Our ability as a society to transmit vast amounts of information has grown exponentially over the last decade. Volumes of encyclopedia, books, magazines, newspapers—let alone music—have become almost instantly downloadable and retrievable, further feeding the frenzy of electronic consumption. While to downloaders and users it may seem that there is little or no real […]
In the early days of the dot.com boom, internet commerce presented opportunities for information providers (websites) to sell inexpensive digital goods to web-users and have the benefit of reaching a far larger consumer base than just a local market. But with the growing free-rider ethos of the World Wide Web and the increasingly burdensome […]
Popular Russian online music store Allofmp3.com announced its plans to reopen following a ruling by a Moscow district court acquitting its former head of copyright violation. After persistent pressure and attempts by an angry U.S. recording industry to smother the site, the plug was finally pulled on the site earlier this year by the […]
Warner Music Group’s (WMG) third-quarter loss widened this year, to US$17 million. Warner is one of several major players in the global music industry being hit hard by the seismic repercussions the internet has held for the music business. Indeed, virtually every industry that distributes their product through traditional media has seen market changes like […]
The events of early October, 2007 may herald a new age of respect for intellectual property (IP) rights. The first trial on peer to peer music file sharing pits the major record companies against a woman accused of copyright infringement, an act for which the U.S. Federal Court awarded a $220,000 judgment against her. The […]
Warner Music Group’s recent announcement about wider losses in the third quarter, due to an increasing trend of consumers switching to digital downloads, highlights the changing nature of the music industry. Even as Warner posted higher overall losses due largely to the decline in CD sales, its digital revenues were up 29% from the […]
On August 27, 2007, the International Herald Tribune published an article by Dan Mitchell titled “Micropayments arrive on the Web.” This piece examined the evolution and reemergence of the use of small user fees, known as micropayments, in exchange for content on the internet. After reading Mitchell’s article, the main question that comes to mind […]
AllofMP3, a music-download site, announced that it will reopen after a Russian court acquitted the site’s former owner of violating IP law. The site was originally forced to close following pressure from the US administration over Russia’s poor protection of IP rights. This case immediately reminds me of the controversial Napster site which was forced […]