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How many of you share your media files in a peer to peer environment? Considering it accounts for roughly 70 percent of Internet traffic, it’s safe to say that a healthy population of ‘net users love them some P2P. It has become one of the most efficient forms of mass content distribution over the past few years, and is showing no signs of slowing down. Except, of course, when Comcast throttles BitTorrent, or ACTA tries to outlaw P2P altogether. Where we should see P2P really start to expand is on mobile phones.

Carriers risk loss via sharing

When carriers hear the term “lost revenue,” you can bet they’re looking for ways to recover it. In order to recoup lost revenue from handset subsidies, they institute early termination fees which make it burdensome for customers to opt out of their contracts. Further revenue is lost if the customer switches to another carrier, to these ETFs carry a twofold use to the carriers. They also hedge against this type of loss by locking handsets to their network, making it difficult for users to sign up for another carrier using their current phone.

So what will carriers do to avoid the estimated $16.4 billion loss in revenue it faces by 2012 because of mobile content sharing? If history, as shown above, is a lesson, they will place further restrictions on the consumer. This might be a multifaceted approach, as it was with the issue of customers leaving the carrier, because there are so many ways to share files through one’s phone, most of which bypass the carrier’s network. Users can work around network restrictions by using Bluetooth, WiFi, and simple USB connections.

Clearly, carriers are going to make some kind of move to counteract this forecasted revenue loss. But they might find that putting further restrictions on the consumer can backfire in a serious way, especially with mobile devices.

Do we really own our mobile phones?

At risk here is the intimacy with which people regard their mobile devices. Unlike many other computing devices, like a desktop or laptop computer, mobile phones come with us everywhere we go. As if having the devices perpetually in our pockets wasn’t enough, they also connect us to friends, family, and our places of employment. Thus the cell phone brings about a human connection factor that makes it a unique part of our lives.

Yet, more than any other device, our mobile phones are restricted by service providers. As discussed in the section above, the mobile phone isn’t really yours, even right when you buy it. Out of the box, it comes locked to a specific carrier, meaning there is an extra step involved before a customer can use the device with another network. This is sometimes impossible, as there are two cellular technologies employed by U.S. carriers: GSM and CDMA.

Beyond that, some carriers cripple features within the phone. A prime example involves Verizon Wireless, which disables GPS chips in phones on its network. The only way to use the GPS features is to purchase VZ Navigator, their proprietary navigation software. Otherwise, the GPS chip in the phone you supposedly own is rendered useless.

Copyright’s effect on the sharing issue

Not only do we not own, in the purest sense of the word, our mobile phones, we also do not own mobile content. Rather, this content is licensed to us as consumers, for our use while the license is in effect. How long is it in effect? In the past, it has been as long as your LP didn’t warp, your cassette tape didn’t snap, or your CD didn’t scratch. These days, it’s as long as you can find a way to maintain the file you downloaded. Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to back up your files and keep your license, really, forever.

The ability to potentially keep data files forever has caused further angst among copyright holders (or at least their lawyers). Sharing an LP was one thing. It would only be in one person’s hands at a time. Sharing cassettes was a bit dicier, since they were easy to copy. This became even moreso with CDs, which could be copied to cassette or another CD. Yet it becomes an even bigger issues with digital files. If you share a digital album with a friend, there are then two nearly indestructible copies of the album, one obtained for free.

So what can copyright holders and content providers do to prevent this kind of sharing, or stealing, as they’d like to term it? It’s not an easy question to answer. Some in the industry believe that disabling the means of peer distribution is the answer. Others believe that encouraging P2P transfers can be a boon to content distribution if only used correctly. The younger generation tends to agree with the latter, and it’s more likely we’ll start to see an emphasis on P2P content distribution, though probably not in the near future.

Sharing is inherent to media

Have you ever downloaded an album from iTunes, burnt it to a CD, then ripped the files back to your computer? This is a common practice because it removes Apple’s digital rights management software from the music files. This limits the purchaser’s ability to share the content with whomever he or she sees fit. Thankfully, there are ways around it. But until content providers, such as your cell carrier, understand the pitfalls of DRM, they’re going to have a problem distributing their content.

Say you download a video from Verizon’s VCAST. You watch it. You laugh, you cry, you stare in awe. You don’t want to keep that video to yourself. You want your friends to see it and experience the same reaction you did. Yet cell carriers make this a difficult, if not impossible transaction. And in the end, doesn’t that devalue not only that video, but the provider’s entire library?

Art is not just a personal thing, it’s a communal thing. What inspires an emotional response in you individually, you most likely want to share with others. Yet the nature of copyright law and mobile carrier practices precludes us from sending content to others, unless they pay. But if the carriers continue to stifle sharing methods, aren’t they creating a lesser incentive for people to buy media? When I was a young teen, my friends and I used to go to the Wiz and each buy an album. We’d listen to them together, take our own albums home, and swap mid-week. Without the swapping aspect, we wouldn’t have had the same incentive to buy an album in the first place.

Peer to peering in our mobile future?

As one would expect, mobile devices are getting more and more advanced. They’re moving from the “just a phone” model of the early millennium to all-in-one devices that can handle media files, applications, and more. As a larger percentage of the cell phone carrying population migrates to these advanced devices, we’re going to see more content providers catering to the mobile audience. This means more available media going to more consumers.

How will carriers handle this? Hopefully not by continuing with the old model of crippling services and restricting consumers. Robert Hsieh of Pioneer Consulting, who authored a report on multimedia mobile content distribution, believes that carriers need to embrace sharing opportunities like peer to peer:

“Mobile operators need to embrace peer to peer (P2P) methodologies within their own networks and focus on the advantages of using both assisted P2P and augmented P2P to mitigate the disruption.” Aditya Kaul, Senior Analyst, Emerging Wireless at Pioneer adds that, “P2P is generally treated with contempt by operators and has now become the ‘P’ word that should never be uttered. It is more of an attitude problem rather than an engineering one, and unless operators wake up to the reality of the situation, we cannot even begin to solve the problem.”

When will carriers wake up to this? Not until it’s completely necessary. In a period of transition, mobile operators are looking backward instead of forward. And it’s holding back innovation in the mobile environment.

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