Owners of digital music players will be acting lawfully when they transfer music from their computer to a digital player or copy a CD for their own use, under proposed amendments to bring copyright law into the digital age.
· Consumers, who have been technically breaking the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 by copying tracks from CDs to their PC or digital player, or making an extra copy to play in the car, will now be able to do so for private use. Record labels accept that consumers should not be punished for shifting music from one format to another.
· The minister for intellectual property, Lord Triesman, said: "In an increasingly digital world we need to be sure that our copyright system keeps up with the times and works effectively. This consultation explores where the boundaries lie between strong protection for rights-holders and appropriate levels of access for users." Last year's Gowers review of intellectual property recommended the law be relaxed to reflect the march of technology, but also suggested that punishments for large scale piracy be toughened.
· The proposals suggest a new exemption for parodies of copyrighted works, while changes for libraries would allow for the copying of broadcasts for preservation purposes. Consumers would not be allowed to sell or give away the original once they had copied it.
· The National Consumer Council's director of policy, Jill Johnstone, said the current situation was "confusing for consumers and it brings the law into disrepute". She said the council supported the changes, but said they needed to be easily understood by consumers. Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the music industry trade body the BPI, said: "We look forward to working with government throughout the consultation; the key thing for us is that any changes to the law achieve the stated aim of clarifying the law for consumers, while not doing harm to rights-holders."
· British Music Rights, which represents composers and songwriters, said any changes to the law must be "tightly drawn". Legal experts said it made sense to tidy up a law that had been proved impractical and unworkable, but said it could have harmful consequences for a record industry that has been brought to its knees by digital piracy in recent years.
Monday, 28 January 2008
Digital Technology
Digital describes electronic technology that generates, stores, and processes data in terms of two states: positive and non-positive. Positive is expressed or represented by the number 1 and non-positive by the number 0. So data is transmitted or stored with digital technology is expressed as a string of 0's and 1's. Each of these state digits is referred to as a bit (and a string of bits that a computer can address individually as a group is a byte).
For example, a typical CD audio track is sampled at 44.1 KHz (44,100 samples per second) with a bit depth of 16 bits. This provides a high-quality estimation of an analog audio signal that sounds realistic the human ear. However, a higher-quality audio format, such as a DVD-Audio disc, may be sampled at 96 KHz and have a bit depth of 24 bits. The same song played on both discs will sound more smooth and dynamic on the DVD-Audio disc.
Prior to digital technology, electronic transmission was limited to analogue technology, which conveys data as electronic signals of varying frequency or amplitude that are added to carrier waves of a given frequency. Broadcast and phone transmission has conventionally used analog technology.
Digital technology is primarily used with new physical communications media, such as satellite and fibre optic transmission. A modem is used to convert the digital information in your computer to analog signals for your phone line and to convert analog phone signals to digital information for your computer.
For example, a typical CD audio track is sampled at 44.1 KHz (44,100 samples per second) with a bit depth of 16 bits. This provides a high-quality estimation of an analog audio signal that sounds realistic the human ear. However, a higher-quality audio format, such as a DVD-Audio disc, may be sampled at 96 KHz and have a bit depth of 24 bits. The same song played on both discs will sound more smooth and dynamic on the DVD-Audio disc.
Prior to digital technology, electronic transmission was limited to analogue technology, which conveys data as electronic signals of varying frequency or amplitude that are added to carrier waves of a given frequency. Broadcast and phone transmission has conventionally used analog technology.
Digital technology is primarily used with new physical communications media, such as satellite and fibre optic transmission. A modem is used to convert the digital information in your computer to analog signals for your phone line and to convert analog phone signals to digital information for your computer.
All this online sharing has to stop
· International Federation of Phonographic Industries published its digital music report for 2008, which boldly said that "the spread of unlicensed music on ISP networks is choking revenues to record companies and investment in artists, despite a healthy increase in digital sales in 2007, up approximately 40% on the previous year". (If you're wondering, those sales were $2.9bn (£1.45bn) for the year, including ringtones.)
· IFPI's solution is to sort it out at the internet service provider level. "ISP cooperation, via systematic disconnection of infringers and the use of filtering technologies, is the most effective way copyright theft can be controlled. Independent estimates say up to 80 per cent of ISP traffic comprises distribution of copyright-infringing files."
Article sharing:
· People now copy-and-paste entire articles from online newspapers to blog sites or to their own computer and they don't pay a thing. Then they read them or "share" them with other people.
· Pornography used to make a comfortable living for many of the top-shelf magazines. But now there are loads of internet sites where you can get free amateur porn - exactly the same sort of stuff that people used to pay for!
· So before the IFPI gets ISPs to start inspecting the packets passing through their routers for music, they'd better sort it out first so that ISPs can see and stop it when someone is copying newspaper articles, or pornographic content, or reading suspiciously helpful newsgroups, or downloading a ROM sequence for a now-outdated console. Then we'll be ready to listen to the music industry.
· IFPI's solution is to sort it out at the internet service provider level. "ISP cooperation, via systematic disconnection of infringers and the use of filtering technologies, is the most effective way copyright theft can be controlled. Independent estimates say up to 80 per cent of ISP traffic comprises distribution of copyright-infringing files."
Article sharing:
· People now copy-and-paste entire articles from online newspapers to blog sites or to their own computer and they don't pay a thing. Then they read them or "share" them with other people.
· Pornography used to make a comfortable living for many of the top-shelf magazines. But now there are loads of internet sites where you can get free amateur porn - exactly the same sort of stuff that people used to pay for!
· So before the IFPI gets ISPs to start inspecting the packets passing through their routers for music, they'd better sort it out first so that ISPs can see and stop it when someone is copying newspaper articles, or pornographic content, or reading suspiciously helpful newsgroups, or downloading a ROM sequence for a now-outdated console. Then we'll be ready to listen to the music industry.
Monday, 7 January 2008
Task 2 - What is the future for online technology?
1. Who is Chris De Wolfe and what does he say is the future for social networking? What impact will portable hardware have on this area of technology?
Chris De Wolfe is the CEO, co-founder of MySpace. He believes social networks have become a staple in the internet landscape as the social networking phenomenon allowed people to "put their lives online". We expect aspects of all socially-based sites to become increasingly portable. In terms of mobile, we expect to have relationships with every carrier and device-maker in the world and we expect that half of our future traffic will come from non-PC users.
Social activity is happening everywhere and we expect applications and features to be more fluid, based on the online population that want content where they want it, when they want it, and how they want it. Social activity should be portable and we expect the industry will continue to move in that direction.
2. Who is Chad Hurley and what does he say is his company's goal? Is he a positive or negative technological determinist?
Chad Hurley is the CEO, co-founder of YouTube. His companies goal is to allow every person on the planet to participate with YouTube by making the upload process as simple as placing a phone call. In the next five years, users will be at the centre of their video experience, you will have more access to more information, and the world will be a smaller place. Chad Hurley is very positive about the technological future. He believes in five years, video broadcasting will be the most ubiquitous and accessible form of communication and users will be at the centre of their video experience, you will have more access to more information, and the world will be a smaller place. The tools for video recording will continue to become smaller and more affordable. Personal media devices will be universal and interconnected. People will have the opportunity to record and share video with a small group of friends or everyone around the world.
3. What does Maurice Levy say is the challenge for advertisers and what is 'liquid media' compared to 'linear media'?
Maurice Levy believes the challenge for advertisers will be online advertising. Advertising will depend more than ever on the one element which has always been at the heart of impact advertising, both analogue and digital: creativity. The explosion of media channels means this is a glorious time to think and act creatively. People are no longer willing to put up with interruptions for a commercial break during their entertainment experience, and so we have to find incredibly creative solutions to interact with them and engage them in genuine and honest ways.
Linear media is fast giving way to liquid media, where you can move seamlessly in and out of different settings.
4. What parallels does Norvig draw between Edison inventing electricity and the development of online technology in terms of searching for information?
Peter Norvig, director of research for Google, said today, nobody says "I need to connect to a megawatt power station" - instead we assume that electricity will be available on demand in almost every room of every building we visit. Edison could see that this would be useful, but could not foresee the range of appliances, from food processors to mp3 players, that this availability would enable. So too will information flow freely to us in the future, and be transformed by as-yet-unforeseen information appliances.
5. What are the issues for the developing world? How is this evidence of a 'digital divide'? (Socio-economic divides due to access to technology)
Consumer broadband services via DSL are becoming available in an increasing number of countries; however, service costs depend greatly on the pervasiveness and reliability of local infrastructure. Wireless solutions will continue to evolve as the dominant service for "last kilometer" access due to the lack of local infrastructure.
Chris De Wolfe is the CEO, co-founder of MySpace. He believes social networks have become a staple in the internet landscape as the social networking phenomenon allowed people to "put their lives online". We expect aspects of all socially-based sites to become increasingly portable. In terms of mobile, we expect to have relationships with every carrier and device-maker in the world and we expect that half of our future traffic will come from non-PC users.
Social activity is happening everywhere and we expect applications and features to be more fluid, based on the online population that want content where they want it, when they want it, and how they want it. Social activity should be portable and we expect the industry will continue to move in that direction.
2. Who is Chad Hurley and what does he say is his company's goal? Is he a positive or negative technological determinist?
Chad Hurley is the CEO, co-founder of YouTube. His companies goal is to allow every person on the planet to participate with YouTube by making the upload process as simple as placing a phone call. In the next five years, users will be at the centre of their video experience, you will have more access to more information, and the world will be a smaller place. Chad Hurley is very positive about the technological future. He believes in five years, video broadcasting will be the most ubiquitous and accessible form of communication and users will be at the centre of their video experience, you will have more access to more information, and the world will be a smaller place. The tools for video recording will continue to become smaller and more affordable. Personal media devices will be universal and interconnected. People will have the opportunity to record and share video with a small group of friends or everyone around the world.
3. What does Maurice Levy say is the challenge for advertisers and what is 'liquid media' compared to 'linear media'?
Maurice Levy believes the challenge for advertisers will be online advertising. Advertising will depend more than ever on the one element which has always been at the heart of impact advertising, both analogue and digital: creativity. The explosion of media channels means this is a glorious time to think and act creatively. People are no longer willing to put up with interruptions for a commercial break during their entertainment experience, and so we have to find incredibly creative solutions to interact with them and engage them in genuine and honest ways.
Linear media is fast giving way to liquid media, where you can move seamlessly in and out of different settings.
4. What parallels does Norvig draw between Edison inventing electricity and the development of online technology in terms of searching for information?
Peter Norvig, director of research for Google, said today, nobody says "I need to connect to a megawatt power station" - instead we assume that electricity will be available on demand in almost every room of every building we visit. Edison could see that this would be useful, but could not foresee the range of appliances, from food processors to mp3 players, that this availability would enable. So too will information flow freely to us in the future, and be transformed by as-yet-unforeseen information appliances.
5. What are the issues for the developing world? How is this evidence of a 'digital divide'? (Socio-economic divides due to access to technology)
Consumer broadband services via DSL are becoming available in an increasing number of countries; however, service costs depend greatly on the pervasiveness and reliability of local infrastructure. Wireless solutions will continue to evolve as the dominant service for "last kilometer" access due to the lack of local infrastructure.
Key terms
Digitality:
New way of encoding information in a series of 0’s and 1’s. How a computer works, electrical pulse on / off. Huge amount of info delt with when in this code
Interactivity:
New ways of streaming info, compressed. So can go through the air, for satellite. Through ‘isdn’ cable, broadband. Telephone cables and cable cable system. The way its compressed means more width is given. Before only able to send one pulse down one wire. Now multiple strands of info can be sent via one feed.
Can interact with it, feed that goes both ways.
Hypertextuality:
Organisation in text. No longer linear (ABC). Can access it anyway you like (jump from A to C). Able to jump from one text to another.
Dispersal:
Sharing size of market. Produces target users.
Vertuality:
Iconography, how it’s read. Real representation.
Convergence:
New technologies are converging. For example, the mobile phone can access the web, and the mp3 players can store and view photos. The size to data comparison is improving. Things are getting smaller but holding more data.
Other areas:
Audience:
How do audience use it? Why do they use it? Who use it?
Regulation and control:
Who owns the product? How is it controlled, and used.
New way of encoding information in a series of 0’s and 1’s. How a computer works, electrical pulse on / off. Huge amount of info delt with when in this code
Interactivity:
New ways of streaming info, compressed. So can go through the air, for satellite. Through ‘isdn’ cable, broadband. Telephone cables and cable cable system. The way its compressed means more width is given. Before only able to send one pulse down one wire. Now multiple strands of info can be sent via one feed.
Can interact with it, feed that goes both ways.
Hypertextuality:
Organisation in text. No longer linear (ABC). Can access it anyway you like (jump from A to C). Able to jump from one text to another.
Dispersal:
Sharing size of market. Produces target users.
Vertuality:
Iconography, how it’s read. Real representation.
Convergence:
New technologies are converging. For example, the mobile phone can access the web, and the mp3 players can store and view photos. The size to data comparison is improving. Things are getting smaller but holding more data.
Other areas:
Audience:
How do audience use it? Why do they use it? Who use it?
Regulation and control:
Who owns the product? How is it controlled, and used.
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