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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
21

Resistance commons : file-sharing litigation and the social system of commoning

Caraway, Brett Robert, 1974- 28 September 2011 (has links)
This dissertation is an investigation into the practice of peer-to-peer file-sharing and the litigation campaign targeting individual file-sharers carried out by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) from 2003 to 2008. The competing conceptualizations of social relations which motivate the conflict over peer-to-peer file-sharing are explored using a combination of Autonomist Marxist theory and structuration theory. Peer-to-peer file-sharing is framed as part of the social system of commoning stemming from the recent ascendancy of immaterial labor within that sector of the economy dedicated to the production and distribution of informational and cultural goods. The RIAA litigation campaign is framed as a reaction to the emergence of new forms of social relations which are seen by the content-producing industries as subversive of revenue streams premised on commodity exchange in informational and cultural goods. The history of the RIAA litigation campaign is presented in detail with careful attention given to those instances in which defendants and other interested parties fought back against RIAA legal actions. The acts of resistance within the legal arena affected the ultimate potential of the litigation campaign to control the spread of file-sharing activities. Subsequent legal campaigns which have been based on the RIAA litigation model are also examined. These later file-sharing cases have been met with similar forms of resistance which have likewise mitigated the impact of legal efforts to combat file-sharing. In addition, a survey of file-sharers is included in this research as part of an attempt to understand the relationship between legal actions targeting peer-to-peer systems and individual file-sharers and the technological and social development of peer-to-peer systems. This research argues that file-sharing litigation has proven ineffective in turning back the flood of file-sharing and may have increased the technological sophistication and community ties among file-sharers. In the end, the conflict over peer-to-peer file-sharing is cast as a manifestation of a larger dynamic of capitalist crisis as content-producing industries attempt to come to terms with the contradictory tendencies of immaterial labor and the production of common pools of digital resources. / text
22

Picnic - a platform for sharing pictures and socialize people

Putz, Daniel Robert January 2007 (has links)
The internet itself is continuously changing. Since it was widely introduced, the users’ main focus has shifted from a communication tool, to a huge file sharing pool, to a marketing tool, to an information gathering and information reproducing tool. Nowadays the way of sharing files needs to be reconsidered, because more and more private information is shared over the internet. The common file sharing applications are no longer appropriate for today’s purposes. Also the common way of socializing people is not up to date anymore. Sharing files already implies a communication between users. But why do we not use the given information of shared data in order to socialize them? This thesis discusses the problematic domains of sharing images and socializing and introduces a tool named Picnic that has been conceived and implemented in order to overcome those problems.
23

Modeling, simulations, and experiments to balance performance and fairness in P2P file-sharing systems

Li,Yunzhao January 1900 (has links)
Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering / Don Gruenbacher / Caterina Scoglio / In this dissertation, we investigate research gaps still existing in P2P file-sharing systems: the necessity of fairness maintenance during the content information publishing/retrieving process, and the stranger policies on P2P fairness. First, through a wide range of measurements in the KAD network, we present the impact of a poorly designed incentive fairness policy on the performance of looking up content information. The KAD network, designed to help peers publish and retrieve sharing information, adopts a distributed hash table (DHT) technology and combines itself into the aMule/eMule P2P file-sharing network. We develop a distributed measurement framework that employs multiple test nodes running on the PlanetLab testbed. During the measurements, the routing tables of around 20,000 peers are crawled and analyzed. More than 3,000,000 pieces of source location information from the publishing tables of multiple peers are retrieved and contacted. Based on these measurements, we show that the routing table is well maintained, while the maintenance policy for the source-location-information publishing table is not well designed. Both the current maintenance schedule for the publishing table and the poor incentive policy on publishing peers eventually result in the low availability of the publishing table, which accordingly cause low lookup performance of the KAD network. Moreover, we propose three possible solutions to address these issues: the self-maintenance scheme with short period renewal interval, the chunk-based publishing/retrieving scheme, and the fairness scheme. Second, using both numerical analyses and agent-based simulations, we evaluate the impact of different stranger policies on system performance and fairness. We explore that the extremely restricting stranger policy brings the best fairness at a cost of performance degradation. The varying tendency of performance and fairness under different stranger policies are not consistent. A trade-off exists between controlling free-riding and maintaining system performance. Thus, P2P designers are required to tackle strangers carefully according to their individual design goals. We also show that BitTorrent prefers to maintain fairness with an extremely restricting stranger policy, while aMule/eMule’s fully rewarding stranger policy promotes free-riders’ benefit.
24

Internet piracy in Japan : Lessig’s modalities of constraint and Japanese file sharing

Field, Shirley Gene, 1985- 01 November 2010 (has links)
The rise of new digital technologies and the Internet has given more people than ever before the ability to copy and share music and video. Even as Japan has adopted stronger copyright protections, the number of Japanese peer-to-peer file sharing network users has multiplied. Though the distribution of copyrighted material online has long been illegal and, as of 2010, the download of copyrighted material is now a criminal act, illegal file sharing continues apace, with the majority of people active on Japan’s most popular file sharing programs remaining unaffected by the new legislation. Clearly the law alone does not work to constrain file sharing behavior in Japan and, in fact, it is not the only way Japan strives to enforce copyright law on the Internet. What strategies are industries and government taking to curb illegal file sharing and are these strategies effective? How is unauthorized peer-to-peer file sharing cast into an act both immoral and worthy of criminal prosecution? Of particular interest are the evolution and growth of architectural and social constraints on online behavior alongside these legal constraints. / text
25

Convert your enemy into a friend : Innovation strategies for collaboration between record companies and BitTorrent networks

Andersen, Axel, Hristov, Emil January 2009 (has links)
<p>Problem: Record companies are facing a downturn in sales of music. This is seen as consequence of the growth of distribution of music through Internet by file sharing networks such as BitTorrent networks. On one side there are record companies who feel threatened of the illegal file sharing, and on the other side file sharing BitTorrent networks has increased dramatically in number of users since they first approached. Some record companies have responded by taking hostile actions towards the BitTorrent networks and their users with lawsuits and penalties for illegal file sharing. Other record companies and artists have joined forces with BitTorrent networks and see them as an advantage. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyze if, and how record companies can collaborate with the BitTorrent networks. Method: A hermeneutic inductive approach is used, in combination with qualitative interviews with both record companies and BitTorrent networks. Conclusions: It is argued that record companies can find a way in communicating and cooperating with BitTorrent networks. Instead of adopting hostile approaches and trying to restrict the technologies adopted by end users, companies should open themselves up and accept the current changes initiated and developed by BitTorrent networks. Thus, it was concluded that companies have to concentrate around collaborating with BitTorrent networks rather than fiercely protecting old business models. By opening up to the users, record companies will adopt open innovations approach that is characterized by combining external and internal ideas, as well internal and external paths to market, thus obtaining future technological developments. As for the BitTorrent networks, by going from outlaw to crowdsourcing mode, the networks’ creative solutions can be further harnessed by record companies. Finally, strengthening relationships between customers and music artists can be considered as beneficial for both record companies and BitTorrent networks. Thus, giving opportunities for customers to win special items, tickets for concerts, watch sound check, eat dinner backstage with the group, take pictures, get autographs, watch the show from the side of the stage, etc. can lead to valuable relationship in a long run.</p>
26

Peer-to-peer-based file-sharing beyond the dichotomy of 'downloading is theft' vs. 'information wants to be free': how Swedish file-sharers motivate their action

Andersson, Jonas January 2010 (has links)
This thesis aims to offer a comprehensive analysis of peer-to-peer-based file-sharing by focusing on the discourses about use, agency and motivation involved, and how they interrelate with the infrastructural properties of file-sharing. Peer-to-peer-based file-sharing is here defined as the unrestricted duplication of digitised media content between autonomous end-nodes on the Internet. It has become an extremely popular pastime, largely involving music, film, games and other media which is copied without the permission of the copyright holders. Due to its illegality, the popular understanding of the phenomenon tends to overstate its conflictual elements, framing it within a legalistic 'copyfight'. This is most markedly manifested in the dichotomised image of file-sharers as 'pirates' allegedly opposed to the entertainment industry. The thesis is an attempt to counter this dichotomy by using a more heterodox synthesis of perspectives, aiming to assimilate the phenomenon's complex intermingling of technological, infrastructural, economic and political factors. The geographic context of this study is Sweden, a country characterised by early broadband penetration and subsequently widespread unrestricted file-sharing, paralleled by a lively and well-informed public debate. This gives geographic specificity and further context to the file-sharers' own justificatory discourses, serving to highlight and problematise some principal assumptions about the phenomenon. The thesis thus serves as a geographically contained case study which will have analytical implications outside of its immediate local context, and as an inquiry into two aspects of file-sharer argumentation: the ontological understandings of digital technology and the notion of agency. These, in turn, relate to particular forms of sociality in late modernity. Although the agencies and normative forces involved are innumerable, controversies about agency tend to order themselves in a more comprehensive way, as they are appropriated discursively. The invocation to agency that is found in the justificatory discourses - both in the public debate and among individual respondents - thus allows for a more productive and critically attentive understanding of the phenomenon than previously
27

A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of the Impact of the Digital Age on the Music Industry

Michel, Norbert 19 December 2003 (has links)
We present an in-depth analysis of the music industry and use our findings to judge the practical assumptions and design of an original theoretical model. The model is in three stages, where, in a Hotelling-type framework, the last agents to act are consumers who choose between copying, purchasing, or staying out of the market for music. Prior to the last stage, the record label chooses its profit maximizing price and, in the first stage, we incorporate the artist-label bargaining agreement into a theoretical framework using the Nash cooperative bargaining solution. The current structure of the music industry is a combination of the oligopoly and monopolistic competition models, consisting of five major labels and many independents. Despite major labels' advantage in large-scale distribution, we argue that digital downloading has the potential to radically alter the current industry structure, and that artists would be unable to sell their music in such an environment without enforceable copyrights. Our model assumes that the most important determinants of CD and copy demand are consumers' tastes and transaction costs of copying, CD prices, and the substitutability between CDs and copies. We hypothesize that Internet file-sharing has been undertaken by both consumers who were previously not in the market, and by those who decided to copy rather than buy. In regard to firm strategy, the model suggests that labels could increase the sales of CDs by trying to increase consumers' taste for music, perhaps by reducing the price of CDs. Our model also predicts a positive relationship between artists' optimal share of album sales and their bargaining power, as well as a negative relationship between artists' optimal share and their risk aversion. Since lowering the reliance on labels for distribution would increase artists' bargaining power, our model predicts that artists' share of profits should increase as legitimate digital distribution gains prominence. We also provide empirical testing of our hypothesis that some music file-sharing has been done by consumers frequently not in the market. After examining consumers' expenditures and aggregate industry sales, we are unable to reject our hypothesis
28

Design of Scalable On-Demand Video Streaming Systems Leveraging Video Viewing Patterns

Hwang, Kyung-Wook January 2013 (has links)
The explosive growth in on-demand access of video across all forms of delivery (Internet, traditional cable, IPTV, wireless) has renewed the interest in scalable delivery methods. Approaches using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), Peer-to-Peer (P2P) approaches, and their combinations have been proposed as viable options to ease the load on servers and network links. However, there has been little focus on how to take advantage of user viewing patterns to understand their impact on existing mechanisms and to design new solutions that improve the streaming service quality. In this dissertation, we leverage on the observation that users watch only a small portion of videos to understand the limits of existing designs and to optimize two scalable approaches -- the content placement and P2P Video-on-Demand (VoD) streaming. Then, we present our novel scalable system called Joint-Family which enables adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR) in P2P VoD, supporting user viewing patterns. We first provide evidence of such user viewing behavior from data collected from a nationally deployed VoD service. In contrast to using a simplistic popularity-based placement and traditionally proposed caching strategies (such as CDNs), we use a Mixed Integer Programming formulation to model the placement problem and employ an innovative approach that scales well. We have performed detailed simulations using actual traces of user viewing sessions (including stream control operations such as pause, fast-forward, and rewind). Our results show that the use of segment-based placement strategy yields substantial savings in both disk storage requirements at origin servers/VHOs as well as network bandwidth use. For example, compared to a simple caching scheme using full videos, our MIP-based placement using segments can achieve up to 71% reduction in peak link bandwidth usage. Secondly, we note that the policies adopted in existing P2P VoD systems have not taken user viewing behavior -- that users abandon videos -- into account. We show that abandonment can result in increased interruptions and wasted resources. As a result, we reconsider the set of policies to use in the presence of abandonment. Our goal is to balance the conflicting needs of delivering videos without interruptions while minimizing wastage. We find that an Earliest-First chunk selection policy in conjunction with the Earliest-Deadline peer selection policy allows us to achieve high download rates. We take advantage of abandonment by converting peers to "partial seeds"; this increases capacity. We minimize wastage by using a playback lookahead window. We use analysis and simulation experiments using real-world traces to show the effectiveness of our approach. Finally, we propose Joint-Family, a protocol that combines P2P and adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming for VoD. While P2P for VoD and ABR have been proposed previously, they have not been studied together because they attempt to tackle problems with seemingly orthogonal goals. We motivate our approach through analysis that overcomes a misconception resulting from prior analytical work, and show that the popularity of a P2P swarm and seed staying time has a significant bearing on the achievable per-receiver download rate. Specifically, our analysis shows that popularity affects swarm efficiency when seeds stay "long enough". We also show that ABR in a P2P setting helps viewers achieve higher playback rates and/or fewer interruptions. We develop the Joint-Family protocol based on the observations from our analysis. Peers in Joint-Family simultaneously participate in multiple swarms to exchange chunks of different bitrates. We adopt chunk, bitrate, and peer selection policies that minimize occurrence of interruptions while delivering high quality video and improving the efficiency of the system. Using traces from a large-scale commercial VoD service, we compare Joint-Family with existing approaches for P2P VoD and show that viewers in Joint-Family enjoy higher playback rates with minimal interruption, irrespective of video popularity.
29

Internet e direito autoral : o ciberespaço e as mudanças na distribuição da cultura /

Cruz, Leonardo Ribeiro da. January 2008 (has links)
Resumo: A Internet propiciou a formação de uma rede descentralizada de informações nunca antes encontrada em nossa sociedade. Baseando-se na digitalização dos produtos culturais, a arquitetura da rede permitiu uma ampla distribuição de informações de maneira fácil e relativamente barata, favorecendo uma distribuição cultural de novo tipo, baseada na facilidade de apropriação, de compartilhamento e de produção de réplicas idênticas ao original. Contudo, essa prática tão comum da cibercultura freqüentemente desconsidera as leis de proteção dos direitos autorais, pois estimula uma livre circulação de informações em detrimento da proteção dos interesses autorais e mercadológicos de distribuição. A Internet inaugura ainda novos movimentos sociais, pautados pela construção comum de licenças autorais atualizadas e de práticas políticas de Desobediência Civil nesse novo terreno de disputa. Portanto, objetivamos neste trabalho investigar as formas de distribuição de informação no arcabouço tecnoinformacional e as suas relações com as estruturas jurídicas das leis proteção autoral e com as velhas e novas formas de acumulação. / Abstract: The Internet made possible the beginning of a unique decentralized network of information in our society. Relied on the digitalization of cultural products, the net's framing allowed a biggest sharing of information in a easier and cheaper way, supporting a cultural distribution of a new kind, based on the facilities of appropriation, sharing and production of identical copies from the original one. However, this ciberculture common practice frequently disrespect the copyright laws, because it encourage a free circulation of information in detriment of the authors and merchandising interests protection. The Internet still made possible the emerging of new social movements, ruled by common construction of actualized author's licenses and by political actions of Civil Disobedience within this new space of conflict. Thus, our objective in this work is investigate the new paths of information sharing ways in the techno-informational structure and its relations with the juridical framing of the copyright and with the new and old ways of accumulation. / Orientador: Mauro de Mello Leonel Júnior / Coorientador: Aloísio Shumacher / Banca: Francisco Luiz Corsi / Banca: Pablo Ortelado / Mestre
30

Stochastic analysis of P2P file sharing systems.

January 2008 (has links)
Lin, Minghong. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-51). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgement --- p.v / Chapter 1 --- Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 2 --- A Stochastic Framework --- p.5 / Chapter 2.1 --- Model Description --- p.5 / Chapter 2.2 --- Altruistic File Sharing System with Download Con- straint --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- Model Formulation --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Steady State Analysis --- p.9 / Chapter 2.3 --- Altruistic File Sharing System with Download and Upload Constraints --- p.14 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Model Formulation --- p.14 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Steady State Analysis --- p.15 / Chapter 2.4 --- Incentive File Sharing via Coordinated Matching --- p.18 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Without Incentive Mechanism --- p.18 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- With Incentive Mechanism --- p.19 / Chapter 2.5 --- Simulation --- p.23 / Chapter 3 --- An ISP-friendly Protocol --- p.28 / Chapter 3.1 --- Simple Mathematical Models --- p.28 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Assumptions --- p.29 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Homogeneous Case Analysis --- p.30 / Chapter 3.1.3 --- Heterogeneous Case Analysis --- p.31 / Chapter 3.1.4 --- Flash Crowd Analysis --- p.32 / Chapter 3.2 --- An ISP-friendly BitTorrent Protocol --- p.33 / Chapter 3.3 --- Performance Evaluation & Measurements --- p.36 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- Choice of the BitTorrent Client --- p.37 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- Experimental Setup --- p.37 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- Regular Peer Arrival --- p.38 / Chapter 3.3.4 --- Flash Crowd --- p.41 / Chapter 3.4 --- Black Hole Security Attack --- p.42 / Chapter 4 --- Related Work --- p.46 / Chapter 5 --- Conclusion --- p.48 / Bibliography --- p.49 / Appendix --- p.52

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