Increasing P2P transfers using similar files

A group of researchers from several Universities have come up with a method of file sharing that has the potential to increase P2P speed dramatically. David G. Andersen, assistant professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon, and Michael Kaminsky of Intel Research Pittsburgh, along with graduate student Himabindu Pucha of Purdue University have come up with a new system for P2P transfer called, Similarity-Enhanced Transfer (SET).
To understand the system, you need to understand how BitTorrent and other distributed file sharing applications work. BitTorrent breaks a file into multiple chunks. When a user goes to download the file, they actually begin downloading each individual chunk. The chunks do not need to be downloaded in order, as each one is assigned a position in the file. As soon as the user has all the chunks, they have the entire file. There are two main advantages to this system. The first one is that the user can download many chunks at a time from many different users. Downloading from multiple users means that the file will be downloaded much faster than if downloaded from a single user. The second advantage, is that as soon as the user has a complete chunk, they can start sharing that piece. So they don't have to wait for the entire file to be available before they start contributing to the availability of the file.

The SET system works much the same way. The difference is that is actively searches for files that are similar to the one being shared, and attempts to download the similar parts as though they were from the same file. This can dramatically increase the availability of a file, which in a protocol like the BitTorrent protocol means that the file will be downloaded much quicker.

News Via PhysOrg: Computer scientists develop P2P system that promises faster music, movie downloads
Published reaserch paper: Exploiting Similarity for Multi-Source Downloads Using File Handprints

EMI launches DRM free downloads in Itunes

This is all over the tech sites, so you may have already heard, but I thought I would post anyway because it's such big news. EMI has announced that it will be offering its music downloads without DRM for sale on Itunes. This is a big step for the music industry, and one that is long overdue. The big music labels have always said they couldn't offer their music for sale without DRM, or people would copy it and share it with their friends. That whole argument was always a bit ridiculous, since all of the big labels already offer their music for sale in a DRM free format(think CDs). Furthermore, any music that is for sale can be found online for free without DRM in the illegal file sharing networks.
So adding DRM to the legit music they sell on Itunes never made a lot of sense. From the customers point of view, why would they pay for a crippled version of a song they can get uncrippled for free? The best thing for the music execs to do is make the legit versions better in some way than the illegal versions. DRM actually makes the legit versions worse. So this is a big step in the right direction. Hopefully the other labels will join EMI and also offer their songs without DRM.

Offical press release from EMI