Piracy and Music Sales

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Nean D'Erthal

Piracy and Music Sales

 

With the con­tent piracy increas­ing day by day, sev­eral anti-piracy mea­sures are taken to ensure the own­ers of the dig­i­tal con­tent are not deprived of the mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion. It is com­monly accepted that dig­i­tal con­tent piracy tends to have adverse effects on the dig­i­tal sales. How­ever, in the recent past, the trends seem to shift quite a bit. Accord­ing to a report, the global sales have increased, but on the other hand, the dig­i­tal con­tent piracy has also been increas­ing at the same. This is quite con­fus­ing for most of the peo­ple, but a thor­ough analy­sis gives a clear idea.

 

 

One point of view in terms of the men­tioned aspect is that the dig­i­tal con­tent piracy tends to intro­duce the dig­i­tal con­tent to users, which can be termed as some sort of mar­ket­ing. Once a user come across a par­tic­u­lar type of con­tent, then the sales also increase. When it comes to the dig­i­tal sales, down­loads have been the major con­trib­u­tor dur­ing the last year. This also shows the con­sumer behav­iors and the pat­terns the cus­tomers go with these days. With the intro­duc­tion of ser­vices like iTunes etc, peo­ple find it extremely easy to get the job done in terms of dig­i­tal con­tent down­load. The value of the recorded music for last year turned out to be $16.5 billion.

 

 

In addi­tion, accord­ing to the report, iTunes has been rated as a mar­ket leader in terms of sales. Other than iTunes, Microsoft and Ama­zon also had a con­sid­er­able share in terms of the dig­i­tal sales. The stream­ing ser­vices such as Deezer and Spo­tify have really enjoyed a sound growth, which is some­thing to look for­ward to for the ser­vice providers. The sub­scrip­tion and the adver­tis­ing sup­ported ser­vice providers have accounted for 20% of the dig­i­tal music sales.

 

 

Speak­ing of the music stream­ing ser­vice, these enjoyed a huge mar­ket­place in Europe, where 31% of the dig­i­tal sales were attrib­uted to the stream­ing ser­vices. From licens­ing to adver­tis­ing, every­thing was on the rise in terms of the dig­i­tal con­tent indus­try last year. Not just the dig­i­tal sales, but dur­ing the last year, the phys­i­cal sales have also been increased, which can be rated as an ideal way for­ward for the dig­i­tal con­tent indus­try. Con­sid­er­ing this growth, the dig­i­tal con­tent indus­try offi­cials are of the view that cer­tain devel­op­ments must be there for the taking.

 

 

As the indus­try is get­ting on the right track, the dig­i­tal con­tent piracy should be com­pletely over­come, which can pave the way towards the required results in terms of the dig­i­tal con­tent indus­try. Another fact to con­sider is that the increase in dig­i­tal sales and the anti-piracy mea­sures were the high­light last year. Accord­ing to the indus­try, the search engines need to put in more effort, and should ensure the dig­i­tal con­tent piracy is min­i­mized. Apart from that, aware­ness among the con­sumers is another aspect which the dig­i­tal indus­try should look for­ward to. The search engines can play their part to min­i­mize the infring­ing links, which can help in over­com­ing the dig­i­tal con­tent piracy.
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Ukraine Facing Severe Digital Content Piracy

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Nean D'Erthal

Ukraine Facing Severe Digital Content Piracy

 

Owing to the increased dig­i­tal con­tent piracy, it has become high time that pre­ven­tive mea­sures must be there for the tak­ing. When it comes to piracy, there are sev­eral aspects which must be con­sid­ered. Along with that, var­i­ous coun­tries are grouped accord­ing to the con­tent piracy tak­ing place there in the region. The United States Trade Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, com­monly referred as the USTR has placed Ukraine on the watch list in terms of the dig­i­tal con­tent piracy.

 

 

Accord­ing to var­i­ous reports, dig­i­tal con­tent piracy has increased in the region, and this is some­thing to con­sider big time. The Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment has shown resent­ment over the deci­sion, as accord­ing to them, such act negates the effort the coun­try has under­gone in terms of over­com­ing dig­i­tal con­tent piracy.

 

 

Apart from the dis­ap­point­ment, the offi­cials are of the view that they would not stop their efforts in terms of over­com­ing the dig­i­tal con­tent piracy, despite being on the piracy watch list. Accord­ing to the con­cerned author­i­ties, two inter­net por­tals have been closed this month. Both these por­tals were linked with the unli­censed dis­tri­b­u­tion of the dig­i­tal con­tent. Such mea­sures have become imper­a­tive, espe­cially con­sid­er­ing the increased dig­i­tal con­tent piracy. Not only this, two bills have also been intro­duced in the par­lia­ment, which can serve to be the ideal way out in terms of the copy­right infringe­ment and the related laws.

 

 

In addi­tion, the offi­cials are of the view that the gov­ern­ment is not hes­i­tant in work­ing with US or other coun­tries in terms of over­com­ing dig­i­tal con­tent piracy. How­ever, the deci­sion to include Ukraine in the piracy watch list does not seem to be con­ducive, par­tic­u­larly when it comes to coop­er­a­tion, which is required to over­come dig­i­tal con­tent piracy. In addi­tion, there is strict obser­vance in terms of the intel­lec­tual prop­erty rights, which is some­thing to reckon in terms of over­com­ing dig­i­tal con­tent piracy. The Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment, pri­mar­ily to ensure the gov­ern­ment depart­ments have in place the legal soft­ware, which can be ideal in terms of oper­at­ing legal con­tent, has spent more than $12 mil­lion. It can also help in con­sid­er­ing the loop­holes asso­ci­ated with over­com­ing dig­i­tal con­tent piracy.

 

 

Vik­tor Yanukovych, the pres­i­dent of Ukraine has shown great inter­est in super­vis­ing the tasks, assign­ments and the related depart­ments which gov­ern the anti-piracy laws and method­olo­gies. Such strate­gies can offer long-term results, which can serve the coun­try immensely. Dig­i­tal con­tent piracy has become a world­wide issue; there­fore, efforts should be made to ensure the imple­mented method­olo­gies should be suit­able for all the regions, which must be the sig­nif­i­cant area to work on.

 

 

The gov­ern­ment fur­ther believes that aware­ness is the basic ingre­di­ent which can help the dig­i­tal con­tent indus­try in over­com­ing con­tent piracy. Pub­lic aware­ness can serve the coun­try immensely, and now, when Ukraine is on the piracy watch list, pub­lic aware­ness is cer­tainly one aspect which can help greatly. In addi­tion, as the demand for dig­i­tal con­tent is increas­ing, the users should also look to real­ize their respon­si­bil­ity in help­ing the author­i­ties over­come dig­i­tal con­tent piracy.
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Piracy and the Used Digital Content

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Nean D'Erthal

Piracy and the Used Digital Content

 

 

With all the debate going around in terms of con­tent piracy, one aspect, which needs to be con­sid­ered, is the fact that sell­ing used dig­i­tal con­tent is some­thing peo­ple must avoid. Accord­ing to a ver­dict given by the Fed­eral judge in New York, it is clear that the ser­vice providers offer­ing sec­ondary mar­ket for sell­ing the dig­i­tal music is not in accor­dance with the law. Such method­ol­ogy falls under the ille­gal infringe­ment of the copy­right laws. The rules and the court’s deci­sion are pri­mar­ily aimed at “ReDigi”, a com­pany offer­ing a plat­form where peo­ple can sell the music files after buy­ing these from iTunes and other online retailers.

 

 

The main hin­drance towards com­ing across a sound judge­ment in this regard was the sale doc­trine, which enables the own­ers hav­ing copies of music and books etc to resell them. How­ever, the judge had to deter­mine whether this prin­ci­ple applies to dig­i­tal media or not. In this case, the judge was of the view that ille­gal pro­duc­tion of the dig­i­tal con­tent was tak­ing place. ReDigi, on the other hand, claims that their soft­ware does not involve the process of copy­ing the dig­i­tal file, rather the uploaded file, i.e. the orig­i­nal file becomes unavail­able once the trans­ac­tion has been made by the seller, and after that, the seller has no access to that dig­i­tal file.

 

 

After this rul­ing, there is a huge debate going on as to whether the dig­i­tal re-sale is a part of copy­right infringe­ment or not, as the busi­ness of var­i­ous com­pa­nies is at stake after this rul­ing by a New York fed­eral judge. It would be too early to con­clude about the impact of this ver­dict. The users of the dig­i­tal con­tent have a mixed opin­ion, with the major­ity of the users going with the fact that the copy­right laws need to be restruc­tured. This is because of the fact that the users can save con­sid­er­able bucks by buy­ing the used dig­i­tal music, and it should be regarded as leasing.

 

 

In addi­tion, the users are also of the view that the leas­ing laws and mod­els in the Amer­i­can busi­ness indus­try should be reshaped keep­ing in front the user trends and the related require­ments. Var­i­ous users are also of the view that the related method­olo­gies are some­what unfair on the part of the users of the dig­i­tal con­tent. On the other hand, many users are also of the view that, owing to the increased dig­i­tal con­tent piracy, such mea­sures have become imper­a­tive, and once the piracy has been over­come, then the music stu­dios and the artists can breathe a sigh of relief.

 

 

When it comes to the con­tent piracy, such mea­sures can have fruit­ful results, but these should be in accor­dance with the cus­tomer trends. Few of the users are also of the view that such mea­sures should be imple­mented world­wide, which can help sta­bi­lize the dig­i­tal con­tent indus­try world­wide. With these anti-piracy mea­sures and the related laws, the dig­i­tal con­tent indus­try, espe­cially the music indus­try can expect to achieve the required anti-piracy results.
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Game Dev Tycoon Battling Game Piracy

Posted on May 15, 2013 by Nean D'Erthal

Game Dev Tycoon Battling Game Piracy

 

In this day of age, dig­i­tal con­tent piracy has become the name of the game, and the gam­ing indus­try is cer­tainly no dif­fer­ent. The game devel­op­ers are putting thor­ough effort to come up with games that can attract large audi­ences, with­out offer­ing the typ­i­cal pirated con­tent. One game to speak of is the Game Dev Tycoon, which comes with a price tag of $8 for Mac and other users, but the game piracy has made the life dif­fi­cult for the play­ers, as qual­ity issues like graph­ics and game play are asso­ci­ated with the pirated ver­sions of the game.

 

 

The game play revolves around the entire devel­op­ment within the game, where a player starts off the game in the 1980 era, and even­tu­ally tries to build a cor­po­ra­tion out of it. This is what the game is all about, and these fea­tures really make it inter­est­ing and intrigu­ing as far as the game play is con­cerned. But the game piracy has more or less spoiled the show for the play­ers. With the increased piracy, the game devel­op­ers are left scratch­ing their heads, as mon­e­tary loss is also there for the taking.

 

 

The devel­op­ers of this game are of the view that if the play­ers would not buy this game, then there are chances that the devel­op­ers could go bank­rupt. This, how­ever, refers to the fact that mon­e­tary loss can be the out­come if peo­ple go with the pirated ver­sions of the game, instead of buy­ing the orig­i­nal ver­sion. How­ever, in some cases, even though play­ers down­load the pirated ver­sion, they still buy the legit­i­mate ver­sion once it comes out. The devel­op­ers of this game are rely­ing on the sales, but instead, the play­ers are more inclined towards the pirated con­tent. This is because of the fact that more than 90% of the play­ers had down­loaded the pirated ver­sion of this game, within the first few weeks of the launch of the game.

 

 

Such sta­tis­tics are not what the doc­tor ordered for the devel­op­ers, but the devel­op­ers of Game Dev Tycoon are hope­ful of a sound come­back in terms of sales and the related mon­e­tary val­ues. Klug and Daniel, the two broth­ers who have devel­oped this game, are of the view that they cer­tainly need the sales, as both of them are not rich. Accord­ing to them, they have worked immensely to come up with this game, and the mon­e­tary sales should be the way to go for them. How­ever, until now, the dig­i­tal con­tent piracy has really dented the mon­e­tary sales.

 

 

The devel­op­ers of this game are try­ing hard to over­come the con­tent piracy and the related method­olo­gies, but it can be too early to pre­dict as to which way the wind is blow­ing. The efforts are under­way and the game devel­op­ers are try­ing their best to over­come game piracy, which not only affects the qual­ity of the game play, but also deprives the game devel­op­ers of the richly deserved mon­e­tary ben­e­fits. The anti-piracy approach of this game is some­thing to look for­ward to, as it can serve the entire gam­ing indus­try, not just the Game Dev Tycoon.
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