The London School of Economics has released a new study on the impact of digital music sharing, with three main conclusions:
1) Creative industry revenues are NOT on an overall decline due to the industry’s lack of adaptability.
2) An “Inclusive Collaborative Digital Culture” has emerged and is here to stay.
3) Implementing punitive measures against individual copyright infringers does not produce the significant impact that the industry claims it does.
The study took a closer look at the Digital Economy Act (DEA) of 2010 and specifically its measures for copyright enforcement. It also took a closer looker at how a more fluid digital culture is affecting media industries.
And one of the biggest findings was that newer formats and models are regenerating businesses, instead of degenerating them: “The data on changing sources of revenue show that new business models such as streaming and subscriptions are growth areas.
“They are bringing in increased income for the industry.”
This accounts for not only the music industry but also the publishing, film and gaming industries, as well. And if gaming can adapt, why can’t music?
“The gaming industry has been generating new income streams very successfully by developing combinations of free advertising models, in-apps buying and micro-pricing.”
The digital age has also brought with it a collaborative culture – and studies have repeatedly shown that neither financial compensation nor exclusive ownership of intellectual works are the primary motivators for crowd-sourced and crowd-funded creative projects, for example.
Instead, as can be seen in the case of the rise of Creative Commons (CC) licenses (growing from 50 million in 2006 to over 450 million in 2011, “the digital world is thriving on ubiquitous digital content sharing.”
Perhaps most importantly, the report directly challenges DEA attempts to block infringing sites, while penalizing individuals identified as copyright infringers. LSE argues that there is absolutely no evidence that the 23 percent to 25 percent increase in iTunes sales after the French HADOPI’s implementation was a direct result of the HADOPI law.
Citing the Judicial Review of the DEA in 2011, the the LSE quotes the judge’s decision:
“I accept that the chilling effect is now a well-documented phenomenon, and I acknowledge that the concerns of the interveners are genuine and that there is in the present context a risk of some chilling effect. The difficulty again is to assess, at this stage, the likely magnitude of such an effect.”
In summary, LSE’s brief on “Copyright and Creation” suggests that although “the music industry may be stagnating…
“the drastic decline in revenues warned of by the lobby associations of record labels is not in evidence” and that “targeting individual internet users is not likely to reverse the trend toward an online sharing culture…”
Read the full brief here:
What the hell is “Inlusive Collaborative Digital Culture” (sic) anyway?
I wasn’t really concerned about the typo. My concern is that this concept
“The digital age has also brought with it a collaborative culture, in which studies have shown that neither financial compensation nor exclusive ownership of intellectual works are the primary motivators for crowd-sourced and crowd-funded creative projects, for example.”
keeps coming up in arguments over the negative and positive effects of digital technology on creativity and copyright.
I do not like the suggestion that since their exists a certain “community” that likes to cut paste together other peoples work to create “new” works without concern for ownership or compensation then all creators should be less concerned about ownership and compensation.
Also, where are and conducted these studies suggesting this concept? EFF possibly.
anyway, I would like to call bullshit on this argument and on anyone else that trots it out to attack copyright or redifine “creativity.” Just because there may be some people who like to give (and take) for free does not mean that the artists who like to get paid are wrong
a mobile phone photo, shot by chance & uploaded, who someone else ‘remixes’ as a joke (adding text or pasting another image in to it) with about two minutes of effort.
somehow the above few minutes of ‘effort’ is seen by the lawyers as on the same level as a year(s)-long process of an indivivdual writing, arranging, producing an album, then having that album pirated by thousands of people — ‘ownership’ issues are the same, and used to say copyright can only stifle the net.
i wonder if the lawyers in the article would allow legal contracts they’ve written to be posted on the net for all to use for free.
If the headline is true then the authors fear that punitive measures against infringers are actually effective.
Oops, Media Lecturers at London School of Economics Misquote Professor Danaher:
“The LSE “study” cites Danaher et al for this proposition (text accompanying note 22):
The evidence was that the increased sales observed were more strongly related to the education component of HADOPI than to the enforcement component of the implementation measures.
Here is the actual conclusion from the econometric study:
[O]ur results suggest that the HADOPI law (and the education and media attention surrounding it) increased iTunes single sales by 90,000 units per week on average. If we assume an average song price of €1 per song, this equates to anincrease of €4.7 million ($6.3 million) in annual iTunes track revenues [text following note 22].”
http://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/media-lecturers-at-london-school-of-economics-misquote-professor-danaher/
Ouch! 🙂
I met people from LSE and there were some nice people, but it is also the culture of cheating and it is about getting what you want by all means.
The students who made the study are probably heavy downloaders of mp3 and movies.
F** the b*astard
“The forest is fine because we have these new plastic trees.”
And the bit about gaming – in perspective that’s a much newer industry than music itself, so yeah, it’s coming up with new action.
If this “study” demonstrates anything to me it is that Ivory Tower Culture continues to move further out of touch of reality on the ground.
Music was the original collaborative entity, in the form of mixtapes and mash-ups. Other digital media indeed have become more proactive about — and better at — intertwining creative content and commercial initiatives: see a product in a video game or show and be able to purchase it through the medium you’ve seen it on. That might be a bit harder for music simply because of the nature of that particular medium — we listen differently than we see. On the other hand, sell-through of music itself via streaming offers some possibilities. And there’s always subliminal advertising.
Not sure why you need the internet or to steal shit to be collaborative. The Traveling Wilbury’s collaborated before any of that shit.
Postal Service collaborated by mailing ORIGINAL ideas back and forth snail mail style.
London School of Economics Gaddafi links
LSE criticised for links with Gaddafi regime in Libya
I attended the LSE…I’ve seen this sort of rubbish time and time again…exactly the kind of blind nonsense you get from people who are insulated from reality behind the physical walls of Houghton St., and the metaphorical walls of academic culture…I wonder if anyone of them can write a song.
1) Creative industry revenues are NOT on an overall decline due to the industry’s lack of adaptability.
True. BUT the revenues are going almost exclusively to those who are willing to steal from those who envision, develop and create the content. It’s that simple…what do you ‘thinkers’ miss in this conversation? Why are you so willing to support the bloviating pirates?
2) An “Inclusive Collaborative Digital Culture” has emerged and is here to stay.
The ‘culture’ of which you speak will become a bleak-minded bowl of flummery if you insist on treating content creation as a freebie…if you don’t feed the souls, minds and stomachs of those who supply the quality ‘oxygen’ to the system, the quality of the system will choke, and the system itself crumble. If its ‘collaborative,’ then include the creators!!! We are a huge part of reason you have this ‘culture’ to study and/or exploit!
3) Implementing punitive measures against individual copyright infringers does not produce the significant impact that the industry claims it does.
True. We have to find another way…BUT does that mean you wish to legalize a system that is in every way shape and form totally unfair, and to legitimize the corporate ploy to construct a worldwide ‘cultural’ system and mindset of steal-steal-steal from those who work-work-work, and give-give-give to those who do the stealing? The end user gets to enjoy the content for free…the corporations make huge profits…the creators get nothing…you have got to be kidding me…what happened to the old LSE tradition of looking out for the people…questioning and fighting political and corporate injustice?!?!
The LSE should be ashamed of all of you, and you of yourselves.
__________________
Challenge: Compel this LSE ‘team’ to collaborate on a song. Give them as long as it took to ‘create’ this study. During this period of creation, send any income they normally enjoy, excepting public appearance fees or things like Team-LSE tee-shirt sales, to a government and/or corporation. Production costs are all on the team…or any entity they can motivate to sponsor them. If the end result is anything like their position in this conversation/argument, its going to be a well-hated piece of garbage. If it’s great and makes its way in to the ‘collaborative digital culture,’ (ie. makes a content providing corporation and/or the team’s sponsors tons of money and the team absolutely nothing) then viola…perhaps they will feel-the-pain!
better challenge: have them argue to their corporate customers that patents and intellectual property should not exist. I want to open my own Coke plant, I should be able to copy their formula exactly. Or I should be able to use that Nike logo on my exact copy of Air Jordans….
Wow! …and then Universal will hire those MBAs and we will continue cash free drift.
Shazam and other ID services converted to Discovery Moment Monetization will save the industry and themselves.
We can kill most of piracy and double the business in less then three years.
What one finds in life is that the longer you live, the more “studies” you see, the more incorrect they always tend to be. Whether cholestoral from eggs, milk etc… to how much money the music business could be making, whatever “key findings” they have, the opposite tends to be true ultimately.
I expect no different here.
“Music was the original collaborative entity, in the form of mixtapes and mash-ups.”
Yes JS Bach’s mixtapes are legendary…
yeah, kills collaboration.
1) collaboration means an agreement between parties, no?
2) right…. that must be why there’s such a decline in music being made ever since copyright was invented.
Everyone in agreement on DMN. Amazing.