The Darknet and the Future of Content Distribution
Peter Biddle, Paul England, Marcus Peinado, and Bryan Willman
Microsoft Corporation1
Abstract
We investigate the darknet – a collection of networks and technologies
used to share digital content. The darknet is not a separate physical
network but an application and protocol layer riding on existing
networks. Examples of darknets are peer-to-peer file sharing, CD and
DVD copying, and key or password sharing on email and newsgroups.
The last few years have seen vast increases in the darknet’s aggregate
bandwidth, reliability, usability, size of shared library, and availability of
search engines. In this paper we categorize and analyze existing and
future darknets, from both the technical and legal perspectives. We
speculate that there will be short-term impediments to the effectiveness
of the darknet as a distribution mechanism, but ultimately the
darknet-genie will not be put back into the bottle. In view of this
hypothesis, we examine the relevance of content protection and
content distribution architectures.
1 Introduction
People have always copied things. In the past, most items of value were physical
objects. Patent law and economies of scale meant that small scale copying of physical
objects was usually uneconomic, and large-scale copying (if it infringed) was stoppable
using policemen and courts. Today, things of value are increasingly less tangible: often
they are just bits and bytes or can be accurately represented as bits and bytes. The
widespread deployment of packet-switched networks and the huge advances in computers
and codec-technologies has made it feasible (and indeed attractive) to deliver such digital
works over the Internet. This presents great opportunities and great challenges. The
opportunity is low-cost delivery of personalized, desirable high-quality content. The
challenge is that such content can be distributed illegally. Copyright law governs the
legality of copyin