Whilst we face a radically changed internet in order to try and limit piracy, this Cory Doctorow post links to a report showing how entertainment revenue has risen during the period it is supposed to have been harmed.
Pirating the Oscars 2012: Ten Years of Data – Waxy.org
Andy Baio’s annual Oscar piracy post contains lots of great data useful for AS Film students and any A2 Media case studies or coursework related to film piracy.
Every year, the MPAA tries desperately to stop Oscar screeners — the review copies sent to Academy voters — from leaking online. And every year, teenage boys battling for street cred always seem to defeat whatever obstacles Hollywood throws at them.
For the last 10 years, I’ve tracked the online distribution of Oscar-nominated films, going back to 2003. Using a number of sources (see below for methodology), I’ve compiled a massive spreadsheet, now updated to include 310 films.
This year, for the first time, I’m calling it: after three years of declines, the MPAA seems to be winning the battle to stop screener leaks. But why?
via Pirating the Oscars 2012: Ten Years of Data – Waxy.org.
Jesse Rosten – Fotoshop by Adobé
This great beauty ad parody is currently doing the rounds:
I was watching TV one sleepless night and stumbled upon an infomercial for some beauty product. The commercial showed before and after portraits, that to my eye, looked like the same photo just photoshopped. I laughed to myself. Then I made this video.
via Jesse Rosten – Fotoshop by Adobé.
everyday_i_show: photos by Raymond Cauchetier
This page has some great behind the scenes photos of French New Wave shoots, including several from a bout de souffle. They really give a flavour of the improvised conditions under which it was shot.
everyday_i_show: photos by Raymond Cauchetier.
Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan.
Following his amusingly flippant tweet about the MegaUpload closure, Jonathon Coulton gives the issue some further thought. Well worth a read if you are interested in the ongoing piracy debate.
Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan. The big content companies are TERRIBLE at doing both of these things, so it’s no wonder they’re not doing so well in the current environment. And right now everyone’s fighting to control distribution channels, which is why I can’t watch Star Wars on Netflix or iTunes. It’s fine if you want to have that fight, but don’t yell and scream about how you’re losing business to piracy when your stuff isn’t even available in the box I have on top of my TV.
A lot of us have figured out how to do this. So if you can stand me sounding a little crazy, listen: where is the proof that piracy causes economic harm to anyone? Looking at the music business, yes profits have gone down ever since Napster, but has anyone effectively demonstrated the causal link between that and piracy? There are many alternate theories (people buying songs and not whole albums, music sucking more, niches and indie acts becoming more viable, etc.). The Swiss government did a study and determined that unauthorized downloading (which 1/3 of their citizens do) does not create any loss in revenue for the entertainment industry.
MegaUpload by Jonathan Coulton
Piracy is part of the digital ecosystem | Technology | guardian.co.uk
More on piracy from The Guardian:
At the last Consumer Electronic Show, the British market intelligence firm Envisional presented its remarkable State of Digital Piracy Study. Here are some highlights:
• Pirated contents accounts for 24% of the worldwide internet bandwidth consumption.
• The biggest chunk is carried by bittorrent (the protocol used for file sharing); it weighs about 40% of the illegitimate content in Europe and 20% in the US (including downstream and upstream). Worldwide, bittorrent gets 250 million UVs per month.
• The second tier is made by the so-called cyberlockers (5% of the global bandwidth), among them the infamous Megaupload, raided a few days ago by the FBI and the New Zealand police. On the 500 million uniques visitors per month to cyberlockers, Megaupload drained 93 million UVs. (To put things in perspective, the entire US newspaper industry gets about 110 million UVs per month). The Cyberlockers segment has twice the users but consumes eight times less bandwidth than bittorrent simply because files are much bigger on the peer-to-peer system.
• The third significant segment in piracy is illegal video streaming (1.4% of the global bandwidth.)
There are three ways to fight piracy: endless legal actions, legally blocking access, or creating alternative legit offers.
I think this is the interesting point – creating alternative legitimate ways of getting digital content cuts piracy.
Compare the difference in US and EU internet traffic:
US – Netflix takes the largest chunk
EU – Bittorrent takes the largest chunk
via Piracy is part of the digital ecosystem | Technology | guardian.co.uk.
Dangerous Minds | Kiss your free movies and music goodbye: Is the era of digital piracy over?
In light of the Megaupload closure, Richard Metzger believes this is the end of the era of the cyber-locker.
If you’ve been illegally downloading movies, music, software, e-books, pr0n or anything else from the Internet’s various file sharing cyber-locker services like Megaupload or Filesonic—and you know who you are—then I hope you got your fill, because you can pretty kiss those days goodbye.
After the arrest in New Zealand last week of German-born Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom (AKA Kim Schmitz), several—most—of the file-sharing businesses are opting to close suddenly or greatly modifying their business models
via Dangerous Minds | Kiss your free movies and music goodbye: Is the era of digital piracy over?.
How Twitter saved event TV | Technology | The Guardian
This article on how Twitter is bringing back ‘event TV’, providing the watercoooler where shows are discussed, is worth a read for media students.
The phenomenon is too new for any official research to have been carried out, but anecdotal evidence suggests I am not alone in finding that Twitter has become embedded in my TV viewing (non-) life. Social networking sites – especially Twitter, because it is designed to exchange real-time responses among a loose group of people – are restoring a sense of excitement to television.
Event TV was thought to be dying as channels proliferated, people timeshifted their viewing and audiences fragmented in a way that made the viewing figures of yesteryear (21.6 million to find out who shot JR, 28 million every time Eric and Ernie popped their Christmas hats on, 32.3 million for the 1966 World Cup) seem like the fevered dream of an overstrained ITV exec. “Watercooler moments”, whereby people gathered the next day at work to talk about a particular attention-snagging programme or plot twist, were deemed to have vanished. Now they are back. The only difference is you don’t have to wait until the next day to share your amazement, vent your spleen or bemoan the death/betrayal/surprisingly good profiteroles of your favourite character, singer or #gbbo contestant.
via How Twitter saved event TV | Technology | The Guardian.
Was Megaupload bad for the creative industries? | Loz Kaye and Frances Moore | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Last week Megaupload, a high profile ‘file locker’ that allegedly hosted much pirated content, was been closed down and the operators arrested. The Guardian asks representatives from the Pirate party and the IFPI what harm the site caused.
The accusation against Megaupload was that it caused £300m in lost sales. But there’s no concrete evidence for that, or that shutting a site down will result in finding even a portion of that £300m. It’s claimed that the controversial Digital Economy Act will bring £200m yearly into the creative sector, but where is this money going to come from while incomes are squeezed?…We all – pirates and artists – have an interest in a properly functioning and free internet. Last year 70% of the total volume of British music sales were digital. The BPI would do well to remember that its future income is dependant on the very people it is currently antagonising.
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The problem with piracy is that it kills investment in culture – not just the financial investment of a music or film company, but the creative investment of the artist and creator. It takes time, toil and money to make that track or album that will inspire audiences across the world. That is why we have copyright, which is founded on the principle that those who create have the right to choose how their works are exploited.
Clay Shirky on SOPA
This short video of a talk by Clay Shirky at TED HQ gives an excellent account of the relevance of the SOPA issue for media students: