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BitTorrent Coming to Routers, NAS Devices

BitTorrent Coming to Routers, NAS Devices

File-sharing bad-boy BitTorrent has been making efforts to go legit in the last year, removing links to copyrighted material from its search engine and inking a distribution deal with Warner Bros. to legally distribute content to BitTorrent users—and while much of the traffic carried by BitTorrent still keeps the RIAA and MPAA up and night, a growing amount of material available is being distributed legally.

Now, BitTorrent has inked a deal to put client software in Internet-connected products like routers, network attached storage (NAS) devices, and other "digital home" media product. And BitTorrent already has partners lined up, with ASUS, Planex, and QNAP already announcing BitTorrent-enabled products.

Music Subscription Prices Need to Drop

The report, which includes data from Parks Associates’ multinational consumer study Global Digital LivingT, finds that 41% of MP3 player owners in the U.S. are not willing to spend more than $10 per month for a music service subscription. With comparable service costs presented in local currencies, 62% in the U.K. cap their interest at this amount, with 49% in France, 52% in Germany, and 56% in China expressing similar price inhibitions. Furthermore, on average, one-third of the MP3 player owners across these five nations believe these music services should be free.

Mobile Industry To Drive Interoperable DRM

“Unlike the personal computing and consumer electronics spaces, the mobile phone industry has been able to develop interoperable DRM solutions from the ground up, which is a real advantage for providers seeking to add multimedia content to their services,” said Harry Wang, a research analyst at Parks Associates. “This environment has created a clean slate for the mobile phone industry to write its own DRM standard.”

Specifically, the Open Mobile Alliance’s (OMA) DRM Specifications 1.0 and 2.0 are key interoperability standards in this market, and they have attracted the attention of other, more entrenched DRM players – including Apple, Microsoft, and RealNetworks – that want to leverage it for their own solutions.

Consumers Are Ok With Protected Music CD’s

Contrary to widely held industry beliefs, U.S. consumers are not overwhelmingly antagonistic toward the concept of copy-restricted music CDs, provided these CDs come with the proper incentives, according to Parks Associates’ forthcoming report Digital Rights: Content Ownership and Distribution.

Among respondents in Parks Associates’ survey Profiles of PC Usage, when given a choice between a normal music CD and a copy-once CD priced $5 less, 33% of those who do not rip CDs and 27% who rip CDs preferred the copy-once CDs.

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