Thursday, 25 November 2010
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.
• 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.
Friday, 12 November 2010
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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?
interview 1
Demographic Information: 17, Female, Student who is in a band.
Have you ever downloaded music illegally?
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.
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