Secure Content Distribution on P2P Networks

Peer-to-Peer exchanges represent more than 50% of the exchanges over Internet today. If it were not mainly for illegal sharing of copyrighted content, there is very little doubt that those technologies would be considered differently and that content owners, in particular, would change their current opinion about P2P. Indeed, with the addition of dedicated security and management capabilities, we believe P2P can actually offer a new distribution mean that would ensure not only the protection of the content but also the privacy of its users and the integrity of its system. — Unlike what can be mostly observed today on Internet, P2P is not only about illegal file sharing and the same technologies can actually be enhanced so as to deliver Video-on-Demand and even LiveTV to the home via Internet. This paper will first explain how P2P technologies can be used so as to provide content owners with a new distribution media for both their popular and long-tail content for only a fraction of the cost of other distribution platform. In a second step, this paper will focus specifically on security issues and introduce several concepts that can be used so as to ensure that legal content distributed on P2P platforms can actually be protected against thievery and not be mixed with illegal content.

Published

2008-10

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/M001024

ISBN

978-1-61482-939-3