Final Project for LIB1201

P.S Unfortunately, that embeded video will not work because I used a ‘absolute path’ for it.

       K.C Jones(2007) at The InformationWeek reported that worldwide music piracy deprive the US of $12.5 billion and more than 71,000 jobs annually. Moreover, it brought about loss of $422 million in tax revenue, and from this point of view, Stephen E. Siwek(2007) argued that “Piracy harms not only the owners of intellectual property but also U.S. consumers and taxpayers”(2007, para. 11). This economic result is deeply related to the change of music consumption patterns. As a result of AM’s report(2007), we can presume that more and more people are getting used to stay online and the chance of utilizing digital media is increasing. Consequently, they are easily exposed to music piracy. In addition, in this kind of circumstance ethics of people in intellectual properties is apt to be weaken.    

     However, if we take a look at the strategies of music industry to manage piracy, we can recognize without difficulties that they also have dealt with the problems inappropriately. According to EEF(Electronic Frontier Foundation), RIAA(Recording Industry Association of America) have sued 28000 individuals since June of 2003 and now it is even more increasing(2010, para. 1). As many objectors of RIAA argue, RIAA seems to do nothing but lawsuit to cope with decline of music market. Marshall(2010) reported that the music industry in the UK even force the government to change the law for intensifying copyright(2010). The problem is that they do not care about trend of new media and desire of audiences and are just busy to deal with piracy simply and fragmentarily. In addition, as one of the alternatives for preventing piracy, the music industry has embedded copy protection algorithm in media. However, even this method did not work out effectively. Many audiences protested against the copy protection in terms of perusing consumers’ rights. To make matters worse, in 2005 Sony had to recall many CDs from the market and to confront lawsuits because the software they put in media was enough to be regarded as malicious software, which is called a rootkit. (BBC NEWS, 2005)   

            In conclusion, ethics of audiences in copyright is really important because that is not only the fundamental rule of human society but also the way to advantage all members of the public. At the same time, however, it is no exaggeration to say that the music industry’s inappropriate plans will definitely end up with ruining the music market. Only when the music industry accept change of the times and devise valid method for marketing, they eventually will be able to increase their revenue.   

Music consumption statistics. (AM,2008, Jun 17)

Music consumption statistics. (AM,2008, Jun 17).

Music consumption statistics. (AM,2008, Jun 17).

Music consumption statistics. (AM,2008, Jun 17).

Electronic Frontier Foundation (2008). RIAA v. The People. Retrieved from  http://www.eff.org/riaa-v-people

International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (2010). What is piracy?. Retrieved from
http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_views/what_is_piracy.html

Jones, K.C (2007, Aug 22). Music piracy costs U.S. economy $12.5 billion, Report Reveals. The InformationWeek,  Retrieved from  http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201801704

Marshall, R ( 2010, Mar 11). Government panders to music industry in copyright debate. V3.co.uk, Retrieved from http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2259385/government-panders-music

Parker,T. & Stone, M. (2003, Nov.28). Christian rock hard [Episode 709]. Southparkstudios.com, Retrieved from   http://www.southparkstudios.com/

Once Soo and I decided what our topic for the Online Documentation Project would be, we started thinking about how we would present it.

First we exchanged emails and phone numbers to make sure we could reach each other at any time. We didn’t really need to contact each other after our first meeting though, because we met at class two days after, and by that time we had not done much more work, but in any case we thought that having each other’s personal contact was the right thing to do.

In our second project meeting, we decided to create a blog so we could have a more clear and easy way of communication outside of class. With the blog we could simply post articles for analyses, pictures, videos and discuss everything in only one place. We realized that it would be easier this way, instead of exchanging emails all the time and having to look for old emails in order to catch up with the subject. It is easier to follow up with a blog, since nothing is deleted, unless we edit it, or expired. All the history is there all the timed. We also decided to use “WordPress.com” because since we have been using it in our class, it would be easier to create a new blog with our same existing account. Also we were familiar with the tools and settings and most important it is free.

For the presentation itself, Soo thought that it would be better to use “Microsoft PowerPoint” because it would be simple to just create a pre selected slide show with all the text and images that we were using in the order we wanted it. Soo is much more familiar with the presentation program “PowerPoint” than I am.  I might have used it once in my life. It was decided that we would do the research together, he would summarize the sources and I would do the documenting part. We worked together arranging the content of the PowerPoint slides, but Soo was the one manipulating the computer.

Since we already had to use pictures and/or videos in our presentation we decided to do something more fun and use cartoons that were relevant, of course, to our topic. During my research in the internet, I found a very interesting article that compared music piracy in the US and Japan. In the article there was a great Fox Trot comic strip by Bill Amend about music piracy. I posted in the blog so Soo could take a look before our class in the next day. The next day in class Soo and I talked about using it for our presentation. He thought it was a great idea and he also reminded me about a South Park episode also about free downloading that we both saw and talked about months ago. I thought that would be very good if we could find it online and edit it. Our presentation was only 20 minutes long and we could not have a 30 minutes long animation running while we were talking. We only needed a 2 minutes section where they illustrate very well the kids being caught for illegally downloading songs on the Internet. Unfortunately we only found an edit version of the episode with a background narration.

Cartoonist Bill Amend on downloading and the American family from 22 November 2002

2. An interesting pole regarding “Is downloading music ethical?”
http://www.helium.com/items/1460164-music-piracy-is-downloading-music-ethical
Influence of music piracy in an economic point of view – “Music Piracy Costs U.S. Economy $12.5 Billion”
http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201801704

Digital music consumption patterns http://www.zdnet.com/blog/itfacts/music-consumption-statistics/14580

3. Lawsuits – “RIAA pays out $107,951.03 in music piracy lawsuit”
http://www.geek.com/articles/law/riaa-pays-out-10795103-in-music-piracy-lawsuit-20080819/
(It was once controvercial issue, rootkit in the copy protection system – “Sony sued over copy- protected   CDs”  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4424254.stm)

RIAA v. The People (http://www.eff.org/riaa-v-people)
The effort of the music industry for amendment (UK) -  “Government panders to music industry in copyright debate”
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2259385/government-panders-music

Sunday comic strip “Foxtrot” by Bill Amend featured as its subject in the March 4, 2007, edition, the RIAA’s lawsuits against single moms, widows, grandmothers, dead people, and children.

I found this edited video from that south park episode. I don’t like the comments, but if we decide to use it we can use just the parts we want.

Out Line for Online Documentation Project

Music Piracy

(Influence of it to Music Industry)

1. What is the music piracy ?
a. Definition
b. Brief history of music piracy
c. Current situation of music piracy

2. Influence of music piracy
a.Economic point of view
b.Ethic point of view
c.Consuming behavior’s point of view

3. How has the music industry coped with music piracy?
a.Law suits
b.Technical protection                ==>  Still not  enough
c.Enhancing copyright

4. The brief future of the music piracy
-   Influence and expectation

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article6643834.ece