Napster

Shawn Fanning a former college student founded Napster at the age of 19. Napster was one of the first file sharing services that had a large impact on P2P sharing of music, pictures, videos and other files and paved the way for other programs of a similar nature such as; Kazaa, Limewire, imesh and BearShare. The popularity of Napster and its huge influence over the music industry and the repercussions from this have made it a legendary icon. More than 80 million people had accessed songs from Napster's huge library of music in 2000, causing panic in the record industry suffering huge sales losses and eventually leading to the closing down of Napster in July 2001.

Examples of the turmoil that Napster created for the music industry and artists are seen below:
Heavy metal band Metallica discovered that a demo of their song ‘I Disappear’ had been circulating across the Napster network, even before it was released. This eventually led to the song being played on several radio stations across America and brought to Metallica’s attention that their entire back catalogue of studio material was also available. The band responded in 2000 by filing a lawsuit against the service offered by Napster. A month later, rapper Dr. Dre shared a litigator and legal firm with Metallica, and filed a similar lawsuit after Napster wouldn't remove his works from their service, even after he issued a written request. Separately, both Metallica and Dr. Dre later delivered thousands of usernames to Napster who they believed were pirating their songs.

Napster has since been reopened as a legal download site much like i-tunes.

Statistics

Here are a number of important statistics relating to music and the internet:

• 67% of the UK online population has tried some sort of digital activity
• Over half have downloaded music and 8% have downloaded a podcast.
• 54% of the online population downloads music (32.6m).
• 43% of the online population owns an iPod or MP3 player (26m).
• Of those who have downloaded a podcast most, 61 %, listen to them at home.
• 38% listen on their PCs and 46% on their iPods/MP3 players.
• Paid for podcasting is unpopular, 71% said they would not pay to download; however the remaining 29% said they would pay up to a £1.
• This is well on its way to reaching the mass market with 54% of the online population downloading music.
• Barriers preventing the remaining 46% from downloading are lack of knowledge, knowing which sites to use and not owning an MP3 player.
• The top two sites for downloading music are iTunes and Limewire, and half of music downloaders do not pay for any music that they download.
• However, 46% of music downloaders say that they spend the same amount on non-digital formats than they did before they started downloading, and 21% say that they actually spend more.
• 43% of music downloaders say that free downloads have encouraged them to buy more music than they did; only 35% believe that illegal downloading or file sharing is wrong.

Feedback on research #1

Pete, you have made a start, however now you need to find significantly more articles on the music industry.

What is happening at the moment with EMI and DRM? How has the internet changed the way that we consume music? Interact with bands? Some examples? Promote music? Why are ipods so successful?

Use the handbook to guide your research.

The I-Phone

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

This is an article about the newest venture for the apple i-pod company, they are branching into the mobile phone market with their new I-Phone:

"iPhone combines three amazing products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet communications device with desktop-class email, web browsing, maps, and searching — into one small and lightweight handheld device. iPhone also introduces an entirely new user interface based on a large multi-touch display and pioneering new software, letting you control everything with just your fingers. So it ushers in an era of software power and sophistication never before seen in a mobile device, completely redefining what you can do on a mobile phone."

This product is a perfect example of convergence in that they are combining three products in one.

Popworld Revamps website

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,2030597,00.html

This is an article from the Guardian media site about the Channel 4 show Popworld's website. They are updating it to allow users to create their own blogs on the website so they can comment freely on the artists on the show. They hope to double their audience in the next three months by inviting users to set up their own profiles with blogs, polls and music profiles.

Music/Internet article: 'The Doors lead way as big names of rock go digital'

New article from The Guardian Media online:

http://http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,2043013,00.html

Discusses the decision made by the remaining members of The Doors and Elton John to release their entire back catalogues on to the internet to be available to download.

We're all reporters in the digital democracy

An article by Emily Bell for The Guardian:

• The audience is no longer a passive receptor for the media, they are making themselves heard more and more as we head towards the 'democratisation of media'.
• Major, sudden events are now reported in a very different way, as we saw from the tsunami and the London bombings, it is now second nature for citizens to record any news they are caught up in on increasingly handy digital equipment.
• National pepers are now becoming more like village locals as citizen journalism expands.
• But does this give added risk to the companies and their brands?
• Is this exploitation of free material?- i don't think so, the nature of participation is totally out of choice and it is not about money (yet) for these "citizen journalists"
• Finally- Although professional journalists are paid for presenting content in the most effective way and to make judgements on how to represent the stories, do they provide a better quality of news than citizen journalists who are 'casually' contributing?

Bloggers and Journalism

Writers who work for nothing: it's a liscence to print money

An article by John Naughton for The Observer:

• Discusses the media that has become known as user-generated content e.g. images taken from mobile phones.
• The London bombings of 7 July 2005 marked the first time we had seen this type of content have an impact on the british news media, they were not able to get the image sources thay needed for such a large and widespread event, so looked to the public for footage- it flooded in.
• The world's total digital content last year amounted to a massive 161 billion gigabytes!
• The researchers predicted that by 2010 more than 70% of all digital content in the world will have been created by consumers.
• Optimists see this a way for millions of people to express themselves and their creativity on the ineternet freely.
• Media moguls are becoming wise to this new consumer creativity, they are realising that this type of content could help their business as people are willing to give it for free as long as you give them space to publish.
• Therefore the distribution of production is now being put into the hands of millions but the economic rewards to a few, however it is not about money for the public, simply about self-expression and socialising.

NMT- 5 areas of study

1. Technology

What the technology allows the audiences and institutions to do that they couldn’t do before.

Convergence- multiple technologies being brought together to form a new product, e.g. I-pods including pictures and videos not just music.
(The new i-phone is a perfect example)
Digitisation- at its most basic form all digital material, whether it is a picture, plain text or a movie, is made up of a long series of 1s and 0s. Material can be reproduced perfectly by a computer (or computerised system) and transported more effectively, across the internet.
Linear/Non-Linear- Linear experiences are those that move in a straight line from start to finish.
Non-Linear is where each individual will have a unique experience of the media depending on when they decide to change it in some way.

2. Institutions

How media institutions are converging media interests to increase profit. Also how businesses are constructing campaigns to launch new products and whether they are reacting to audience demands or having to educate users. Consider issues of privacy, financial losses (e.g. 3G mobile licences).

3. Audience

What are audiences doing with their new media technologies? How are traditional experiences of the media changing? What are audiences not doing so they can spend more time interacting with new media technologies?

Personalisation- a characteristic of many NMT’s is their ability to offer users a personalised experience, e.g. Sky+ allows users to personalise their viewing schedule.
Interactivity- is a two way communication and in the context of NMT’s means content that is reactive to the audience’s choices. Audiences are encouraged to engage with media rather than simply consuming.
Democratisation- the ability to communicate your opinions and ideas, or share your creative output, e.g. blogs.

4. Issues

Will NMT’s lead to:
· Illegal activity
· Increased spending
· Harm children
· Loss of jobs and closing of shops
· “moral panics”

Democratisation- the ability to communicate your opinions and ideas, or share your creative output, e.g. blogs. Digital divide shouldn’t be forgotten-not everyone has the internet.

5. The Future

If the technology is extended what could happen? How could media practices be different in future, based on the potential of current technologies?