Two years of living in Clapham have come to an end. Dimitris - my flat mate and good friend - has taken the leap and decided to move back to Greece, starting with the military service and moving on to finding a job and settling down. So May found me flat hunting, ending up in St. Johns Wood, a green, quiet and quite posh area of Northern London. Flat is good, slightly cheaper than Clapham, roomier but a bit more moody - the dark chocolate interior doesn't really reflect the limited london sunlight as it comes in from the windows. But you gotta love the mirrors in the bedroom and Regents park is a stone throw's away where I'm starting to become a regular!

Which brings me to the second change... One of my new year's resolutions was to take better care of myself. As some close friends remember, I went through quite a big scare back in October. The English diet had gotten the best out of me and over the last four years in UK I've managed to gain 10 kg, quite a significant departure from the slim, athletic me that I was so used to back in my Athens Uni days. So I was done with junk food and turned to fruit, chicken, vegetables, tomatoes and olive oil, the essence of the Mediterranean diet. Along with some modest calorie counting, I've managed to get back to shape, loosing all 10 kilos and then some more and most importantly of all, regaining my health and energy. Plus you gotta love the faces of all my colleagues that haven't seen me for a while -"WHAT! How did you manage to do that! ...."

And last but not least... Holidays! Having just taken 14 days of holiday since last August, it was yet another stressful year. So a BIG party was in order! June holidays took off with a re-visit of Barcelona - probably the best way to kick the holiday mood off. Nice beach, good bars and food for three days of "away from london and the rain" time. Then it was Athens and off to Mykonos with Dimi. To be honest, I did not know what to expect from this holiday - it was the first time I go somewhere with just one friend. But to our surprise, or should I say - as expected - we had the best time ever. Swimming, party by the beach plus bottle after bottle of Champaign and Vodka. The landing at London was definitely hard, but at least the weather gave us a break; it was sunny and we probably saw the hottest days of this summer.

Three weeks later and off to Greece again, this time at the much promising sailing boat trip. Having just landed at Athens, we were greeted by the oh-so-familiar 40C heat and then the 5 pumping left - 10 pumping right - 5 pumping left that was the toilet training. None of us remembered it and proved to be a formidable challenge after a bottle of Vodka (each) and 8 Beaufort scale Aegean winds... The trip started off quite calmly with a nice ride to Tzia, were our "fabulous" captain managed to make us known to the ENTIRE island by trying to fit the boat in a space enough for a jet-ski. At least we used that to our advantage at the club! Following day, off to Syros, were on the way we stopped at this great deserted beach, shadowed by deep blue waters. Multiple dives off the boat were a must and Anna became our official photographer, in search of the perfect diving pose. In Syros we probably had the best food in this holiday, or to better said - the last food of this holiday, as from the next day it was Mykonos and that meant feeding on Vodka, Moet and Red Bull for the next few days. Waving good by at my old friend Nikos, we sailed off from Syros and following a rough sea arrived at Mykonos - some with their colour changed to yellow from the sea while others having the best sleep of their lives...! Thankfully, my night in at Syros plus the dramamine pill and chewing gum combo saved the day and was busy taking pictures of DL and George hugging the boat balloons and decorating the boat floor. So Mykonos was again, parking quite easily at the new port and off to a stroll at the familiar streets. Its the first time I felt so at home in this Island, was like walking in by back garden! For the next few days it was non-stop partying - well at least for the ones that managed to stay alive and healthy! What Kilimanjaro challenge.. If you want something that can make you reach your limit try 5 days in Mykonos. That WILL do the trick (plus you will need the sponsoring). It was business as usual; waking up at 14:00, going to Paradise at 15:00, lying by the beach with a Cappuccino Freddo at hand, then having a quick chat with Takis, the beach club "pimp" who arranged a nice table for us decorated with Champaign, Vodkas and the necessary summer hit tracks. Familiar faces were coming and going and it was quickly bed time - 23:00 for a two hour power nap. Then depending on the night it was Guetta at Cavo Paradiso, Space in Mykonos town, the familiar Skandinavian, the "greek" Remezzo or all of them at once! For four days, dawn found us dancing/swimming at a random pool/rushing back to the boat to pack/having the last Cappuccino Freddo of the day/ in the mandatory visit to the medical centre!

And then it was Sunday and we were off to Athens and then Gatwick airport. For the first time I was glad to finish my holidays - one more day and I would have definitely been at the hospital - I've jut realised that I'm 26 and even though I now know how to party, my body can't stand it any more. Landing at Gatwick was, to say the least, depressing. Not so much because of the rain, the cold wind, the train and taxi ride home, but because there was no more holiday to look forward to (a quick check with easyjet for August bank holiday revealed a £400 ticket to Athens!) and cause the night life in London is not even close to what we lived over the past month...

As a friend said, we probably reached our holiday peak this year - I reply - we still have USA and Asia to do! Plus I am not going out clubbying again in London unless we have a table and bottle booked - minimum!

Photos to follow

Over the past 24 hours, one piece of news seems to take the centre stage: Virgin Media to partner with BPI, the British Polyphonic Industry, to combat illegal music sharing. As the official announcement states, Virgin Media is piloting an education campaign, during which, customers found illegally distributing music will receive a notification letter from both Virgin Media and the BPI. The accounts will be identified by the BPI which in turn notifies Virgin Media that has the responsibility of distributing the notification letters. For our "piece of mind" none of the personal customer information will be disclosed to the BPI, or at least that's what the official announcement declares.

Lets take a closer look in the official announcement:

As part of the campaign, customers whose accounts appear to have been used to distribute music in breach of copyright will receive informative letters, one from Virgin Media and one from the BPI. Accounts will be identified to Virgin Media on the basis of information supplied by the BPI. Both letters will be distributed by Virgin Media, without the need to disclose customer names and addresses to the BPI. (source)

As per the official BPI statistics, over 6 million UK users have used Peer-to-Peer (Wikipedia) services to illegally access music. The number is most definitely not small, considering that the total number of broadband connections in the UK is estimated around 13.3 million (Ofcom). Basic statistics instruct that 50% of broadband users have conducted illegal activities with their broadband connections, according to BPI.

Before looking into the announcement in more detail, lets take a quick look over the past year's news regarding piracy. In February 2008, the UK public was warned that they may have their internet access cut as part of a three-strike scheme, which is to be enforced by government legislation (BBC UK). A similar move was suggested in France, with the newly elected president Nicolas Sarkozy looking to pass legislation that would warn and eventually cut off repeated pirates from the internet (The NY Times).

Looking back at the announcement, there are a number of obvious flaws to BPI's approach. Initially, the letter is addressed to the account holder. However, with the proliferation of WiFi (Wikipedia) which is inherently insecure (the most commonly used encryption algorithm can break within 60 seconds (source) it is hard for the end user to be 100% certain of who is connected and using his line. Moreover, a recent study from the University of Washington demonstrated how a printer can be framed and accused of illegally downloading content via the popular BitTorrent protocol. Quoting:

Practically any Internet user can be framed for copyright infringement today. By profiling copyright enforcement in the popular BitTorrent file sharing system, we were able to generate hundreds of real DMCA takedown notices for computers at the University of Washington that never downloaded nor shared any content whatsoever. (source)

Finally, the phrase "distribute music" in the original announcement can be interpreted in various ways; Download music? Upload music? Which services are monitored and how is illegal content identified and filtered from legitimate content? What is the financial cost of those efforts?

Considering that high speed, unlimited broadband is in popular demand with P2P users, clamping down on piracy will most definitely hurt the revenue stream of the Internet Service Providers (ISP). However, at the same time it will reduce congestion on their core networks, alleviating the need for infrastructure upgrades. A recent survey, approximately 50 to 95% of all network traffic is caused by P2P networks, depending on time of the day (Timesonline). Considering that some ISPs have voiced capacity concerns, even with legitimate traffic, as seen by Tiscali's, BT's and Carephone Warehouse announcement regarding the BBC iPlayer (The Independent), making the first move to block P2P networks instead of investing in infrastructure makes financial sense.

Over the past year, we have also witnessed a change in the digital music distribution business models. Starting with an announcement from Steve Jobs in February 2007, pleading music firms to rid their digital content ofDRM limitations (Apple), EMI allowed distribution of DRM-free content via the iTunes store (EMI). This move was closely followed by the opening of the Amazon Music store that enabled users to download DRM free MP3 tracks and other music providers, shifting away from the Windows Media encryption technologies. For sure, the popularity of the iPod, the integration with iTunes and reasonable pricing drove the iTunes Music service to be the number one music retailer, in both physical and online stores in the US (Apple).

A more radical change to music distribution business models represents the music subscription service from Nokia, targeting the mobile user (Nokia). However, the lack of integration with computers and lack of interoperability with digital music players are obvious flaws of the implementation, but the subscription model is looking promising. Finally the free provisioning of TV shows by services like the BBC iPlayer (link) and its integration with gaming consoles is opening up the world of on-demand video streaming.

Concluding, Virgin Media's announcement was a bold move that is expected to pave the ground for other ISP's to follow, especially as the hard work of monitoring the users falls under BPI's responsibilities. At the same time, investment in the correct business models has the potential to offer the consumer all the benefits of illegal downloading (interoperability, ease of use, ease of acquisition) and the removal of DRM has the potential to create a true competitive market, with pricing adapted to follow demand and competitive offers.

Piracy has been the key for this transformation as it has put financial pressure on the music and movie industry. The ingredients are here, lets just hope that the timing is going to be right and the market ready. Until then:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Update:

So the first 800 threatening letters from Virgin Media are out. Also, BT has signed up with BPI. At present it seems that only Bittorrent and Gnutela networks are monitored, not the much used Rapidshare. It begs to wonder if this intimidation technique is used to push customers on premium "music" broadband, i.e. higher price broadband connections that allow users to legally download music. But will this work with my iPod in my Mac...? Doubt so...

Links:

BBC: Virgin Media issues 800 warning letters

The Register: BT Threatening music downloaders