While the British music industry claims they have lost £1.1 billion in the last three years, media market resaerchers Jupiter media calculate that the figure is at most £290m. The problem is that the numbers do not add up. For example, the British music industry keeps claiming that there is Read more
(via Furdlog) Two articles in the LA Times (here and here) help to further the case that piracy does not always translate into lost sales, it may very well end up in opening new markets and new customers. The first case, and perhaps the most documented, is that of Microsoft. Read more
I believe this is probably the first artist who will top the music charts without having a single CD sale in his name. Gnarls Barkley will probably top the UK charts today with a single that has not been released physically, and is only available as a download. I guess Read more
A study commissioned by the Canadian Recording Industry Association has been made public, and Michael Geist has found some interesting facts on it. Apparently, those who download the most are those who buy the most music. We already knew this, but it is nice to see more hard evidence for Read more
Last weeks there were reports that police in Belgium had shut down an EDonkey server called Razorback. This server did not hold actual infringing material, it held contact data of people using the EDonkey network. As the P2P weblog suggests, this has no bearing whatsoever on the service, as new Read more
Napster has come out criticising Microsoft Media Player for their inability to catch up with leader iTunes in the music download market. iTunes has 80% market share despite Napster’s instant name recognition. Apparently, Napster has been plagued with problems with Microsoft Media’s DRM. It is an axiom of digital rights Read more
Bringing infringing suits against consumers is a bad idea. This seems to be the message of Canadian music publisher Nettwerk. 15-year-old Elisa Greubel’s dad got sued by the RIAA for having 600 songs in their computer, alleging specifically infringement for 8 songs. Elisa contacted some artists, where she mentioned that Read more
(via Denis Magnusson). How much are your illegally downloaded copyright works worth? (well, they are not really yours, they belong to the copyright owners, but you know what I mean). Use the piracy calculator and find out! I was surprised of how little my stuff is worth, but I have Read more
A firm dedicated to flooding P2P file sharing networks with fake copies has been shut down. Overpeer was a company that started filling networks with copies that did not work in order to make it difficult for users to find music. They were initially paid by the music industry, but Read more
Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent, has come out in a press conference against movie downloads with the head of the MPAA. It would seem like the MPAA has made an offer that he could not refuse and he has had to agree to a number of demands, including the Read more