The Music Industry and Internet

Podcasting
"Podcasting is a term used to describe audio content (usually spoken word material – radio programmes, in effect) that is ‘broadcast’ via the Internet".

Podcasts are downloadable audio files commonly made in MP3 format, these files can then be stored on a portable digital audio player like and iPod, and listened to wherever.

The term ‘podcasting’ is derived from the name ‘iPod’ and the word ‘broadcast’. Podcasting isn’t restricted to iPods but has become the accepted generic term for distributing audio via the Internet.

Podcasting is democratic, anyone with a microphone, a computer and a place on the internet to put the files for others to listen and download can podcast. Radio can be made by anyone, without the need for broadcasting licences and specialist equipment.

Podcasting fits into peoples daily routines like some other new media technologies. As with Sky+, listeners to podcasts can download programmes to their portable audio players and then listen to them whenever they wish. With podcasting, listeners make an active choice to consume a programme rather than doing so purely because its on the radio in the car.

Problems with Podcasting
Copyright is a persistent problem in relation to the Internet and digital media content, particularly if content can be transferred to portable players without restriction. "Scheduling is another consideration: no longer will audiences be tied to tuning into a programme when the station wants them to; with podcasting content is available on-demand". (Magazine Website)

Future of Podcasting
"Mobile phones could be the key to podcasting. Mobile penetration is very high and once equipped with high speed connectivity (3G), using your mobile to receive radio may be the established norm". In principle, any media content can be a podcast: as most new mobiles can play video, TV programmes or even films could be delivered in this way, providing the ultimate media on demand.

The Music Industry and Internet

The Myspace Music Label

On Thursday 3rd April 2008 Myspace announced its launching on MySpace Music, a joint venture with three of the four biggest music labels backing its new service.

Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group will together battle against iTunes for digital music distribution supremacy on the music portal. EMI is the lone holdout of the big four big music labels, so MySpace has to impress as the site will be up and running in the next three to four months.

MySpace Music will peddle free downloads, ringtones, concert tickets, t-shirts and other merchandise, as well as offer free streaming music from the full breadth of the labels' catalogues. The service also promises an ability to share customized playlists with others.

MySpace has an enormous online music community which until recently the music industry has fiercely combated. Before the deal could go through on the Wednesday, Universal Music had to agreed to settle a 2006 copyright infringement against MySpace. Financials were not disclosed, but its understood News Corp. shelled out a large sum of cash to make it go away.

The social site's music channel claims nearly 30 million unique monthly visitors and more than five million artists under its wing. With the combined libraries of Sony, Universal and Warner injected into the mix, MySpace Music now has both the audience and licensing muscle that could surpass the iTunes music store. Record labels have been increasingly feaful of Apple's influence on the business as iTunes inches closer to becoming the leader in global music sales.

The Music Industry and Internet

Limewire
Limewire allows individual computers to connect to and search other computers on the Gnutella Network. If you find a file you want, you can download it directly from the computer that holds it. That computer then becomes a server. All computers on the Gnutella network are both clients and servers.

Limewire is very popular, by December 2007 is had been installed on 18 percent of Windows PCs worldwide. The illegal downloading of copyright material is now a problem for LimeWire even though Limewire cautions its users against sharing songs and videos that are under copyright protection. In August 2006, the music industry sued LimeWire for enabling and promoting internet piracy of copyright-protected music and video.

The Music Industry and Internet

Institutions - The Record Labels

A record label can be a brand or a trademark associated with the marketing or music recordings and music videos. These companies help with the production, manufacture, distribution, promotion and enforcement of copyright protection of sound recordings and music videos. Record labels allow artists and bands to be known, reviewed and heard through the media such as on the radio or television.

The largest 4 record labels are called major labels or the 'Big Four' and the music industry is dominated by these companies.

1. Warner Music Group
2. EMI
3. Sony BMG
4. Universal Music Group

Internet and Digital labels

With the internet now being a viable source for obtaining music, netlabels have emerged. Depending on the net label, music files from the artists may be downloaded free of charge or for a fee that is paid via Paypal or another online payment system. Some of these labels also offer hard copy CDs in addition to direct download.

The Music Industry and Internet

Issues and Laws

Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) - "Is a trade group that represents the U.S recording industry. Its members are the record companies that comprise the most bibrant national music industry in the world. RIAA members create, manufacture and distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States. The RIAA works to protect intellectual property rights worldwide and the First Amendment rights of artists; conducts consumer, industry and technical research; and monitors and reviews state and federal laws, regulations and policies." (RIAA Website)

Basically the RIAA are completely against internet music piracy and believe it is stealing from the artists, songwriters, sound engineers, and label emloyees who help create music. They help in finding people who do illegally download, prosecute them, and obtain money that they have potentially stolen.


How much money does the music industry loose from piracy?

The Institue for Policy Innovation concludes that global music piracy causes

• $12.5 billion of economic losses every year
• 71,060 U.S. jobs lost
• a loss of $2.7 billion in workers' earnings
• a loss of $422 million in tax revenues
• $291 million in personal income tax
• $131 million in lost corporate income and production taxes.

The Music Industry and Internet

TECHNOLOGY - DIGITAL AUDIO PLAYER

A digital audio player, more commonly known as an Mp3 player is an electronic device that stores, organizes and plays audio files. Knowadays these hand held devices can do all sorts of things, like play games, watch videos, hold contact details and store photos. In particular i will be looking at the Apple iPOD and the iTunes software that goes with it.


The iPod is a brang of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first model was launched on October 23rd 2001 leading up to Christmas. Now in 2008 the product line consists of the iPod Classic, iPod touch, iPod nano and iPod shuffle all storing media on an internal hard drive. The Apple iTunes software is sued to transfer the music to the MP3 player. iTunes stores music on the user's computer and can play, burn and rip music from a CD. As of September 2007, the iPod had sold over 110 million units worldwide making it the best-selling digital audio player in history.



On January 22nd 2008, Apple reported the best quarter revenue and earnings in Apple's history so far. Apple posted record revenue of $9.6 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.58 billion. 42% of Apple's revenue for the First fiscal quarter of 2008 came from iPod sales, followed by 21% from notebook sales and 16% from desktop sales. Apple has sold over 140M iPods to date. It also posted record Mac and iPod sales to date. (Wikipedia)

Music - New Generation?

Westlife were officially the first download chart Uk number 1 in 2004, with a reissue of their 1999 hit single 'Flying Without Wings'. Since thie first download number 1, the Uk music charts have had to introuduce new methods of making the UK Top 40 Chart. All legally downloaded music and music bought in store is now included int he UK Top 40 Chart.

Downloading music

Downloading music from online music stores has revolutionised the way we buy music. The quick way many people prefer is to download tracks straight from the internet using sites such as iTunes and Coke Music which have given Internet users the ability to download their music quicker then ever. Shops like HMV are struggling with their sales of CD's and it is becoming that there is no longer a need to go to CD shops to buy CD's.

Illegal Music Downloading

The cost of an MP3 download is roughly 50p-79p. Music downloading companies have already cut their prices to interest more customers but still some people choose to download tracks illegally or use file sharing software to share their music. This form of music downloading is illegal and the UK government is improving laws and watching Internet activity to prevent it.

With the first download chart number 1 in 2004 for Westlife and the combining of the download chart and UK Top 40 chart music is changing and we are entering a new era of music. In April 2006, Gnarls Barkley achieved the first UK number 1 based on download sales alone. With over 31,000 sales for this single, the download industry is becoming a key way to sell music and achieve a number 1 in the UK Top 40 chart. The song was not released for sale in shops until the day after it had reached number 1 in the charts.

Future of Music Downloading

With such a high number of music downloads, the Internet will continue to play a huge part in the sale of music for years to come. But what does the future hold for music downloads on other platforms? Mobile phones now have features of an MP3 players and downloading music for pobile phones has become a lot easier. The introduction of mobile phone MP3 shops has boosted sales. The latest online MP3 shop selling music for mobiles is 3 mobile, a 3G (third generation) mobile phone network provider in the UK. I believe their will be more shops as mobile technologies advance. New phones with large memory sizes have been invented to add to the multimedia experience on a phone. These memory cards for mobiles are developed to be compatible to transfer music, videos and games from PC to mobile phone. TV channels are now offering 3G customers clips, live footage and sports highlights on their phones. This technology is showing us that the worlds of multimedia and mobile phones are coming together.
New technologies will improve the communication and increase the power and performance of the small devices most of the public use on a daily basis.


BBC News 'Westlife top first download chart' at:


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3617020.stm (13 Nov 06)

Illegal Downloading

Illegal Downloading
The record industry is suffering a continuous crisis situation as the figures of illegal music downloads grows. Illegal downloading has become easier and more widespread as people seem no longer to fear official prosecution against them. There has been a decrease in CD prices, therefore legal downloading with its previously attractive lower cost is no longer appealing. This has contributed to 43% of people in a poll attesting that they regularly download music illegally and 18% said that they would continue to do so. The same poll was taken a year later ad only 36% of participants claimed that they illegally downloaded, and a small 8% indicated that they intended to continue this.

The organisation which carried out the Digital Music Survey, Entertainment Media Research, has been undertaking these inquiries for the last three years, and this year charts the most significant increase so far. Their fourth Digital Music Survey has sparked debate amongst industry insiders as to what can be done to halt this rapid increase in illegal activity, something which is shared by legal music representatives in law firms.

An obvious way to stop illegal downloading is to make it easier and cheaper for people to download music legally, from sites such as iTunes and Sony in an attempt to stop the rise in piracry on the internet.

Citizen Journalism

What is citizen journalism
Citizen Journalism is when public citizens play the role of a journalist collecting, reporting and analyzing news and information. Citizens are able to capture and report news with the use of mobile phone still images, short video clips and instant blogging on an event.

What vision of the future did the Googlezon video present
The video presented plans of the future that Google will merge together with Amazon to become GoogleZon. The company come together and battle against Microsoft and its news companies over the 2010 News War. GoogleZon will win the battle and create a company called EPIC (Evolving Personalised Information Construct) which will basically offer you infromation and news on the things you are interested about.


What could be the avantages/disadvantages for us as consumers
The advantages of this are that we are constantly given information and news about things that we are interested about, but the problem is who is choosing what we are given? Computers are supposidly made to filter information and present it to us about our interests that are taken and found from social networking sites. This allows EPIC to know all our personal details, what we have been doing, what we look like, who were friends with and our interests. This is almost an invasion of our privacy by computers. An advantage of EPIC is that we would have a completely personalised facility delivered straight to us without any hassel.


What are issues for newspapers and journalist
Journalists will loose jobs as computers are doing all the work for them, newspapers sales will decrease and eventually newspapers as a whole might become 'exstinct'.

Feedback #1

Well done Matt - there are some excellent posts on here. The film research however seems to be largely cut and pasted from wikipedia and you haven't sourced it. You must summarise your findings in your own words and then link to sites you have referenced.

B2

How has digital technology changed the film industry?

Digital cinema refers to the use of digital technology to distribute and project motion picture. The final movie can be distributed via hard drives, DVDs or satellite and projected using a digital projector instead of a conventional film projector. Digital cinema is distinct from high-definition television and in particular, is not dependent on using television or HDTV standards, aspect ratios, or frame rates. Digital projectors capable of 2K resolution began deploying in 2005, and in 2006, the pace has accelerated. HDTV and pre-recorded HD disks could put pressure on movite theaters to offer something to compete with the home HD experience.

Production:
Film is scanned from camera-original film negatives into a digital format on a scanner or high-resolution telecine. Data from digital motion picture cameras may be converted to a convenient image file format for work in a facility. All of the files are 'conformed' to match an edit list created by the film editor, and are then color corrected under the direction of the film's staff. The end result of post-production is a digital intermediate used to record the motion picture to film and/or for the digital cinema release.

Distribution :
Digital Cinema Distribution (DCD) is the process of transmitting the DCP to theater servers via different methods that may include: hard drives, LTO data tapes, DVD-ROMS, or satellite.
Each method of distribution faces its own unique challenges and there is currently much debate regarding preferred methods. There are three types of distribution

1. Physical media delivery
   Digital content is currently distributed on hard drive for feature content and DVD for trailer content. Other potential physical media include LTO3 tape or HD DVDs, BluRay Discs and other similarly emerging high density media.
2. Network delivery
   Digital files can be delivered to theater servers via shared or dedicated network connections.
3. Satellite delivery
   Content can be sent in a multicast transmission to theatres via satellite. The received files have to be verified and missing or corrupted portions would have to be rebroadcast and appropriate FEC would need to be used.

Wikipedia
Exhibition:
Cinema is becoming less popular due to people watching films in the comfort of their own homes.
It is much easier watching a film at home at your own convenience stopping the film if nesessary.
The development of DVD's, picture quality at home and sound can also be better than what it is at the cinema nowadays, films are avaliable on high-definition making them seem a lot more realistic. People generally wait until the film is out on DVD to watch as going to the cinema is so expensive these days. I believe that people are visiting the cinema less and less and digital cinema technologies are increasing and becoming more readily avaliable making the home cinema experience a lot better and more appealing.

Moral panics and concerns with online technology

There are a number of social concerns of the development of social networking, these are mainly because of the ability to access people’s details. Most online blogs now contain personal information that could be accessed and used by the wrong people, crimes such as fraud and paedophilia are constantly being committed due to easy Internet access. There are other concerns about the increase of people’s lives revolving around technology. Obesity is an increasing problem in the youths and is seen to be because we spend too much of our time chatting, playing games, researching etc on the internet instead of spending our time outside.

The growing popularity of social networking is changing the way that we interact as a world as we are using more of it day by day. New technology is changing by social networking and mobile phones working together. Recently the Apple iPhone was released which features built in WiFi enabling the user portable access to social networking sites wherever they are.

Issues with censorship and control, mainly with fraudsters accessing people’s personal information are a common occurrence. The censorship and control in social networking was shown as having problems, in Second Life, users were able to form secret groups and have meeting without the owners knowing and perform illegal acts such as drug trafficking and paedophilia.

The key issues for audiences and institutions

Key notes from the Podcast

Digitality: a binary system of enconding, a series of 0’s or 1’s using an on and off electrical pulse. It is a small code used in compuers and now television and radio.

Interactivity: Streaming of inforation through air / isdn cable (broadband) / phone line. It uses compression so that more information can be transferred at one time. We can interact with everyone, the information can go both ways so that we can easily converse. We can now upload and download music, images, videos etc.

Hypertextuality: Text is no longer linear. We can change the order that we use any media, jump scenes like on a dvd (different to a vhs). Jump from different media, sound to video etc. We can also jump out of somebodies media, into someone elses.Dispersal: how information is shared. Market size and use effects how it is shared. Access users have, maybe on a wide network, would increase the profit.

Virtuality: linking with the real world, representational. Mimicking our world.Convergance: This is a big issue in media! New technologies converge/merge into one form. For example, Mp3 players that can show photos on. Camcorders with a hard-drive to make it easier to edit. Mobiles with web (WAP) , pictures, videos, email etc. Convergance, before, was exceptionally hard purely because of the size that converged items would be. Size of the gadgets as they converge, get a lot smaller nowadays.In the final section of the podcast, it asks questions of the concepts.

Audience: How do we use it? Do we actually use it? Does it change the way we use it? Did we use it before? Has it changed from a newer version? Has it developed form consumer demand or has it been led by the industry? Have they (the industry) influenced us? Who has actually got access? Does the global village cover the whole world!? Who’s disenfranchised (Who’s not getting the internet?) How do they get the audience to keep buying new things?

Regulation and Control: Who’s doin the controlling? Should there be any control? What do they do about copyright issues? (proxy servers) Implications of control? What is the impact on producers? Does the fact that downloading is easier, cheaper take money from the producers?Impact on the government?

Ownership: Who owns the technology? (Brand names?) Do certain brands close out the market ( Nintendo Wii / Xbox360/ Sony PS3, console manufacturing) Do brand names affect sales?The questions are food for thought and i shall be investigating them...

'Tell Me The Future'

1. Who is Chris De Wolfe and what does he say is the future for social networking? What impact will portable hardware have on this area of technology?

Chris De Wolfe is the co-founder of Myspace and believes that the future of social networking is to become more personal, more portable and more collaborative. Aspects of all socially-based sites are to become increasingly portable. In terms of mobile, more people are using mobile phones to access social networks, half of future traffic will come from non-PC users.

2. Who is Chad Hurley and what does he say is his company's goal? Is he a positive or negative technological determinist?

Chad Hurley is the co-founder of YouTube and his goal is to allow every person on the planet to participate by making the upload process as simple as placing a phone call. The new video content will be available on any screen - in your living room or in your pocket - and will bring together all the diverse media which matters to you, from videos of family and friends to news, music, sports, cooking and more. Chad Hurley is a very positive determinist and can only see youtube growing and getting more well known.

3. What does Maurice Levy say is the challenge for advertisers and what is 'liquid media' compared to 'linear media'?

Liquid media is Media without a solidifying agent whereas linear media is Maurice Levy compares the digital media with the analogue media. Linear media is a dated form of advertising, with no interactivity involved, in contrast to this, liquid media is interactive, settings can be altered, you can stop start and skip parts of playlists, and many other options. It is the new digital media. Maurice describes liquid media as 'seemless'.

4. What parallels does Norvig draw between Edison inventing electricity and the development of online technology in terms of searching for information? (tricky question - read this section carefully)

Norvig explains that Edison inventing electricity, was almost the flood gates, opening to whole new range of ideas and possibilites. He also describes how current technology will enable us to advance technology and build improved forms of this technoglogy faster in the future with more advanced machinery thank that used and invented by Edison.

5. What are the issues for the developing world? How is this evidence of a 'digital divide'? (socio-economic divide due to access to technology)

There has been a number of issues between the develeoped and less developed countires within the world for a number of years. new digital media helps us to understand what is happening in the world and the divides created between these countires. the less developed countires may not be able to access this new form of technology and therefore not receive the up to date detailed information that more developed countires would be able to access.