To what extent is file sharing affecting the music industry?
What are the reasons for choosing this topic?

• To investigate how changes in technological distribution affect industry gross profits.
• To discuss how piracy and torrent technology can be both productive and destructive.
• Compose an evaluation of the overall affect of file-sharing on the music industry
• To look at how I will distribute and protect my own music video
• To investigate public opinion towards file-sharing

What do you expect to find out?

• How file-sharing works
• What impact it has on the music industry
• What is being done to stop file-sharing
• Who does file-sharing affect more the record companies or the artists
  

How will it help develop understanding for the year 13 coursework

• It will give me an understanding of how music is being distributed
• How this would affect the distribution of my own music video
  

How will you express your findings?

• An essay on my blog this will compound the qualitative and quantitative research collected from the Internet on how technology works, its affect on the music industry, and statistics on profit and loss
• A interview video
  This will consist of a selection of 14-20 year olds being filmed whilst answering questions based of their views on file-sharing and how they think it affects them.
• Questionnaires
  Like the interviews the questionnaires will be based around how audiences access music and what forms of technology they use to listen to and watch music and how they view file-sharing.
  

What research will you carry out?

• Internet research- quantitative and qualitative
• Questionnaires- on how audiences access music
• Interviews- how audiences react to file-sharing

This is an example of one of the questionnaires that I will be giving out in order to collect some research on audience views of file-sharing.

Questionnaire- to what extent is file-sharing affecting the music industry?

Age sex

Do you use file-sharing sites?

Yes No

If yes which ones and how often?


How do you access your music? (Internet, shops, Cd’s ect)


What genre of music do you listen to?


How often do you listen to music?


How do you feel file-sharing is impacting the music industry?


Do you feel any responsibility for this and why?

What research did you do?
There were three main sections of primary research carried out in order to obtain the information needed to discuss the question, what affect does file-sharing have on the music industry. These were;
Interviews- Sixth form members between the ages of 16-18 which will be the 'Sail Away with Me's' target audience group were asked to feature in a video on the 17th of September in the morning. They were asked questions about their views towards file-sharing and whether they felt any responsibility for the loss that the music industry faces each year due to piracy. They were also asked whether they knew the full effects that piracy is having on the music industry. This research was useful as it gave insight in to why file-sharing is so popular, and showed the volume of young people that actually use file-sharing sights. It also gave quantitative data, as to how a sample group views piracy which helps to show why so many teenagers don’t feel any responsibility for the loss in industry profits. As the interviews were captured in the morning, most of the subjects were alert and capable of providing in-depth views and information. This result would have been reversed if the interviews had taken place in the evening as people, would have been less energetic and ready to participate and respond.
Questionnaires- The questionnaires were also given to an age group of 16 to 25 as this group has been shown statistically to be the biggest users of peer to peer sites. The questionnaires were given out both in the sixth form common room and at a place of work on the 12th and 15th of July. This may have caused the unreliability of the results as many of the people asked were busy socialising especially as it was nearing summer break, or working and therefore neglected the questions and put disjointed answers. Also because the questions had a wide margin of compatible answers it was hard to draw similarities form one person to the next. This meant that it was difficult to form conclusions from some of the questions such as, where do you access your music?
Internet research- This research was carried out in order to obtained a collection of factual statistics and digress into the repercussions that file-sharing is having on the music industry. It allowed a wider and more detailed selection of findings to be recorded, by collecting information on how much money was being lost to these sites and listing what record companies have been doing to stop peer to peer file-sharing. The research was carried out at home on the 22nd of August. The data was very useful in highlighting the severity of file-sharing sites, as it showed how they were an ever growing global problem it also provided the statistics of how much money was being lost to these sites and what can be done if you are caught using them, which can be used as a significant deterrent in tackling piracy crime.
The three different sections of research provided the needed data in order to discuss the affect that file-sharing has on the music industry and show my audience how peer to peer can be extremely destructive.

Implications for the music industry
The music industry’s constant need to make money is its downfall. Consumers will always be on the lookout for the best deal the cheapest most efficient way to obtain more for less. File-sharing sites let them do this. As long as people view music as being ‘expensive’ and don’t see any reason not to use peer to peer sites the networks will increase and eventually if they are left to amplify the effect on the music industry will be disastrous. Without the threat of punishment consumers will continue to consume. The first thing witch needs to be done is targeting public opinion, trying to persuade file-sharing site users that piracy is defective. Adverts such as ‘Nock of Nigel’ and ‘You wouldn’t steal a…’ have started to bring the illegitimacy of peer to peer sites to the British publics notice, however in order to convince or guilt trip consumers into bypassing these sites more controversial statistics need to be provided.

Implications for my own music video (300 words)
As long as file-sharing sites exist the song that I am using will always be subject to piracy. However most peer to peer site users only download the Mp3 file so my video won’t be will be at a smaller risk of being illegally downloaded. On the other hand software such as lime wire enables people to download videos as well as music. Firstly one of the techniques I will use to protect my video will be to disable all of the embedding codes for the official video on YouTube. This will mean that viewers will not be able to take the video and use it on other sites. Also targeting public opinion may help to persuade people not to download the song for free. If the artist was to stand up and ask outright for their fans to bypass these sites the public may be more enthused to listen than if it were a record company cooperate employee making the announcement. As many fans have respect for their favoured artists. Many of the people asked claimed that they would buy music if it was more accessible and cheaper, by creating an artists web page which features a streaming of the song and video, and also providing a direct download link for the song, at a cheaper price than it would be available on say iTunes, consumers may believe that they are getting a better deal by downloading the song directly.

Bibliography- http://computer.howstuffworks.com/bittorrent.htm http://www.ifpi.org/content/section_news/20041007e.html http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9159/one_third_of_all_pc_users_have_limewire_installed/ http://www.newsfox.com/pte.mc?pte=050420033 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6038870/Millions-at-risk-of-prosecution-in-internet-piracy-purge.html http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article3273960.ece http://www.out-law.com/page-335 http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/is_spotify_illegal