Tag: google

Spotify, YouTube, Streaming Services Are Killing Digital Downloads | TIME.com

Since the iTunes Store launched in 2003, digital music sales have been viewed as the music industry’s saving grace in the face of declining physical album sales and rampant online piracy.

“What we were thinking about was having full track download sales somehow replace the lost revenues from the rapid decline of physical [sales],” says Larry Miller, a music business professor at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. “What wasn’t so widely anticipated five or six years ago was that full-track download sales would begin to decline as rapidly as they have this year, especially given how nascent the streaming services still are.”

READ THE FULL STORY AT TIME:
http://business.time.com/2014/01/03/spotify-and-youtube-are-just-killing-digital-music-sales/?iid=biz-article-mostpop1

RELATED:

Music Streaming Math, Can It All Add Up?

No, Streaming is not more profitable than Transactional Sales… Not Today, Maybe Not Ever…

by trichordist

Google Slammed by Mississippi Attorney General for “Inaction” on Piracy | Variety

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood is pressing Google to take greater measures to tackle online piracy and other illegal Web activity, saying that the company’s “inaction” is “not merely a failure to do the right thing” but “raises serious questions as to whether Google is engaged in unlawful conduct itself.”

Hood accused Google of being “unwilling to take basic actions to make the Internet safe from unlawful and predatory conduct, and it has refused to modify its own behavior that facilitates and profits from unlawful conduct.” His letter cites not just piracy of movies, TV shows and music but the sale of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and sex trafficking.

He also pointed out several instances in which Google has screened out criminal content, like child pornography. Nazi-related content, he noted, was removed from search results in Germany, and spam and malware are blocked because they can be damaging to users.

“Google can and does take action against unlawful or offensive conduct — when Google determines it is in its business interests to do so,” Hood wrote.

READ THE FULL STORY AT VARIETY:
http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/google-slammed-by-mississippi-attorney-general-for-inaction-on-piracy-1200938008/

RELATED:

Google, Advertising, Money and Piracy. A History of Wrongdoing Exposed.

Lou Reed Exploited By American Express, AT&T, Chevrolet, Chili’s, Lysol, Pottery Barn, Vons, Domino’s Pizza, Netflix, Galaxy Nexus and Ron Jeremy!

by Trichordist Editor

French court orders search firms to block pirate sites | BBC

A court in France has ordered Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to block 16 video-streaming sites from their search results.

The court said the sites broke French intellectual property laws and were “almost entirely dedicated” to streaming content without the owners’ permission.

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo must now take measures to ensure the blocked pages cannot be found in a list of search results.

ISPs, including Orange and Bouygues Telecom, will also have to prevent users from being able to access the sites.

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE BBC:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25185819

by trichordist

Congresswoman Judy Chu: Too Many Americans Think Piracy is OK | THE WRAP

The American public doesn’t understand the consequences to piracy. There are large segments of it that even think it’s okay.

We need to have a greater understanding of [piracy] by the American public. Piracy affects one of the main American exports. It’s a huge industry for the United States, and Americans have to understand it is not right to pirate information.

The MPAA just did a study on how people get pirated content. 74 percent said they first were introduced to infringing content through search engines.

We need to develop a better system for fighting piracy than a whack-a- mole project.

READ THE FULL STORY AT THE WRAP:
http://www.thewrap.com/congresswoman-judy-chu-many-americans-think-piracy-okay/

by trichordist

The Recording Industry: Fiddling while Rome burns. | AdLand

Here come the YouTube Music Awards. YouTube pays artists less per play than Spotify and YouTube get an awards show with artists support. We get what we deserve?

In terms of artists getting their royalties fucked so royally, no one beats Big Tech. The money that should be distributed to musicians is going to google or to ad-supported pirate sites rather than the content creators themselves.

Yet Big Tech is doing what the recording industry can’t. In terms of innovation, the recording industry’s been asleep as the wheel since Napster first rolled out.

READ THE FULL POST AT ADLAND:
http://adland.tv/node/156185#qmSjKtWGAhJ3HzaA.99

RELATED:
YouTube Shares Ad Revenue With Musicians, But Does It Add Up? | NPR

by trichordist

Real Censorship | nycRUEN

During the protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), critics of the legislation portrayed its process of identifying foreign black market domains and then blocking them from gaining easy profits from, and access to, the US online audience, as “censorship” — full stop.

…

It bothers me that representatives from Google or the EFF, Reddit, etc. are so quick to lump in the attempt to protect artists rights with the political censorship of China or Iran. It is entitlement of the privileged at its worst and demonstrates to me how desperate some people are to excuse freeloading by any means necessary. But, the wonders of technology simply do not excuse clear cases of exploitation.

READ THE FULL POST AT nycRUEN:
http://nycruen.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/real-censorship/

by Trichordist Editor

Timothy B. Lee’s Epic Fail in the Washington Post on Piracy | CJR

We know there is a lot of bias reported that serves the corporate interests of Silicon Valley corporations but watching this story being reported, and revised, over the course of the day yesterday was truly stunning.

A piracy defense walks the plank at the Post

A blogger gets schooled by the meanies of Big Copyright
By Ryan Chittum

There are many problems with Timothy B. Lee’s Washington Post blog post on Hollywood’s supposed culpability for the theft of its own movies, beginning with the morally unserious jujitsu deployed in arguing that Hollywood is culpable for the theft of its own movies.

The Mercatus- and Cato-connected editor of the Washington Post tech blog that aims “to be indispensable to telecom lobbyists and IT professionals alike, while also being compelling and provocative to the average iPhone-toting commuter” also had a major correction that undermines the entire premise of the piece and reveals its one-sided reporting.

READ THE FULL STORY HERE AT THE COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW:
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/a_piracy_defense_walks_the_pla.php

by Trichordist Editor

Google attacked by MPs over failure to curb music and film piracy | The Guardian UK

Company accused of ‘derisory’ attempts to stop many illegal downloads amid concerns over level of influence in coalition

Google will be criticised by MPs for making “derisory” attempts to curb music and film piracy and using its “perceived power and influence” at the heart of David Cameron’s government to shore up its position.

The Commons culture, media and sport select committee accused the search engine of offering the thinnest of excuses to avoid taking action against widespread piracy, a problem that the committee claimed is costing the creative industries millions of pounds in lost revenue a year.

Tory MP John Whittingdale, the chairman of the committee, said his fellow MPs were “unimpressed by Google’s continued failure to stop directing consumers to illegal, copyright infringing material on the flimsy excuse that some of the sites may also host some legal content. The continuing promotion of illegal content through search engines is simply unacceptable, and efforts to stop it have so far been derisory.”

READ THE FULL STORY HERE:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/26/google-mps-music-film-piracy

by Trichordist Editor

The Lie is Falling – Dr. Price sizes the Piracy Universe | Illusion Of More

In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Butch (Paul Newman) sits astride his horse outside the same boxcar of the same train he’s successfully robbed over and over.  Frustrated by the railroad owner’s ceaseless but futile attempts to thwart the hold-ups, Butch proclaims, “If he’d just pay me what he’s spending to make me stop robbing him, I’d stop robbing him!”  Of course it isn’t true, is it?  Neither the character nor probably the real Butch Cassidy would likely have given up the life he knew for something as boring as just money.

If you wanted to watch this classic film directed by George Roy Hill right now, you could do so on Netflix or Amazon Prime or rent it from iTunes for four bucks. None of these innovations existed just a few years ago, and those who have repeatedly insisted that they “only use pirate sites because affordable, flexible, online alternatives don’t exist” are starting to sound a little dumb.  This is especially true as of yesterday, with the release of a new report by Dr. David Price of London-based NetNames, entitled Sizing the piracy universe.

READ THE FULL POST AT THE ILLUSION OF MORE:
http://illusionofmore.com/piracy_universe/

by Trichordist Editor

Search Engines = G.P.S. for Online Piracy | Vox Indie

More great work from VoxIndie!

I don’t need a study to prove that search engines are an integral force in fueling online piracy, but since the piracy debate is awash in dueling studies I’ll happily chime in on the subject again.

Last week Google published a report–a characteristically self-congratulatory piece of fluff–declaring themselves to be a leader  in the fight against piracy and that took great pains to deny the significance of “search” in maintaining the online pirate economy.  The report repeated claims made in a recent study (published by a consortium of tech giants including Google) that it’s poor SEO techniques that are the problem–not search engines.

READ THE FULL POST AT VOX INDIE:

by Trichordist Editor