Consumer file sharing (non-piracy media commerce network)
Specific market overviews of implementation of this vision.
There are several application areas for the technology:
1. Consumer file sharing (non-piracy media commerce network)
2. Decentralised media diffusion (using the network as broadcast airwaves and for on-demand consumption)
3. Personalised ad insertion (ad insertion without the server farms)
4. Media production factories (broadcast and post production)
5. Enterprise document management (fuss free storage for large companies)
6. Home media networks (wireless media centres and players)
7. Global data archive (Baxter)
Today’s market-The Consumer File Sharing Scenario:
Typically the user is sitting at a PC and throws away his Napster, eDonkey or Kazaa servent, installs the NeoPixSys Cloud servent instead. Instead of storing entire files on their hard drive and making these available to others through federation of directory entries on the peer-to-peer network, the individual user uploads only those files to which he has ownership rights, since his unique identifier will be written into the file that he uploads. When the file is uploaded, the data is vaporised into atoms, which are coded in such a way that you can lose some of them and replicate them and still recover the data. The entire file is not stored on any user’s hard drive. Rather, the atoms of the vaporised file are sent out into the aggregate storage cloud comprised of the hard drives belonging to the users that are currently logged on. The atoms will be everywhere, diffused throughout the cloud.
Instead of a directory entry, each user will have a resolver that searches the cloud and finds atoms or alternates sufficient to reconstruct the file. These resolver entries can be replicated on other user nodes. As users come and go on the network, the directories and atoms are moved around the cloud before the user logs off. Once the file is in the cloud, it stays there, even if users log off. The only important condition is that there are a minimum number of nodes always on the network. When a user wants to download a file, they get information about it by aggregating resolver entries from peers in their local network neighbourhood first. The process of condensing a file from the cloud is one of gathering enough of the atoms to reconstruct the file, from wherever they happen to be stored in the cloud, rendering the file with the downloader’s unique identity encrypted and appended to the original file uploader’s identity.
The user sees a service, just like Kazaa say, except that when they take a copy, their identity is appended to the identity of the original copyright owner. They can take the media to other players they own, copy it and back it up freely, quote from it, make a single offline copy for their best friend, add it to a compilation and so on, but if they were to mass replicate it, by uploading it to any file sharing network, they would be giving away information about themselves with every copy – a powerful deterrent to piracy. DRM solutions can be added, so that commercial owners of content could charge users for each initial rendering they make from the cloud, when they condense the atoms into a file. After that payment has been made and the copy condensed (i.e. rendered), subsequent copies made from that unique rendering are traceable. The condensing software can also be made to deliberately add a small amount of digital noise to each rendering, so that copies are never identical to the original and copies of copies degrade. This provides a further incentive for buying a copy from the source, instead of making a copy of a copy.
From the content owners’ point of view, there is no need to build a huge on-demand server farm or install network links having massive bandwidth. As long as enough people are online, the files vaporised into the cloud remain in the cloud. Also, because no single node ever has all the atoms that comprise a file, stealing media by copying it anonymously from a single hard drive cache is never possible.
There are several application areas for the technology:
1. Consumer file sharing (non-piracy media commerce network)
2. Decentralised media diffusion (using the network as broadcast airwaves and for on-demand consumption)
3. Personalised ad insertion (ad insertion without the server farms)
4. Media production factories (broadcast and post production)
5. Enterprise document management (fuss free storage for large companies)
6. Home media networks (wireless media centres and players)
7. Global data archive (Baxter)
Today’s market-The Consumer File Sharing Scenario:
Typically the user is sitting at a PC and throws away his Napster, eDonkey or Kazaa servent, installs the NeoPixSys Cloud servent instead. Instead of storing entire files on their hard drive and making these available to others through federation of directory entries on the peer-to-peer network, the individual user uploads only those files to which he has ownership rights, since his unique identifier will be written into the file that he uploads. When the file is uploaded, the data is vaporised into atoms, which are coded in such a way that you can lose some of them and replicate them and still recover the data. The entire file is not stored on any user’s hard drive. Rather, the atoms of the vaporised file are sent out into the aggregate storage cloud comprised of the hard drives belonging to the users that are currently logged on. The atoms will be everywhere, diffused throughout the cloud.
Instead of a directory entry, each user will have a resolver that searches the cloud and finds atoms or alternates sufficient to reconstruct the file. These resolver entries can be replicated on other user nodes. As users come and go on the network, the directories and atoms are moved around the cloud before the user logs off. Once the file is in the cloud, it stays there, even if users log off. The only important condition is that there are a minimum number of nodes always on the network. When a user wants to download a file, they get information about it by aggregating resolver entries from peers in their local network neighbourhood first. The process of condensing a file from the cloud is one of gathering enough of the atoms to reconstruct the file, from wherever they happen to be stored in the cloud, rendering the file with the downloader’s unique identity encrypted and appended to the original file uploader’s identity.
The user sees a service, just like Kazaa say, except that when they take a copy, their identity is appended to the identity of the original copyright owner. They can take the media to other players they own, copy it and back it up freely, quote from it, make a single offline copy for their best friend, add it to a compilation and so on, but if they were to mass replicate it, by uploading it to any file sharing network, they would be giving away information about themselves with every copy – a powerful deterrent to piracy. DRM solutions can be added, so that commercial owners of content could charge users for each initial rendering they make from the cloud, when they condense the atoms into a file. After that payment has been made and the copy condensed (i.e. rendered), subsequent copies made from that unique rendering are traceable. The condensing software can also be made to deliberately add a small amount of digital noise to each rendering, so that copies are never identical to the original and copies of copies degrade. This provides a further incentive for buying a copy from the source, instead of making a copy of a copy.
From the content owners’ point of view, there is no need to build a huge on-demand server farm or install network links having massive bandwidth. As long as enough people are online, the files vaporised into the cloud remain in the cloud. Also, because no single node ever has all the atoms that comprise a file, stealing media by copying it anonymously from a single hard drive cache is never possible.
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