infoneer-pulse:

A major new survey of American attitudes to online copyright infringement has found that 70 percent of all 18 to 29-year-olds have pirated music, TV shows, or movies. But almost no Americans are hardcore grog-swillers, and two-thirds of those who do acquire copyrighted material without permission also acquire content legally.

The new research comes courtesy of a forthcoming report called Copy Culture in the US and Germany, and it was done by some of the same researchers who worked on the groundbreaking Media Piracy in Emerging Economies report earlier this year. Data comes from a Princeton Survey Research Associates telephone poll of 2,303 American adults during the month of August; a Google grant funded some of the research.

The poll found that 46 percent of all Americans have engaged in piracy, but that young people skew the numbers significantly. And while it found that piracy is common, it also found that most is relatively casual. Only 2 percent of Americans are “heavy music pirates” with more than 1,000 tracks of infringing music; only 1 percent of Americans are heavy TV/movie pirates with more than 100 infringing shows or films.

» via ars technica

If you have ever read or heard a statement from an executive at a record label, movie studio, or book publisher, you’re likely familiar with the set of assumptions:

1. Piracy is the biggest threat to sales
2. Deterring piracy will mean higher profits
3. DRM restrictions reduce piracy

Obviously, if you buy into these assumptions, the logical conclusion is that more DRM means less piracy and higher profits. As the Duke and Rice researchers show, none of these things should actually be assumed.

(Source: twitter.com)

infoneer-pulse:

A new report looking into online music consumption habits shows that since 2009 the number of people who pirate music has dropped by 25 percent in Sweden. The sharp decrease coincides with a massive interest for the music streaming service Spotify. One of the main reasons why people switch to legal services is the wider range of material they can find there.

» via TorrentFreak

I suspect the same is true (to varying degrees) in countries other than Sweden.

infoneer-pulse:

For years the top record label executives have been claiming that it’s impossible to compete with free, but YouTube is proving them wrong. With billions of views every month the major record labels are making millions by sharing their music for free. For many people YouTube takes away the incentive to ‘pirate,’ but at the same time it may also cannibalise legal music sales.

» via TorrentFreak

infoneer-pulse:

State lawmakers in country music’s capital have passed a groundbreaking measure that would make it a crime to use a friend’s login — even with permission — to listen to songs or watch movies from services such as Netflix or Rhapsody.

The bill, which has been signed by the governor, was pushed by recording industry officials to try to stop the loss of billions of dollars to illegal music sharing. They hope other states will follow.

» via Yahoo! News

How utterly ridiculous. I really think the music industry is barking up the wrong tree here -something like this is *not* going to restore the revenue they’ve lost over the past ten years.  I daresay the people who are ‘blatant offenders’ already realize they’re doing something that’s not aboveboard, but a law like this will be difficult to fully enforce. So how is this helping, exactly?

infoneer-pulse:

When Lawrence Golan picks up his baton here at the University of Denver, the musicians in his student orchestra see a genial conductor who corrects their mistakes without raising his voice in frustration.

Yet Mr. Golan is frustrated, not with the musicians, but with a copyright law that does them harm. For 10 years, the music professor has been quietly waging a legal campaign to overturn the statute, which makes it impossibly expensive for smaller orchestras to play certain pieces of music.

Now the case is heading to the U.S. Supreme Court. The high-stakes copyright showdown affects far more than sheet music. The outcome will touch a broad swath of academe for years to come, dictating what materials scholars can use in books and courses without jumping through legal hoops. The law Mr. Golan is trying to overturn has also hobbled libraries’ efforts to digitize and share books, films, and music.

» via The Chronicle of Higher Education (Subscription may be required for some content)

Personal music locker services are certainly an improvement on current industry services. By allowing music fans increased access to the content they already own, services like Amazon’s and Google’s improve consumers’ music experiences by making it easier to listen to that music where and whenever they want.

But we’re a long way from realizing the potential of cloud-based music services, which could increase consumers’ access to music they already own while offering new ways to find and purchase music and other add-on content from artists.

(Source: freegovinfo.info)

Now there’s a lovely thought.  It’s not true at my local publib branch (though it may be at the ‘audiovisual branch’ in the county), but it’s awesome that libraries are able to serve the needs of their communities for this medium.

My big question: will we ever see an article that talks about libraries filling the book void left by closed bookstores?  Or is that aspect of library services taken for granted?  Perhaps this is only worthy of coverage because it’s *not* books.

(Source: twitter.com)

An interesting take, as is this commentary post on TeleRead.  Ebook articles almost constantly compare ebooks to digital music, which intrigues me because of the differences in the way the two types of content are used by individuals.  (I ‘re-listen’ to the music I own far more than I reread the books I own. Does that have an effect on how each of these are moved into the digital realm? Should it? *ponders*)

And neither one mentions the added complication of libraries trying to serve as an ebook facilitator the way they do with print books.  In the digital music realm, libraries are trying to be involved via services like Freegal, which has its problems.  Of course, the ebook solution for libraries has its problems too… which makes me wonder how all this will play out.

(Source: twitter.com)