'Distrust causes illegal downloads'

http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,2065254,00.html

More than a quarter of young people in the UK are prepared to illegally download music and films because they distrust the entertainment industry, according to research.
41% of 18- to 34-year-olds do not trust the entertainment industry to provide value for money, and 34% do not trust companies to respect the rights of those who do pay for digital content.
Research found that 27% of young people have already downloaded content illegally or would do so.
This distrust has been caused by the imcompatibility for music from iTunes being played on anything but an iPod.
49% of younger consumers are more likely to criticise an entertainment company to their friends, 37% are more likely to share their negative opinions online and 43% said they would be more likely to boycott products or services.

In the US, CD sales dropped by 20% from 2006 to 2007, according to Nielsen Soundscan.
70% said that "word of mouth" from friends was a key influence.
Earlier research into consumer trust, published in January, found that 57% of people in the UK said they trusted the entertainment industry, compared with 67% for the technology industry.
The media industry was the least trusted at just 21%.

Testing The Case Study

1. General NMT terms

• technology
• institutions
• audience
• issues
• the future
• innovation
• technophile/technophobe
• push technology/pull technology
• hot media/cold media
• global village
• convergence
• personalisation
• interactivity
• democratisation
• exploitation
• consumption

2.

• production
• content
• performance
• reception
• developments
• music distribution
• "digital auteur"
• revenue/software
• multimedia
• stereo/soundtrack
• anti-social technology
• piracy revolution

3.

• In 2005, Nielsen SoundScan reported that the "big four" record companies accounted for 81.87% of the U.S. music market.
• DRM protected tracks are available for 79p, but for higher quality music, customers are expected to pay another 20p. Entire albums can cost as little as £7.99.
• Apples iTunes Store is said to be the most popular online music store having sold more than 2.5bn tracks around the world.
• The RIAA is a group which makes it it's personal aim to fight against online piracy. Their latest scheme includes a website which allows American college students to settle costs upfront from peer to peer sharing files they have been involved in.
• The first of these cases, in January last year, resulted in a landmark legal ruling, with two men ordered to pay £5,000 and £1,500 respectively for copyright infringement. Additional costs and damages were estimated at up to £20,000.
• The Chief Executive of Big Champagne, a media analysis company that specialises in monitoring P2P sharing says that around 1 billion tracks are traded illegally each month - This is occuring despite the closure of P2P sharing systems such as the first illegal Napster, Grokster, and Kazaa.
• More than 50% of the downloading music market is in the UK, where over a million tracks are downloaded "legally" each week.
• Bebo's UK audience has apparently increased by 10% in just a month (January 2007 to February).
• Apple sold more than 10.5 million iPods in the first three months of 2007, helping the US technology firm to record an 88% increase in profits.
• The global success of its digital music player and strong demand for its MacBook computers helped Apple's sales to soar from $4.3bn to $5.2bn.
• UK record labels have forced 23 internet users to pay fines worth a total of more than £50,000 after they admitted to illegally downloading music.

Exam Questions

1.
(a) According to the passage, which three companies are soon to invest in encouraging online console gaming?
Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo

(b) Give three pieces of evidence from the passage which suggest that there will be a market for online console gaming.
"Hardcore PC gamers have been taking part in online contests over local networks and the Internet for years"
"Sony's EverQuest and Electronic Art's Ultima Online attract around 450,000 and 275,000 users respectively, paying between £6-8 per month"
"Final Fantasy 11 attracted 120,000 online subscribers paying £7 a month in three months"

(c)Outline the significance of broadband to the success of this project
Sony and Microsoft are talking to continental broadband suppliers. They are also using it to gain dominance of a market. It makes it faster, adds an "international" element. There is always access to broadband, and it is a very reliable program. There is also a "multi-player" potential in which people can play with mates and such.

2.
(a)Explain what is meant by "gain dominance of a market"
"Gain dominance of a market" means that they want to be the only company that online gamers use to play online games over the Internet and effectively gaining a competitive advantage. E.g. Microsoft or Apple.

(b)"The online gaming initiative by these companies is an attempt to maintain their profits" To what extent has online technology increased audiences for other media products?
As technology changes, so does audience demand, with all this new media coming online, it provides many different possibilities for a wide range of people. For example, the ability to play online games with your friends without even having to leave your own house has been possible for years now.
As the "seventh generation" of gaming has now been entered, consoles such as Wii, and Playstation3 are the latest creations to be released. As such consoles are created for public use, new games are being developed in order to attract a wider range of audience. A recent article on BBC News has stated that a Virtual Big Brother game is in developing along with others such as Deal Or No Deal, and The X-Factor. This idea of promoting every one's favourite TV programmes into games is a good way of attracting larger audiences. The "second life" where players can create their own desirable versions of themselves, walk around in a virtual world, and meet new people, is a huge development and people like to take full advantage of such things. However, it is criticised as it seems to put a stop on peoples social lives and the online social community is something "outside" of reality and shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Film Technology Research

1. What are the advantages of digital projection for the consumers?
There is a special quality which is "unrivalled by any other media", and it uses "35mm film". It is very simple to upload and just involves a one-button push from being digitally uploaded. The main advantage is the picture quality, every imperfection gets shown as the 35 mm print passes through the projector, including scratches, fluff, blotches etc. With a digital projector linked to a server there are no more stray hairs, scratches or dust - just a crystal clear picture.

2. Why has there been a slow take-up?
It's been a question of agreeing in advance, industries have had to build a consensus, and agree business models and technology to be used, and it took longer than most people expected.

3. Why is 'Hollywood' driving this technological change?
They stand to make enormous savings, which they are able to pass on to cinemas themselves. The most obvious saving is in distibution costs. Distributing movies digitally means they can be encrypted before they even leave the studios, and then unlocked by software at the cinemas themselves, which will prevent piracy, which Hollywood claims has cost it $6bn (£3.2bn).

4. What does digital projection offer in the way of the "future" for cinemas?
In the future, the possibility of delivering the movie by satellite or over the net has got the "bean counters salivating". 3D could be able to return to our screens as well. With a digital projector you can input virtually anything into it - they can screen a DVD, a clip downloaded from YouTube, gaming from a digital projector with multiple players on the screen at the same time, a live feed from satellite, cable etc. Digital movies can be streamed from the server to different screens at the same time; or alternatively a variety of movies can be shown on the same screen throughout the course of a day.

5. Extended question: how is digital distribution changing the way we consume other media?
With technology available to recreate old classics, as well as show sporting events, in 3D there is a real feeling that 3D is finally coming of age.

iPod – why so popular?

Brought the MP3 player from a niche market to mass market:

• Easy to use technology and website
• Must-have accessory (marketing, great PR campaign)
• signed deals with all five major labels to make sure the vast majority of artists are represented
• Continuation of trendy Apple brand
• Excellent functionality
• Simple transaction and relatively cheap: 99 cents

LimeWire Readying Digital Music Store

http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/04/limewire_readyi.html

• P2P programme installed on 18.71% of all computers globally is in talks with various "indie" labels and label distributors about creating a digital music store.
• Even though LimeWire has faced a bit of legal issues in the past, it is still up and running because of strong behind-the-scenes activity.

World Music Market

The world music market consists of record companies and labels and publishers that send out recorded music products around the world and they control the rights to those music products.

The "big four" record groups that currently dominate the market are:

• Sony BMG


• EMI


• Universal


• Warner

They each consist of many smaller record companies

Record labels sign, market, publicize, develop and promote as well as provide sales support to the larger distribution companies for their releases and artists.

In 2005, Nielsen SoundScan reported that the "big four" record companies accounted for 81.87% of the U.S. music market.

HYMN software

HYMN or "Hear Your Music aNywhere" is computer software that allows the user to exercise their fair use rights under United States copyright law.
The FairPlay DRM restrictions of tunes are softened with this programme.

Whilst most DRM removal software reduces the quality of sound, FairPlay software captures the "raw" AAC stream generated by iTunes as it opens each song, and the data is saved with use of a compression structure identical to that of the original file, so that both the quality and small file size are preserved. The resulting files can also be played outside of iTunes, on other software not connected to the iTunes set up.

HYMN has also been updated with JHYMN (Java Hear Your Music aNywhere). They will only work when the user has got a version previous to 6.0.

http://www.hymn-project.org/

DMGI Announces New Music Acquisitions

http://www.broadcastnewsroom.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=130059

Discusses the acquisition of both music and video content through digital distribution, master purchase, and digital rights purchase agreements with various artists like Todd Rundgren, and Dwight Twilley. The total number of music tracks included under these agreements is approximately 3,000.

Such announcements are believed to underline the commitment to acquiring and making available great music to fans and enthuisiasts around the world.

These oppurtunities will be available through current and future digital entertainment services.

The Doors lead way as big names of rock go digital

Owen Gibson, Monday March 26th 2007

The Doors now intend to "snare" a new generation of fans by releasing an entire back catalogue online for the very first time.
With the decline of CD sales, record labels are now trying to move to the web scene and hope to market rock's biggest names to younger listeners via the web.

Record companies are moving to digital download because they intend to boost online sales. Material available has been remastered with new material from the original sessions by the band and engineer.

Whilst the marketing focus used to be on persuading die-hard fans on spending their money on tracks they already own, it has now changed to targeting younger record buyers who missed such classic acts the first time around.
Doors guitarist Robby Krieger has admitted to using "iTunes and stuff".
Keyboard player Ray Manzarek added "although you gain the ease of access, you do lose the sense of an artefact".

Offering download-only content such as video interviews, ringtones, and remixes is further evidence of how bands such as The Doors continue to evolve as technology itself evolves around them.

Krieger has also stated that the record labels have not evolved, and that they have gotten "too much power and ego".

Top selling back catalogue artists
1 The Beatles
2 AC/DC
3 Muse
4 Rod Stewart
5 Metallica
6 Pink Floyd
7 Oasis
8 Madonna
9 Michael Jackson
10 Eagles

Top selling back catalogue downloads
1 Take That
2 Kylie Minogue
3 Pink Floyd
4 Michael Jackson
5 Linkin Park
6 Eminem
7 Queen
8 Guns N' Roses
9 David Bowie
10 Abba

After the crackle, pop - Miranda Sawyer

Sunday April 15th 2007 The Guardian

A few years ago, every wireless would be equipped with FM, LW, MW and SW bands. The SW frequency was always the most interesting, as you could come across some fantastically "exotic" music which could be broadcasted from as far away as North Africa and Latvia!

However, the onward march of digital broadcasting would seem to kill such accidental wireless joy. Certain radio stations are very "unique" and not at all hard to find. Stations such as "Mouseworld Radio" (The Disney Vacation Station) and "Sirens Of Song" (music made by women) can be found. Such websites as Live365.com enable users to scroll through a dial of these websites.
http://www.live365.com/index.live

Internet radio falls into 2 categories, the online versions of real radio stations, and the specialist, internet-only stations.

The station PandoraFM accounts for 1.5% of all internet traffic. It provides a written description of the music you choose. It also allows the user to type in their preference of song or band, and then proceeds to search for other types of music similar to the users preference.

Other stations which allow the user to have a wide range of special features to choose from include:

• Radio Paradise
• Resonance 104.4fm
• East Village Radio
• Last.fm
• SomaFM
• Wefunk
• Radioio
• Dead
• Woxy.com
• LittleRadio.com

It is possible to create your own station as well which is not so popular in the UK or the US because people are too busy listening to mainstream popular artists and music.

GAMING - PS3 and "Home"

1. What is a "myspace phenomenon"? - MySpace is an example of a new online phenomenon, which is more appropriately called "online social networking." In online social networking environments, users register and establish a profile that provides personal information and photos. Then the user makes connections or links with other users who share interests or connections. Users engage in a variety of forms of communication and information sharing, which can include personal Web pages, blogs, and discussion groups. MySpace is currently the most popular of several dozen online social networking communities.
2. What is an MMO style chat room? - A massive multi online game style chat room basically. Players can compete with each other on a grand scale.
3. What is Sony's Game 3.0 philosophy? - This is where users are able to effect their surroundings like decorating their house, and change the way things look in their game to their liking.
4. What is an emote? - An emote, or emoticon is a small piece of specialized ASCII art to indicate emotions and attitudes that would be conveyed by body language in face-to-face communications.
5. What are the key advantages/functionality for the user? - They have access to places which have been designed in great detail, and are very realistic. You are able to interact with others as well as letting you stream music or chatting to them through a bluetooth headset. You can get rewarded when you pass certain game tasks.
6. What social issues does it raise? - If people are at home all day interacting and socialising online, then they will be socialising with normal people less and less and this could lead to a drop in social interactivity with young people. The people that they meet online may not be who they say they are and how would we know if we never meet them!
7. What is the potential for Sony and other games developers? - It includes in game advertising such as virtual billboards which display sponsors and film trailers etc. It can be very sucessful at advertising.

Finding the music format of the future http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,2055743,00.html

This is an article by Jack Schofield and it was in The Guardian published on Thursday April 12th 2007.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,2055743,00.html

It states firstly that the majority of music files on filesharing systems are encoded in MP3 format. But apparently, this is all about to change!
AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) encoded files are becoming more popular as people begin to share more and more music downloaded from Apples iTunes Store. Also, support for MP3 encodings could falter if "the newly-merged Alcatel-Lucent telecoms giant can assert its claims to have pricey patent rights over the format."

As part of the EMI-Apple deal mentioned previously, Apple had agreed to offer non-protected 256kbps AAC files alongside its current protected 128kbps AAC files. This will give AAC a boost in its battle with MP3.
Music stores are free to choose which type of encoding they prefer to a certain level.

EMI's experimentation with selling unprotected tracks were done with the use of MP3 encoded tracks. Considering iTunes has most of the legal online music market, most files that are bought online could still use AAC.
The support is growing in other areas as well. It was first brought into the public eye with Apple when it introduced it with the iPod. AAC files play on a growing number of devices such as:

• Microsoft's Zune
• PSP
• Playstation 3
• Walkman MP3 players
• Nokia/Sony Ericsson mobile phones.

It is important in digital radio, and is based in upcoming web stations.

If record labels had not insisted on copy protection, it is likely that MP3's would have still been used. As MP3 did not involve DRM, suppliers switched to AAC, WMA, and other formats that they were able to protect to some extent.

EMI/DRM links...

http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,2048507,00.html -iTunes to offer EMI music to all

http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,2048195,00.html - EMI and Apple in DRM deal

http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,2048900,00.html - "Big step forward in music revolution" hailed as EMI drops copy protection

http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,2049994,00.html - EMI releases its first album without copy protection

http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,2055410,00.html - Beatles-EMI dispute settled

Basically, it started when EMI offered iTunes all its digital music without copy protection which means that fans could download music on to any sort of device, not just i-Pods. Not only can users now listen to their music on any sort of music device, but the quality of the music is far better as well.

Some suggest that it is merely a clever and sneaky way of record labels and digital stores raising their prices.

This decision by EMI seems to be paving the way for other record labels to do the same.
DRM protected tracks are available for 79p, but for higher quality music, customers are expected to pay another 20p. Entire albums can cost as little as £7.99.

Apples iTunes Store is said to be the most popular online music store having sold more than 2.5bn tracks around the world.

These stories include mention of Sony BMG saying that they would no longer accept demo tapes or CDs from prospective new signings, which in turn, encourages artists to take a more "myspace" approach to advertising their music.

A later dispute was that Beatles tracks were not available in this NMT. However, the dispute with EMI has now been settled. Members of the band, and relatives claimed that EMI had underpaid them by tens of millions of pounds in money on sales of Beatles records between 1994 and 1999.

Can filesharers be made to pay? - Adam Webb

This is an article from the Guardian on Thursday March 22nd 2007, and it addresses the issue of filesharers illegally sharing music over the internet with such programs as Limewire

http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,2040201,00.html

Mere lawsuits no longer unnerve "pirates" on the web, and the music industry must look for a way in which it can make money from peer to peer sharing.
The RIAA is a group which makes it it's personal aim to fight against online piracy. Their latest scheme includes a website which allows American college students to settle costs upfront from peer to peer sharing files they have been involved in.
http://www.p2plawsuits.com/P2P_00_Home.aspx

However, the majority of headlines that the RIAA have created since starting up in 2003 have been mostly negative, especially with their focus on college campuses. Universities feel they are pressured into divulging information about students.
The question now is :
Will these measure be taken against peer to peer sharing in the UK?

The UK equivalent of the RIAA, is the BPI (British Phonographic Industry), have been said to have more "sensitivity" about them. They waited until the law on downloading became final and precise before they began their fight against online piracy.

The Chief Executive of Big Champagne, a media analysis company that specialises in monitoring P2P sharing says that around 1 billion tracks are traded illegally each month. This is occuring despite the closure of P2P sharing systems such as the first illegal Napster, Grokster, and Kazaa.

A filesharer knows that the likelihood of being caught is astronomical, and so they will continue to do it because they don't believe they will be caught and music industries can do little about it.
However the Chief Executive of the BPI states that his aim was never to stamp out P2P sharing, but to display the message that it was illegal.

A big point is the difference between the downloaders and the uploaders. So far, only the uploaders have been targeted, but new strategies may be placed which restrict people from downloading music which has been uploaded illegally.
The BPI's job is not being made any easier by programmes such as Limewire and Morpheus which are still up and running, and many of the music swaps now occur in closed social networks, and MP3 blogs. Other forms of media such as Q magazine have also been listing URL's in which visitors are able to download free music.

The way this media is now being consumed is very different to what it was just a few years ago though. The music industry has to adapt it's methods in order to match this different consumerism. An example of this is the fact that people prefer to get their songs of Itunes stores rather than actually buying the whole CD now.
The main question remaining now is:
Where are all the new "legal" P2P sharing systems?

Marketing music on the web - Matt Keating

The following is a summary of an article from the Guardian on Monday January 30th 2006

The article starts with saying that such bands like the Artic Monkeys owe their increasing popularity to the internet. It helps build up their fanbases with websites like Myspace where the band can post songs for fans to listen to.
Jonny Bradhsaw at Domino Record (Artic Monkeys label) says that the band burned their demo on CD-Rs and gave those out at gigs and then the fans shared them around and that there was hardly any promotion.

It then goes on to introduce the idea of downloading music. It uses that statistic that more than 50% of the downloading music market is in the UK, where over a million tracks are downloaded "legally" each week.

Whilst websites have not proved useful for the Artic Monkeys, other bands such as "Franz Ferdinand" and "Kaiser Chiefs" have been said to have very popular websites which are both central to marketing in the music industry.
Website promotion has been used this time because they help to build a fan base and relationship, even though traditional advertising is not too expensive or ineffective. Another advantage is that it allows unsigned bands to build up good reputation and recognition increasing their chances of being signed up to a record label.
Bands consider their online presence as very important and make it their responsibility to increase this online popularity by introducing such features like live webchats and online webcam diaries. It is said to be more about time than investment. Less known bands consider it more important to have a good online active role. They build up their websites and in record contracts they state that they want to play a bigger part in controlling how their website is run.

A bands official website is said to be the best form of communication with their audience and discusses such topics as record releases and tours which encourage fans to attend, and buy their records which can only increase a bands popularity.

This article clearly shows how instrumental the internet is becoming in music, and proving that more and more bands are starting to use the internet to communicate with their fans.
It is not just the bands that are creating these sites. Many fans start their own personal websites which others are free to become members of and discuss the band.

Writers who work for nothing: it's a license to print money - John Naughton

This is an article from The Observer, and it was published on Sunday March 11th 2007.The opening passage in the article discusses how after the Virgin Express train crashed in Cumbria on the 24th February, pictures were available on BBC News Online, and others were invited to send their own pictures to the website for publishing. This is repeating the democratisation factor of anyone being able to "report" the media events.It is an example of "user generated content". The fact that people are now able to post their own pictures to the website means that eventually, we may not even need reporters anymore. It was sparked by a huge event in 2005 when London was bombed by terrorists. There was such a lot of media coverage needed to keep up with the huge amount of action going on around London, and many networks were unable to cope, and because of their desperation, camera phones and digital cameras of Londoners were used instead, as it also made it a lot more real, it was described as striking, moving, and informative. This is an article from The Observer, and it was published on Sunday March 11th 2007.The opening passage in the article discusses how after the Virgin Express train crashed in Cumbria on the 24th February, pictures were available on BBC News Online, and others were invited to send their own pictures to the website for publishing. This is repeating the democratisation factor of anyone being able to "report" the media events.

It is an example of "user generated content". The fact that people are now able to post their own pictures to the website means that eventually, we may not even need reporters anymore. It was sparked by a huge event in 2005 when London was bombed by terrorists. There was such a lot of media coverage needed to keep up with the huge amount of action going on around London, and many networks were unable to cope, and because of their desperation, camera phones and digital cameras of Londoners were used instead, as it also made it a lot more real, it was described as striking, moving, and informative. It was immediately accepted by networks, and all of a sudden, mainstream media began to understand what user generated content meant.
The flood has now becoome a torrent. Blogging, photograpgy, and making videos has now spread all over the world. with the product published on the web.
According to the article, a survey collected on the digital universe states that last year, enough digital information from emails and blogs to mobile-phone calls, photos and TV Signals was generated to fill a dozen stacks of hardback books stretching from the earth to the sun. Researchers have also predicted that by 2010 more than 70% of all the digital content in the world will have been created by consumers.
It is seen as a "great release of human creativity", because many people had the idea of expressing themselves in various media, but lacked the equipment to publish their creations, and new computer technology has now offered them the oppurtunity.
Others see it differently though. They consider the user generated content as "vanity publishing on steroids".
The media mogul Rupert Murdoch was "baffled" by consumer creativity, he believed that consumers should consume, and not create. User generated content is free and all they require is a way to publish their creation.
Nick Carr has suggested that a fundamental economic characteristic of Web 2.0 is the distribution of production into the hands of the many, and the concentration of the economic rewards into the hands of the few. It's a sharecropping system, but the sharecroppers are generally happy because their interest lies in self-expression or socialising, not in making money, and, besides, the economic value of each of their individual contributions is trivial. It's only by aggregating those contributions on a massive scale - on a web scale - that the business becomes lucrative".

We're all reporters in the digital democracy - Emily Bell

This was a post in The Guardian on Monday March 20th 2006.

It immediately introduces the impact that the audience is having on mainstream media. She introduces it with the phrase "democratisation of media".

She states that over the last 3 years, the main changes have been the:

• speed
• volume
• and type of response that has been made available by the internet, broadband delivery and digitised media.

It is implied that if an event as big as the September 11th terror attacks occured these days, the way it would be reported would be very different as the internet has progressed past the level of forms of media available then.

Mobile phones are a key example of this. Videos and pictures that can be captured by using phones are now uploaded onto the computer and spread all around the net.

Local newspapers are also allowing their own residents to write their articles now instead of paid reporters. However this raises contreversy with national affairs and organisations.

Material such as pictures and videos are then generated by the mainstream media into it's own, and it could be argued that it is exploitation of free material, but Emily Bell disagrees and believes that we are not far from the point where citizen journalists ask for payment for their best exclusive material. She talks about how media organisations have to do is make sure their communities have both the right tools to use on their websites and learn how to grow and engage with communities.

Bell ends her article with a question - Is there a difference then between the professional journalist and the citizen contributor?

She concludes that there is. One casually contributes their expertise, and the other is paid for an ability to make jusgements on how to convey stories or content in the most effective way. She states that what the professional journalist can provide does not contain more quality than what a citizen journalist can provide anymore - if it ever could.