According to a new study by a company called NetNames,
internet piracy is still on the rise.
Internet piracy downloads have increased ten percent in the last two
years. Slightly more than twenty-five percent of internet bandwidth use is
pirated content according to the report. This increase comes in the wake of efforts to
curb piracy by targeting websites used to post content. One reason these
webpages are being targeted more heavily recently may be the fact that there
are too many individual users of pirated content to try and enforce copyright
laws against them. By targeting the largest content providers, it may be
possible to reduce piracy at the source. The new report also had some
interesting statistics about the types of piracy that are still growing.
Despite the increase of piracy in general, music piracy has
fallen for the first time in years. At
the end of 2012, music piracy had fallen by thirteen percent. Piracy of movies
and television show had risen from the previous year. The study results suggest
that the music industry has been much more successful at curbing piracy than
Hollywood has been. Evidence of this may be found in the fact that Blockbuster announced
this week that its remaining stores will close. The dip in music piracy could
be the result of all the legal streaming services that are now on the internet,
but an article by MSU pointed out that since movie files are normally much
larger than music files, they account for far more piracy when measured by
bandwidth. This difference in file size could bias the studies’ results. For further
reading and any of the above statistics, see the sources below.
http://news.yahoo.com/blockbuster-exiting-us-retail-market-closing-last-300-173716438.html
I was surprised when I read that music piracy has decreased by thirteen percent in 2012; however, I agree with your observation concerning a possible bias with the file size when compared with movies and television shows. If the decrease is accurate, I would think that the availability of sites that will allow the download of a single song for a small fee in addition to the streaming sites you mentioned could explain this decrease. Buying a single song that is high quality is often easier than finding the same on a file or bit sharing site. Perhaps over time services such as Netflix will provide reduction in movie and t.v. show piracy.
ReplyDeleteI am surprised as well that music piracy has decreased as other forms continue to increase. I believe you are correct that this is partially due to an increase in the popularity of music streaming sites, such as Pandora and iHeartRadio. It seems that more and more people have begun using these sites within the past year or two, so perhaps people aren't attempting to download music files as much as they did in the past. I still think that people might attempt to download songs they are interested in, even if they find them on streaming sites, but there might be fewer people doing so.
ReplyDeleteI think media piracy will decrease a lot more in the coming years because artists realize they cannot make all their money of selling albums anymore and are looking to licensee their works to companies like Pandora and Spotify help deter music piracy as well as companies like Hulu and Netflix that curb movie piracy in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteThere's another statistic most people who advocate anti-piracy won't tell you. People who pirate music will actually purchase and pay for more music on average than non-pirates. (Link: http://bit.ly/172Zjdz)
ReplyDeleteMy theory is that in general, people who do not pirate music and movies tend to stream these things instead of transferring them to something like an MP3 player. People who like having hard copies will carry a lot of music. An iPod Classic holds 40,000 songs. Any rationale person would scoff at the idea of filling that music player with songs at $0.99 or $1.29 a piece. Filling that iPod could cost as much as $51,600.
Some kind of compromise needs to be reached concerning piracy. Either downloads will have to become dirt cheap or labels will just have to be content with getting the sales they are able to.
I have to agree with the gentlemen above me. While I do not condone downloading movies or using sites to watch them for free (although I have used movie sites on the internet, and I do use youtube mp3 converters) I don't see much of a difference between that and looking up series, movies, and music on YouTube and playing those over and over. To me there is not much of a difference, and the artist have already made boocoos amounts of money off of concerts and blockbusters. I think it's a lost cause to try to stop people for downloading pirated stuff.
ReplyDeleteI am not surprised to find that piracy of music has fallen in recent years. Since the fall of Napster in 2001, it has become more and more difficult to download music for free. Other programs were available, such as Limewire, however none of them seemed to be as popular or notable as Napster once was. Also, with the introduction of Itunes, it is easy for people to purchase just the songs they want instead of having to buy the entire album. This lessens the appeal of illegal music because the risk is not worth saving $0.99 for one song.
ReplyDeleteThe increase in TV show and movie piracy does not surprise me either. These are more expensive to purchase, and although there are websites dedicated to streaming movies/tv shows, people will always prefer to own them. There are so many sites that allow people to torrent TV shows and movies that when one gets shut down, there are five others to fill its place. It will be a long time before this kind of activity gets shut down completely.