Evaluation

There is a lot of information available on Illegal Downloading both on the Internet as well as in the media. It was quite easy to access data and statistics as it is a very relevant topic in our society today. To research this topic I used primary research methods as well as collecting secondary research. The interesting part was that there has been done a whole lot of a research about it because it’s a very relevant issue. Therefore I could compare the various research results with each other and where the same results would come up frequently I could be sure that those results were accurate. Also throughout my research I identified the most important recurring issues on this topic and took these issues to the public in the form of an interview. Taking the sources such as the internet, books etc., and taking that with the interviews, I really think this made it a strong research method. By using research from others and then using your own research do get you a lot of information.

Personally I think that because of the secondary research I found was mostly repetitive, this became difficult to then get a conclusion with enough information with it. I mainly used Google as a search engine, while on Google I used different search terms to find my results. I also looked through books, newspapers, magazines and used podcasts. I feel that using other sources such as books and podcast made my secondary research stronger. I find that the books I looked through didn’t give me as much information as I had hoped for because most of the information was about illegal downloading overall. As my research is on illegal downloading for music, I didn’t feel it was specific enough to help me. I feel that using the internet as a search engine was a good was to research, as the internet has so much information it sometimes can give you information that isn’t reliable. Even though there was a limit to my secondary research, I find that most of the sources were reliable. I used a lot of secondary research in my report, when cross referencing my research my secondary source were very useful and gave me quantitative information.

As I found my secondary research first, it gave me a base for the primary research I then did. As I then was finding information I didn’t find in my secondary research. I think if I had more time I could have spent more time to find information for my secondary research by using the search engine Google more, by going through a number of pages. I would have also read more books and then cross referenced them to more reliable information. Personally I think I have found a decent amount of information on this topic, both being relevant and irrelevant. Although I think I could have done more research offline to get a balance between the offline and online research. 

My primary research helped me gain more information on the public’s view of this topic. After doing my primary research I felt that I could have used a wider range of demographics, as I find that I mainly looked at teenagers instead of using a wider social status. By doing focus groups, interviews and surveys I found a lot of the answers to my questions. As the answers were all quite similar because of their age group, I think I could have spend more time asking people of all ages. 

By doing a focus group I got more insight in the public’s view. As I didn’t want to become biased to my research I stayed outside of the focus group and became the observer. This gave me a chance to really understand why people download illegally after observing the whole thing I then drew a conclusion from it. I found that staying on the subject was a hard thing for most people. I had to tell people that this was about illegal downloading of music and that they shouldn’t get carried away with the music side of things. This however gave me accurate results and was a strong research method.

Overall I find that my research was quite limited, to improve this I would research a wider audience of different demographics and psychographics. I could do this by using the internet more to reach a larger amount of people.

Power Point Presentation

What I found on illegal Downloading

I’m going to do research on illegal downloading of music. Before I start, I’ve asked myself six questions to be answered at the end of this research so therefore I will be looking up the answers to these questions.

• How does illegal downloading affect the music industry?
• Why do a lot of people illegally download music?
• What does the future hold for illegal downloading?
• What are people doing to stop illegal downloading?
• When did illegal downloading of music start?
• How many people are downloading illegally?

I wanted to gain a general understanding of music downloading before I started doing research on illegal downloading. As http://www.wikipedia.com/ is known for giving information quickly and simple I searched for music downloading in Wikipedia to find out more about it.


I then searched for illegal downloading in Google to find which websites were the most popular searched websites.


I went on the most popular website given which is the http://www.quardian.co.uk/ with the article of James Murdoch talking about illegal downloading.
In the article it said that “James Murdoch called on the governments to get tough on illegal downloading, which he said was no different from “going into a store and stealing Pringles or a handbag”.” He talked about the fact that the government should give harder punishments to the youth and anyone who steal, if its products in the shop or music and videos on the internet, they should get a strong punishment.
I thought this was a bad source as I it lacked information and only told me what James Murdoch thought about the subject but didn’t tell me how he was going to change this or what is already been done about it. Also this source didn’t give me any statistics or facts about illegal downloading.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/10/murdoch-illegal-dowloading-stealing-handbag  
I then went on the third most popular searched website which was the www.bbc.co.uk/news website where I then looked at two articles on illegal downloading. One article was about the US illegal downloading rise, the second one was about a new law in Britain to prevent and stop illegal downloading from happening.
“It's thought that music and film companies may have lost "hundreds of millions of pounds" because of it. Around seven million people in the UK are said to be involved in illegal downloading.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3402349.stm  
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_8610000/newsid_8611100/8611163.stm  


I thought this was a good source as it gave me much information about illegal downloading and it also gave me facts and figures. This answers one of the questions I asked myself ‘How many people download music illegally?’ “Around seven million people in the UK are said to be involved in illegal downloading.” Which tells you that a lot of people out there are downloading without paying for it; this of course brings the record companies down as they aren’t getting paid, and so what exactly is the future for the music industry?


I found a blog which had a post about illegal downloading were they answered questions that the public asked. On there I read something interesting, “Illegal downloader’s will soon be receiving warning letters, after the UK music industry reached an agreement with the six main internet service providers (ISPs).” So this tells me that the music industry are doing something about the issue that still remains which is people illegally downloading music from the web.
http://stuff.tv/blogs/music/archive/2008/07/24/uk-s-illegal-downloading-crackdown-the-facts.aspx  


I thought this was a good source as it gave you facts about the issue and told you what exactly would be happening for the people that download music without paying for it. This also answers one of the questions I asked myself, ‘What are people doing to stop illegal downloading?’ As I read in this blog and in other articles across the web I found out that a lot of people are trying to stop the downloaders by threatening them, they are sending letters were it says that they will have to pay a fine for all the downloading they did illegally.
As I wanted to broad my research I listened to a podcast by Stephen Fry were he talked on the fifth night of the ITunes festival in 2009.


He attacked people who download files on an “industrial scale” but said “making examples of ordinary people is the stupidest thing the record industry can do.” He went on to say that the much heralded Digital Britain report represented the views of “industry insiders” instead of the general public. I thought this was a very good source as Stephen Fry talked about illegal downloading in a real depth and made it more clearly to everyone what is going on.
I also read a book by Sexton, Jamie called Digital music: production, distribution and consumption, I found this a very good source as it really gives you the history of the music industry and the history of downloading. “The sharing of music files started around the mid-1990s: at this point, it was difficult to download music because of very slow connection speed”. “What did follow was a tussle between the official industry and the activities of those deemed illegal by that industry”. As I read through some of the pages of this book I found out that people have been downloading for a very long time.
While researching I found a video on youtube about illegal downloading, were people of the industry talk about illegal downloading and what they would do if the public keep illegally downloading music and videos. I thought this was a good source as it tells you what the people are doing about illegal downloading. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgDR90kgFnw


I went on http://www.google.com/ and searched for the pros and cons of illegal downloading.
I found this website http://hubpages.com/hub/legal-download-services that has an article on it which tells you everything about downloading and what will be done if you do download. “Millions of users who download files illegally from the Internet will soon be banned from accessing the Internet in a major battle against Internet theft...”
I thought this was a bad source, even though all the information on there was very interesting and insightful. The website isn’t reliable as it is not yet been updated since 2003.
So therefore the information given in this article is quite irrelevant.
Other sources I looked at on the internet while doing my research to find out about illegal downloading. http://www.bized.co.uk/current/research/2003_04/011203.htm
This is a good source as it gives you much detail about the subject. The website also gives you, graphs and statistics. They then explain the problem that the record companies are having and what the problem is with stopping illegal downloading.
http://www.copynot.com/
I thought this website was a good source because of the information that’s been given to you. They also tell you how you can help the industry recover. “You can help halt the spread of these felonies by reporting copyright or trade mark violations and all acts of piracy here.”
http://www.nme.com/news/duffy/38499
This article is a very interesting one as Duffy the artist tells the magazine that she supports illegal downloading. “Duffy has suggested that she supports illegal downloading - as she believes it will ultimately inspire fans to buy more music.”
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Yourchildshealthandsafety/Internetsafety/DG_071136 
This website is a bad source as it hasn’t been updated in a while and I also thought that the information given wasn’t relevant to today’s information.
Don't Steal Copyrighted Stuff!: Avoiding Plagiarism and Illegal Internet Downloading (Prime) [Library Binding]
Ann Graham Gaines (Contributor)
This was a good source as it told you how you can avoid downloading illegally from the internet by using safe and industry kind software to download.
These are bad sources as these websites supports illegal downloading.
 http://www.limewire.com/  
 http://www.bearshare.com/
 http://www.ez-tracks.com/  
 http://www.mp3raid.com/  
People download illegally because they think it’s a quicker and easier way of getting to the music, this of course affects the music industry in a negative way. Without CD sales, record companies lose about 85% of recording released. Record companies depend heavily on the profitable 15% of recordings to subsidize the less profitable type of music, to cover the costs of developing new artists, and to keep their businesses operational. The downloaders often don’t focus on the 85% as they go straight to the top to steal the gold. A lot of people download music illegally, “the IFPI, has released a report which claims that more than 40 billion songs were illegally downloaded in 2008 and these results have risen since then”. So therefore a lot of people are losing money and this isn’t helping the industry at all.
I personally think illegal downloading is bad and will support the music industry by buying music.

Focus Group

Notes:

Average age of the group is 17

3:2 male – female

The group downloads illegally

Why do we download illegally? Cost of music, free music, no conscience
not often for some people in the group.

Group thinks it’s not the industries fault.
Record companies could do more to promote legal downloads.
No internet security risks.

What would make you stop downloading?
People coming to house, fines
Nothings gonna stop me;
People want hard copies to support favourite bands.
Legal downloading is a lot easier to use. Hard quality contents are getting worse (lack of lyric book)
cheaper music would make people download legally more.
Music promotion websites can encourage legal downloading and illegal downloading too. If people get fined, they’ll stop illegal downloading.

Conclusion:

I found out that all people in the focus group have downloaded illegally. Some do it less than others. They all know it’s a bad thing to do and it’s part of an online theft, but they still take part in this new way of internet industry.

They decided that if music was cheaper they were more likely to spend money on music then to download it from the internet.

I think the focus group was a success as it gave me insight in the youth way of thinking and what they thought about illegal downloading.

Interview 3

Demographic Information: 18, Female, Student, involved in the music industry. 

1.       Have you ever downloaded music illegally?

2.       Yes I have downloaded music illegally, I used do it a little bit because it’s easy to get music, also it’s faster. Now I only use spotify as I enjoy hearing people talk and I think it’s also very easy to use.

3.       What do you think about downloading for free?

4.       I think the industry need to find a way of dealing with it because most people these days expect it to be free or a lot cheaper. Maybe do something like subscriptions or make more use of spotify.

5.       What do you think enhances people to download music for free?

6.       Well, it’s easy and it’s cheap, music is expensive and a lot of people don’t want to pay for music anymore as you can now get it for free an easier way. I also think there is a pressure on young people to have a lot of music to be cool; if you have the latest songs then you’re cool.

7.       Is it easy to download illegally?

8.       It’s very easy.

9.       What could the music industry do to stop the public from downloading music illegally?

10.   Embrace vinyl’s again, as a lot of people would enjoy the product more than CD’s. Maybe start streaming services to get people to listen to music online which isn’t then illegal.

11.   Do you think music is too expensive in the shops these days and people no longer spent money on that, one of the reasons being the recession?

12.   Yeah, but before the recession it was already a problem, because downloading is easier, it’s become the culture to be cheap

13.   Do you think shops like HMV should close down and just sell their music online, seeing the majority of the people get there music from the internet?

14.   No, I think shops like HMV should start doing more to get there products noticed, maybe sell music online but still have other products in the shop.

15.   Do you think illegal downloading of music will ever stop?

16.   No, probably not.

17.   Isn’t the public scared of catching virus’s when downloading?

18.   Yeah, but there is so much cheap virus software.  

Interview 2

Demographic Information: 46, female, Music Photographer

Have you ever downloaded music illegally?

Yes, I have but only when the song wasn't available anywhere to buy. I never download with the purpose to have the music for free.

What do you think about downloading for free?

I completely disagree with downloading for free and see it as a form of theft. I depend on the music industry with my business so I understand the situation very well. Because the decline in record sales performers cut down in the expenses for photography.

What do you think enhances people to download music for free?

Because it's available. There are sources all over the Internet which provides these download facilities even though they gradually close them down, there will always new providers popping up.

Is it easy to download illegally?

Develop a piracy preventive solution so that CD's can no longer be downloaded and shared. A sort of a share-stop at the source so it becomes impossible to offer music for free or share music with others.

What could the music industry do to stop the public from downloading music illegally?

No if anything, music is one of the rare things that hasn't become unaffordable. It's still a luxury and not a necessity and one needs to but his music when he can afford it but I-Tunes for example offers you songs for £1. It can't get cheaper than that.

Do you think music is too expensive in the shops these days and people can’t no longer spent money on that, one of the reasons being the recession?

Yes I believe the future is in online sales of music. HMV and others could invest the money put in shops better in offering a wide and safe platform to buy music online.

Do you think shops like HMV should close down and just sell their music online, seeing the majority of people get there music from the internet?

Fear it's a crime we will never be able to solve. There will always be illegal site offering music for free. But if all record companies, music stores and others would throw them into online sales of music, they could dominate the market.

Isn’t the public scared of catching virus’s when downloading?

When you download music from piracy sites you know it is not safe but people don't Carr and accept that it's part of the deal to be able to get music for free. It's become globally accepted and people seem to prefer to spend their money on virus killers than on music.

interview 1

Demographic Information: 17, Female, Student who is in a band. 

Have you ever downloaded music illegally?

I download music illegally because of the price of buying music from ITunes, I remember the price of each individual song being £0.79 and last time I checked they were asking for £0.90 which I find to be highly overpriced if I could get each song for free. I have calculated how much I would have spent id I bought all of my songs legally. If each of them is £0.90 and I have around 2,000 songs then I would have spent £1,800 which I don’t have. That is extortionate. It’s extremely easy to get hold of illegal songs so it’s difficult to resist the temptation.

What do you think about downloading for free?

I think it’s wrong but I do it anyway because I don’t want to pay £0.90 for each song. I wouldn’t download illegally if the songs were cheaper.

What do you think enhances people to download music for free?

Well because you have instant access to music online, people are less likely to buy albums and singles in the shops because it takes longer and is more effort. It doesn’t cost anything and there is very little effort.

Is it easy to download illegally?

Very easy using websites like Limewire.

What could the music industry do to stop the public from downloading music illegally?

If the cost of each song was considerable lower.

Do you think music is too expensive in the shops these days and people can’t no longer spent money on that, one of the reasons being the recession?

I don’t think it’s because of the price, but mostly because people will just upload the CD to their computer for their IPOD/mp3 anyway so the disc becomes a waste of space.

Do you think shops like HMV should close down and just sell their music online, seeing the majority of people get there music from the internet?

No because I still buy hard copies of particular albums, and some people still use CD players.

Isn’t the public scared of catching virus’s when downloading?

Yes but it doesn’t stop them because they are getting the music for free and rarely get a virus. Most people don’t mind taking the risk.

Survey

made on survey monkey

Sources Table

29.09.10
Wrote questions and sub questions, found links about the subject I'm researching.
http://watch-movies.net.in/ - http://www.watchmovieslinksonline.com/ - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media - http://www.answers.com/topic/streaming-video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgD90kgFnw - http://hubpages.com/hub/legal-download-services - http://www.bized.co.uk/current/research/2003_04/011203.htm
Googled internet streaming and what the future holds for it. I then went on different websites to see the different ways of using internet streaming.

01.10.10
I checked the intuit websites, I also listened to a podcast by Stephen Fry talking about music downloading.
http://www.intute.ac.uk/communication - http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/10/murdoch-illegal-downloading-stealing-handbag - http://stuff.tv/news/Stephen-Fry-wows-Apple-iTunes-festival-with-controversial-copyright-talk/12749/ - http://www.nme.com/news/duffy/38499
I researched the topic in the new media folder, but I didn't find anything on illegal downloading of music. Instead I googled to research more information and sources on illegal downloading.
I personally think that the podcast by Stephen Fry is a very good source as it gives you a lot of infromation and insight about illegal downloading. I also think the link to the guardian website is a bad source. As it gives you little information.

06.10.10
While following the lesson I wrote on my blog to keep track of what was happening in the lesson and to keep all of the information. I then looked for more sources on the internet and in books from the library.
http://www.riaa.com/faq/php - http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jun/09/games-dvd-music-downloads-piracy - http://drownedinsound.com/news/4136081vcv - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/72402434.stm - http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents.Yourchildshealthandsafety/Internetsafety/DG_071136
I typed in illegal downloading into the search engine google. I went on various links which gave me the statistics for the illegal downloading of the UK.
I think that the riaa website was a very good source because of the fact that it gave me plenty of infomation and I would say that this website was reliable. I think the guardian is a bad source as it gives a lot information but none of the information is that useful.

08.10.10
Today I did a lot more research on illegal downloading to improve my sources table.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/illegal-downloading-what-happens-if-youre-caught-17736013.html - http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_download - http://www.copynot.com/ - http://www.besttechie.net/2008/04/14/illegal-music-downloading-look-at-the-facts/ - A book by Sexton, Jamie called Digital music: Production, Distribution and Consumption.
I think the independent website is a good sources as it gave me lots of information and it's pretty reliable. I also think the besttechie website and the book by Jamie Sexton are both good and reliable sources.

Audience Research

(aim – to find out about downloading and streaming habits among a particular age group) 


The bad points from this questionaire are: 
- On the questionnaire they ask you to write your name. This is bad because a questionnaire is to find out what the public thinks, not who the public is. 
- The questionnaire also asks if you feel guilty when downloading music. This is not a good question because they ask too much personal information, questionnaire's are usually just for finding out facts of the public. 
- The questionnaire also asks you where you store your downloaded music. I would consider this to be a bad question as the people asking the question wouldn't gain anything by knowing this. 


I think this questionnaire could improve if it has more questions on there which could be more valuable to the researchers, but as they have questions which aren't very usefull, I think this questionnaire isn't a good one.

Reliable Websites

What makes websites reliable? Where do they get their information from? 
Websites such as www.wikipedia.com aren't very reliable as the information isn't always true and as the public can re-type and add to the information that was already on the website. 
Websites such as www.bbc.co.uk are reliable websites as they have reporters going out and getting the actual story, they also check there stories before they post them to their website. The bbc has a duty to the public to be fair and balanced.

Who? (Who updates the website with the right and relevant information)
What? (What exactly they are saying)
Why? (Why are they saying this, what made them say this)
Where? (This information can be found on websites such as Forums, blogs and academic websites)

Examples of research

• He has given background information on dubstep to research it more. 

• He has given examples and shown what he did by 'screen printing' the main highlights. 

•  Also he has given his own opinion on the research. 

• Broad questions - Where your going to look - How you looked at the links - Going into depth with the research. 

• To make it easier, ask yourself questions about the research you are going to do and questions about how you are going to look at it. 
• He analysis how people get to the website to see what there interests are.
  

Other Forms Of Research

Experiments: The benefits of experiments are that you can provide proof, true and factual. If you haven’t done enough research, your search might be wrong.

                

Participant Observation: This is where the researcher also takes part in the activity, this could be good because they will get an understanding of the product and gain the full potential out of it. It could be bad though because they are biased to it.

Historical research: It is good because you see how a product has evolved over time to keep up to date with technology; you get the whole background and contacts throughout doing this research. The bad thing might be that the technology might not have changed. Historical research provides context, background information.

Rhetorical analysis: The way something persuades the target audience by saying 'there ugly' to buy their products. It is good if they do it in the right way for example if someone on television is explaining the bad things about their skin and then say but this cream solves everything you may want to buy it. But the bad thing is if it is done wrong by someone saying it in a different way.

Comparative analysis: This is good because you get to see something as a whole and break down the good and bad points. The drawbacks of this could be that what you are comparing it to is not a good example; therefore this research method won't help.

Competitor analysis: Gives a fuller view of the market what you up against, what you need to be better then and different from. 

Why are ratings and audience figures important?

www.barb.co.uk
www.abc.org.uk
www.rajar.co.uk
www.google.co.uk/trends
www.alexa.com

The top 5 most viewed programmes on BBC3 this week (barb.co.uk)
1 Eastenders (Tue 2202) 1.109
2 Don't Tell The Bride (Tue 2103) 1.098
3 Eastenders (Fri 2201) 1.093
4 Eastenders (Thu 2201) 1.045
5 Edingburgh Comedy Fest Live (Thu 2100) 887

526,216 Total Average Net Circulation / Distribution Per Issue (abc.org.uk)
We looked at different research on audience figures, why are ratings/audience figures so important? Helps them to figure oute their demographic, to see what time to ait the programmes. The larger the audience, the more they can charge for advertising. They can also see by the ratings if the show is succesful and if they could have another season.

We made a focus group to discuss what advertising we take in and what we ignore.
It was shown that viral advertising was the most popular way of advertising in our group. Getting links by friends is more trustwordy then pop-ups or banners, because with pop-ups you might get virus's.
I think focus groups are a good research method but in our focus group we didn't have enough depth in the answer they were giving. I think Focus groups could be a very good way to research but they'll have to be run by a great leader.

Why and how does the media use research?

For releasing a new magazine you need to know certain things for it to be successful, which you could find out by market research.
Examples of things you would research:

The Target Audience
The Competition
Distribution - Advertising
Finances - The Funding & Cost
Content - Of the Magazine

I looked at IPC connect - The TV Easy Magazine. There I looked at what the main ways
they categorized the media research were. They used Demographics by listing the
Audience Median Age (44)
Gender (mainly female)
ABC1 (What class the target audience is in)
How many people read the magazine (391.000)
What type of magazine & What it provides (It's compact A5 format is bursting with
entertainment and information)

Psycho Graphics: Which means what there personality is, there interests, there values, there beliefs and how they feel.

The IPC Insight team has identitfied what sets the 14.1m upmarket ABC1 women in the
UK apart, by saying what the women are like and what they like; leisure time,
relaxing, there health and well-being. (Very stereotypical).
Companies do media research to find out more about the audience they want to target,
these days they do more internet research by having profiles on Facebook and Twitter
were they can ask there audience what changes they could make to there products
and/or what they like about there products.
Companies also make questionaires for people to fill in, to find out specificly what
there audience wants and likes.

Basically social networking makes media research a quicker way to find out about your clients and it's also much cheaper.

"Social media research is being used to listen to consumers but also to ask them questions. Social media research is only of benefit to companies whose target audience is engaged with social media"

Social Media Research - By Sean Hargrave
http://www.nma.co.uk/features/social-media-research/3016672.article
accessed 10/09/10

Research Methods

Primary and Secondary research.

Primary research: Survey's, Focus groups (A group of people are asked about their perceptions, opinions, beliefs and attitudes towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging), Interviews (One on one interviews), Observation (Watch someones behaviour in media), Empirical is information gained by means of observation, experience, or experiment.), Chat rooms/ Forums, Direct contact with the producers of a media text.

Secondary Research: Books/Journals, Wikipedia, Newpapers (The Guardian, Telegraph technology section), Radio 4 (The media show), Film.

We looked through magazines using a primary research technique called content analysis (Quantitative), we wanted to know what the ethnicity difference was in magazines and if it was fair. We counted how many of each ethnicity there was and came with the following results. There were 272 white people, 15 black people, 2 Asian people and there were 9 latina's. We found out that there were more white people in most magazines then any other ethnicity. We could of improved our research more by looking at different magazines, magazines that came out a year ago and magazines that came out this month, see how many of each ethnicity there were. The good point of our research was how we categorised each ethnicity which made it easier.