Digital Audio-Visual Work-Trading by ATM
Main Objectives
The project aims at developing a new mechanism to trade digital audio-visual material based on:
- The universal access to textual data bases provided by the World Wide Web (WWW), used to make known to prospective buyers descriptive information of digital audio-visual material on sale.
- The ability to carry broadband information provided by the ATM network to professional users on a world-wide scale in the public and corporate sector of the network, used to offer prospective buyers the possibility to browse and download in real-time digitally compressed AV material on sale.
- The identification of digital AV work being implemented by the rights collecting societies on a world-wide scale, used to link the sale of digital AV material made by ATMAN to the digital AV work identification system so that trading of digital AV material by electronic means does not lead to loss of content.
The immediate availability for sale of digital AV material made possible by digital Satellite News Gathering.
Finally the project will provide all the elements, technical, commercial and legal, on which to establish a company running the business of collecting digital AV material, performing value-added operations on it and sell it in a timely fashion.
Technical Approach
The ATMAN project has been set up with the intention of studying which should be a new mechanism that would allow trading of AV material in digital form, testing the usability of the technologies and eventually implementing the trading model on the market place. For this purpose it will
- develop the hardware and software subsystems that are needed to implement trading of digital AV material.
- Integrate the subsystems and build a fully operational system for trial purpose.
- Test the full supply/handling/delivery chain from information producer to service provider.
- Study the problem of IPR of AV material in digital form and establish link with the rights collecting societies' initiative on digital copyright identification .
- Produce a business plan that will be used by the partners to establish a commercial company.
The project partners represent the three main actors in an ATMAN scenario.
- Telecommunications operators: one from Europe and one from Asia with a strong international flavour.
- Broadcasters: they represent both producers and buyers of information.
- Rights collecting societies: they represent producers of information and they provide the necessary link with those societies' initiative on digital AV copyright identification.
Moreover, the partners intend to include in the project a major North-American content and service provider at later date.
Summary of Trial
The hardware and software subsystems and all of the mechanisms and protocols developed in the project have to be integrated to form a complete prototype ATMAN system, whose performances and functionalities shall be tested in the field under real operating conditions. Major purpose of the demonstration will be to assess the efficiency of the ATMAN trading model, particularly the possibility to effectively browse, access and transfer AV content in a co-ordinated fashion while taking into proper account the legal and commercial issues related to such activities.
Key Issues
- ATM terminal for Satellite News Gathering.
- Definition of Content description.
- Loading, searching, browsing and downloading of content.
- Intellectual Property Rights in the digital domain and legislation.
Achievements
The Satellite News Gathering (SNG) ATM terminal has been designed that will allow to establish an ATM path, lying on a satellite link and on the ATM world-wide network, connecting the site where audio-visual material is produced directly to the ATMAN server
The syntax and semantics of the description associated to an audio-visual content made available for sale on the ATMAN system have been specified. This description is the basis for all the searching, viewing, trading and downloading procedures that are going to be developed in the Project framework.
In the longer term, ATMAN will provide substantial improvements to the way trading of audio-visual material is conducted today. Achievement of transportation of AV works via the world-wide public telecommunication networks will accelerate the evolution and the growth of the audio-visual and multimedia businesses.
Moreover, the requirements generated within ATMAN in the form of content description specifications and interface requirements will have applications beyond the project and will certainly be considered as candidate input standards for other systems, promoting industrial compatibility and encouraging further developments within the content production chain.
Expected Impact
Content trading using an easy to use search engine and viewing capability will result in a decrease in the amount of time (and money) needed to locate suitable material and will result in an increase in the amount of material being traded. Material from minority contributors which is relevant will not be overlooked and thus the market for content will be expanded. All providers will be treated fairly by such a system, and thus it will encourage transfer of content from smaller producers and countries and not restrict the market to those with the most power to promote their products.
Contact:
Giovanni Caire
CSELT
Via Reiss Romoli 274
10148 Torino
Italy
Tel: +39 011 228 6107
Fax: +39 011 228 6190
E-mail: Giovanni.Caire@cselt.it
List of participants
- I
- CSELT
- UK
- BBC
- F
- CISAC
- I
- FINSIEL
- JAP
- KDD
