Don't go to the cinema if you have a beard

Unless you're cool about getting your bag searched.

The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) report that: "Worldwide, illegal recordings from cinemas remain the single biggest source of both counterfeit DVDs and unauthorised copies online".

It's no wonder security has stepped up in cinemas then, as invasive (to the point of taking away from the experience) as it is. Can't blame them.

One would have expected the reduced quality of cam-videos as off-putting.  Seemingly not.

What this also means is that Film Critic Mark Kermode is wrong. That's right friends, the apocalypse is officially now here!

Serious-face for serious business

Tweets @musicpiracyblog

Piracy research from the UK government (with links)

Jackpot.

Stats for this blog reveal that over 2/3rds of the readership are from the USA where there is no shortage of industry research coming from the likes of the RIAA (or funded by them).

So, time to dip your toes into some government research from the UK.

Click here for a whole bunch of reports from the UK's Intellectual Property Office on topics concerning copyright, intellectual property etc.

This lot will keep you busy for a long, long time.

Broadly speaking, empirical research can be categorised as follows:

Academic
Industry
Government

There are overlaps of course, particularly concerning who is funding the research where for example, Academic research may be funded by Industry or Government. These examples often blur the lines of all three. Worth mentioning.

If you like what you see, the most relevant (and recent) example worthy of your time is a report by Professor Ian Hargreaves from 2011, comissioned by UK Prime Minister David Cameron to investigate if there is a need for copyright reform in the UK (SPOILER: Yes). Warning: By clicking the link above, a PDF should open in a new window.

Interestingly, alot of attention is paid to good evidence-based research.

Tweets @musicpiracyblog

References

Hargreaves, I. (2011). Digital Opportunity: A Review of Intellectual Property and Growth. London: HM Treasury.

Happy Anniversary!

This blog post marks the 1 year anniversary of musicpiracyresearchblog.

Time to take stock of some milestones.

1. The Blog itself

The readership of this blog has gone from strength to strength, particularly becoming more international. The majority of readers are from the United States. Additionally, the number of readers subscribing to posts via email has raised dramatically in 2013. This is great news.

The Twitter feed, is not so popular. But that's okay. It felt like the right thing to do at the time, but the blog aims more to pose questions and allow resources to answer such questions. This takes time. A nice monthly post with good links will accomplish this goal much more effectively than daily tweets to random websites reporting on new laws etc. Not quite a social media disaster.

2. The Blog content

Over the last 12 months we have explored topics as diverse as: music offsetting legal sales; spotlights on predictive factors such as age and gender; deterrents; links to live music and how an artists stage in the game largely determines how best to distribute their music.

Along the way, dozens of working links to different resources along with advice on ways to better access such content has also been included.

Additionally, whilst meaty posts have been shifted from fortnightly to monthly, more posts on related matters have meant there are more posts than in last year.

3. The wider world

If you follow the twitter feed (@musicpiracyblog) you will be clued up on some of the international changes over the last year. This includes new legislation, new digital music stores, shifting consumer preferences and the rise of 'offline' piracy. If you are interested in keeping up to date on this sort of thing, hit the twitter feed @musicpiracyblog. The emphasis of this blog remains research on music piracy.

4. Overview

More monthly posts (and mini-posts) scheduled on increasingly more novel areas, with some guest posts due to appear over the coming year.

For now, thanks for your interest and please do forward info on this blog to your friends and colleagues.

Thanks