Matt Gould sends word of a new service from Peercast to leverage edge-networks for streaming video: Video broadcasters can now use a simple URL modification to redirect requests to teh Peercast lease managers -- All viewers automatically become partial rebroadcasters of the stream to other viewers. Thanks to contributions from Winamp authors NullSoft, Peercast can support TV-quality Internet streaming possible at bitrates that can be handled by

The Peercast infrastructure used for content distribution means that no matter how many people concurrently view the video stream, the source broadcaster sees no significant increase in the bandwidth required to supply this video stream. You may remember iCraveTV - this setup required dozens of high powered video content servers and expensive bandwidth. The investment required made the rebroadcaster an easy target for broadcasting industry lawsuits, and it was quickly shut down. Peercast enables the same service, requiring nothing more than a bog-standard consumer broadband Internet
connection.

Matt adds that the low entry cost and peer-to-peer architecture will also "initiate an un-controllable resurgence of copyright-infringing Internet-based video content rebroadcasting." The CRTC tried to suppress the issue in Public Notice 2002-38. This summary shows how technologies like Peercast changes everything ...