start thinking why not building a large "Open Garden" for entertainment. An open standard for interoperability, development and distribution of multimedia applications. A system that can run on "old" Tiscali boxes, TiVo boxes or any other box which can be purchased on the web (like the Neuros LINK, for example). A new approach to entertainment that could give Set-Top Boxes the same flexibility the PC has, to stimulate creation of new multimedia applications (like p2p tv services, voip, email, web, social networking...), but without compromising the nature, usability and comfort of being able to enjoy media from our couch.

We're working on a project proposal for the drafting of such standards and the development of a back-end and middleware layers that will offer a stable and interoperable platform for Set-Top Boxes. As Facebook and Apple have managed to create their basic platforms for the distribution of applications for Social Networking and on mobile devices (iPhone, iPod touch), the idea is to create a new channel of distribution (an open channel this time) where producers and consumers can interact without intermediates, creating and consuming media (either free or paying for it).

If you want to know more, please visit the project page or participate using Facebook.

Telematics Freedom seeking Partnership for European Projects

giovani — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:21:55 +0000

The Telematics Freedom Foundation is seeking new partners to kick-off some of its projects in the fields of Innovation Technology, Social Networking, Media and Audiovisual.

Those interested can find the profile of Telematics Freedom on CORDIS platform (the Community Research and Development Information Service for Science, Research and Development on the Seventh Framework Programme).

In particular, the projects for which we seek funds and partnerships are:

Freedom Box: Aims to promote wide dissemination and standardization of TV Media Centers connected to the web that are easy to use and economic for anyone; and by anyone verifiable and customizable. The ultimate goal is to bring to market easy-to-use and economically affordable devices that promote long-term maximization of important constitutional liberties in 2 stages: (1) Freedom of choice of audiovisual content on TV at home; (2) Freedom to communicate via Internet with levels of authentication, privacy and security that are adequate to constitutional rights. The operating system and any programs installed on the box will be distributed using free/open source licenses, preferably GNU Affero GPLv3 or GPL v3.
Universal Audiovisual Library: A Digital Library Database that collects hundreds of thousands of GB of audio and video content in its original language, released under open and public licenses. Created and managed by Telematics Freedom Foundation and several free-content partners.
Rule2Gether: Software for consensus-building, debate and preference expression following the Direct Democracy approach and methodologies. Particularly useful for Electoral Lists and/or Political Parties. Rule2Gether is software developed specifically to allow simple democratic discussions and easy decision-making procedures in any kind of organization.
User-Verifiable Telematics: A research project for the realization of software, hardware and processes that enable ordinary non-technical citizens to affordable access any internet-based telematic communication with pretty high levels of privacy and security that are fully user-verifiable. A model for the democratic control of services and practical means to verify software and hardware for all servers that run these services.
Draft2Gether: A new model for creating documents, annotating and proposing amendments in a democratic and cooperative way. Draft2Gether puts any group of people (10's to 100's) in a position to discuss and approve changes in documents democratically, through e-voting and annotation mechanisms. Draft2Gether is perfect for writing documents within standardization commitees, petitions, legal documents or any other type of document that needs to be approved by a large group of people through a careful discussion and a democratic voting of each change.
Do2Gether: Do2Gether is a Political Social Networking and Groups Management tool. The ultimate goal is to be a Free Alternative to YahooGroups/GoogleGroups™ (or a mix of GoogleGroups™+Facebook™). Do2Gether is a project to create a basic software platform for political networking. A web application focused on the needs of political or democratically-run organizations, which cannot (and must not) use a big player's web services such as YahooGroups or Google Groups for groups management or Facebook, Orkut and MySpace for social interaction and professional networking for obvious privacy issues or because of statutory rules.

IP-TV2.0: Missed? Download the Conference!

giovani — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 12:55:28 +0000

All Videos and Presentations of speakers in the IPTV2.0 conference, held last wednesday in the "La Sapienza" Rome's University are now available for view and download:

in italian
in english

You can also download the full PDF file for revision 1.2 of our FLOSS Media Center State of the Art paper (in italian, english or portuguese).

The UI Remix Video presented is available at: http://vimeo.com/1982143

And, finally, you can subscribe to our RSS feeds to be notified when the next revisions in the Media Center study are published:

in italian
in english

Media Center Report: revision 1.2

giovani — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:36:38 +0000

It's time for a new revision on our report on Media Centers in the FLOSS community. Among the changes, surely the Apple TV version of Boxee and XBMC is the big one!

With our upcoming event next week about IP-TV's and Media Centers we thought it would be a good occasion to publish the 1.2 revision online and distribute printed copies to event attendees.

We'll have live demos for Boxee and XBMC using the Apple TV, and also: Elisa, MediaPortal and Neuros OSD. Don't miss!

See you soon...

CNN "tech guru" Chris Pirillo reviews our FLOSS Media Center Study

giovani — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:07:27 +0000

My email to Chris Pirillo informing about the paper release was read, and here is what Chris has to say about it.

Chris, the 1.1 revision is out, downloads are here.

RSS Feed for Updates on FLOSS Media Center Comparison Chart

giovani — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:45:51 +0000

Here it is ... Subscribe this feed to get the latest updates...

Media Center Comparison Chart: revision 1.1

giovani — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:17:05 +0000

We have just published a new revision for the FLOSS Media Center paper (v.1.1), based on the feedback we received in these first days. What's new?

Fixed table inconsistency for audio/video player for XBMC, Boxee and Plex+CenterStage;
Got feedback that Plex+CenterStage are not working on EPG/PVR, just waiting until XBMC releases their work which is currently under development;
Added availabilty of XBMC LiveCD (which runs also as a LiveUSB);
MythTV can also listen to web radio though the unofficial plugin Mythstream;
Fixed MMS video player/handling

We will also evaluate if and when to remove or split CenterStage from Plex. It all depends on the success of their collaboration. If they merge (new name?) we'll update the chart accordingly, but if CenterStage becomes a skin for Plex then we will remove it and leave Plex. Please leave your comments about this issue, we'll be watching...

FLOSS Media Center Comparison Chart Published

giovani — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:17:10 +0000

Thank you everyone for helping in this work.

We released a first version (1.0) of the FLOSS Media Centers State of the Art paper yesterday, and we'll be posting new updates and revisions in this blog.

In less than 24 hours the paper had more than 1,000 downloads. We got a lot of positive feedback from the community and we will be releasing a 1.1 revision later next week to fix some table inconsistencies.

Stay tuned, and bookmark this blog to always get the latest updates.

We'll be adding the RSS feature pretty soon in this blog, sorry for the inconvenience.

Media Center Surveys closed yesterday

giovani — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:29:23 +0000

The Surveys for our Media Center State of the Art Comparison Chart compilation ended yesterday (sept. 2nd 2008). We are now concentrating in compiling results within a quick comparison chart, solving and researching the web and each project documentation for controversial answers which are appearing.

By mid/end of this month we expect to publish a first version, under a Creative Commons License. Anyone will be free to download the final paper, the survey raw data (of course without participant's names, emails and any other information that may compromise their privacy) and our most important research links. Anyone then will be able to extend, complement, correct or publish a derivative study, under the same license terms.

FLOSS Survey will close September 2nd

giovani — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:43:16 +0000

Our FLOSS Media Center State of the Art Survey was very well accepted within almost all communities, the most active being XBMC and Freevo.

We are getting good and high quality responses and work already started to cross-check all information and build a very practical comparison table, reference notes and useful information on each project.

As we'll have our offices closed from August 9 to September 1st, we decided to close the Survey on September 2nd, and then work on final adjustments and clarifications to be able to publish everything by mid-september. So there's enough time for people in less active MC Projects to participate and make them justice.

FLOSS Media Centers - Collecting Data

giovani — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:11:59 +0000

What is the State of the Art in current FLOSS Media Center projects?

To answer this question, we picked the 10 most prominent MC FLOSS projects and we're now asking for your help to collect as much information as possible about their functionality and support.

The 10 selected projects were: XBMC, MythTV, Boxee, Elisa, Neuros OSD, Freevo, My Media System, Entertainer, CenterStage+Plex and MediaPortal.

Because of our limited resources, we can't afford creating a Lab to run and test all 10 media centers. So we are relying on the community collective intelligence to gather all data necessary to provide a broad view on state of the art work in FLOSS Media Center projects.

There is one webform available for each project. The forms are very easy to compile and we invite Project Leaders, Developers and Power Users to actively participate, to provide the most accurate information we need.

You can find more information and links to the web forms in this page.