A game theoretic framework for incentive-based peer-to-peer live-streaming social networks

Multimedia social network analysis is an emerging research area, which analyzes the behavior of users who share multimedia content and investigates the impact of human dynamics on multimedia systems. In peer-to-peer live-streaming social networks, user cooperate with each other to provide a distributed, highly scalable and robust platform for live streaming applications. However, every user wishes to use as much bandwidth as possible to receive a high-quality video, and full cooperation cannot be guaranteed. This paper proposes a game-theoretic framework to model user behavior and designs incentive-based strategies to stimulate user cooperation in peer-to-peer live streaming. We analyze the Nash equilibrium and the Pareto optimality of the game. We also take into consideration selfish users’ cheating behavior and propose cheat-proof strategies. Both our analytical and simulation results show that the proposed strategies can effectively stimulate user cooperation, achieve cheat free and help provide reliable services.