This video has been created to show how the British public views piracy and whether they feel any responsibility for the ever growing file-sharing networks. Also it's gives a view of how many people on average are using file-sharing through qualitative research.


The five questions asked in the interviews were:

• How do you access your music
• Do you use any file-sharing sites? If yes which ones?
• Can you give an estimate of how much you think the British music industry loses to file-sharing sites each year?
• Do you think that file-sharing sites are wrong?
• Do you feel any responsibility for using file-sharing sites?

The first thing that becomes apparent when watching the video is the fact that all of the eight participants had used at least one file-sharing network. Showing how popular peer to peer websites have become. However this was only discovered when the members were asked the question do you use file-sharing sites; if yes which ones? Instead of when they were asked the initial question how do you access your music? This suggests that the participants know that use of file-sharing sites is illegal, due to their reluctance to admit to the camera that they used them. This hypothesis was then backed up by the answers to the question how much do you think the British music industry loses to file-sharing sites each year? When all of the participants bar one answered in millions. So why do so many people use the sites? Even when they know it’s proscribed to do so. As was revealed when the questionnaires were collected the participants claimed that ‘I would much rather buy the CD’s to support the artist... but I can’t afford to do that.’ ‘In many cases you can’t access the music unless you’re willing to spend thirty pounds on a CD for just one song.’ So it seems that as long as music costs as much as it does to obtain, people are always going to defer to file-sharing sites. In the credit crunching climate the British public are constantly looking for ways to consume more for less and file-sharing lets them do this. Spotify, which was mentioned by two of the participants is a legal peer to peer site. The site does not allow users to download music to their PC’s instead it simply allows people to listen to the music online without any buffering delays. All of the music has been certified by the record companies and is paid for by the adverts that are played between songs. With over one million registered online users Spotify is fast becoming a popular site to access music online for free. These are some quotes from an article on Spotify;
‘Since launching, the company has tied-up advertisers including the COI, Xbox, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Philips, HMV, Sainsbury's, Nissan, Sony Pictures, Paramount and Universal.’
‘Spotify's services include a free to the consumer ad-funded model, as well as premium monthly and "daily pass" ad-free subscription models, with users having on-demand access to stream millions of tracks.’
So it bears the question if so many people are eager to use legal sites without cost is providing them with the service better than simply expecting them to abide by the law?

File sharing is all possible because of software programs such as BitTorrent Napster and eDonkey, which permit users to download large files quickly. ‘BitTorrent maximizes transfer speed by gathering pieces of the file you want and downloading these pieces simultaneously from people who already have them.’ This means that songs, TV programs and even films can be downloaded in a matter of minutes. With the advent of easily accessible, free home downloads being imprinted into the minds of the British and global population, piracy statistics have grown dramatically over the past few years. In 2001 record companies forced Napster into Bankruptcy after they claimed that users were sharing passwords and accounts to get as many songs as possible from the base payment of £9.95 a month; however the lawsuit was strongly disputed by critics saying that instead of stopping piracy the companies were simply deferring users to other file-sharing sites.
But what impact does this have on the music industry?
Between 1999 and 2003 UK singles sales witnessed a drop of 54%. The music industry claims that much of the decrease is due to piracy and the increase in users of file-sharing sites. According to Big Champagne, Limewire, a site which allows users to easily access pirated music on demand, is shown to have been downloaded on to 20% of all windows desktop PC’s. With British record labels claiming a loss of 650 million pounds due to piracy in the last two years, the claim that file-sharing is having a dramatic effect on the music industries gross profits is becoming harder to discount. TNS claim that due to piracy in the UK, instead of the £1.5 billion turnover the music industry was expected to make between 2002 and 2004, only £858 million was made.
So what’s being done to stop piracy?
According to the telegraph, Lord Mandleson is pushing for tougher punishments for illegal downloader’s. ‘Millions of parents whose teenage children illegally download films and pop songs face having their internet connection cut off and fines of up to £50,000.’
In April 2003 Madonna’s record company posted fake tracks of her then latest album American Life all over file-sharing sites to directly approach users, however the distribution backfired when someone hacked into Madonna’s web page and uploaded the original tracks to her site and made them available for anyone to download.
One problem record company’s face in the fight against piracy, is the fact that they have no legal legislation to acquire any personal details of file-sharing site users. This means that it is nearly impossible to prosecute users without government help, and without any threats of punishment being used as a deterrent, people are not afraid of the consequences that come from using file-sharing sites.
So why not just stop people from accessing file-sharing software?
File-sharing software is not just used by illegal downloader’s. With BitTorrent having over 160 million users worldwide and Napster over 70 million it would be both impossible and implausible to abolish such a popular form of computer software due to the amount of both commercial and private users, the consensus that faster download speeds can improve internet business rates, and the fact that the vast majority of the British public enjoy being able to access music quickly.

Artist name- Ruth Bewsey
Song name- Sail Away With Me
Myspace page- http://www.myspace.com/ruthbewsey
This is a live performance of Sail Away With Me performed by Ruth;


This is the email confirming that Ruth Bewsey is happy for her song 'Sail away with me' to be used by us in our A2 media studies course. The email was sent to Amy via her myspace account. Ruth also sent the mp3 file through Amy's hotmail account.

These questionnaires were created to collect sample data on how the British public access their music and provide an overview of public opinion towards file sharing and also to give some insight in to whether file sharing can be linked to a particular age group or gender.
Below is an example of one of the sample questionnaires:

This pie chart shows the ratio of people who use file-sharing sites. Although the category quantities only differentiate marginally, with just 20% separating the groups due to the quantity of information another set of quantitative research would need to be carried out on a larger scale to support the hypothesis that file-sharing is more common than not. However based on this data alone the majority of participants admitted to using file-sharing sites which shows that piracy is becoming a more easily accessible and acceptable part of modern culture. This is backed up by the fact that when those who answered yes to using F-S sites were asked do you feel any responsibility for the affect file sharing is having on the music industry only one answered yes this pie chart shows the complete results. When asked why they felt this way the majority of participants exclaimed that record companies and musicians gained too much profit from their music, these are some participant quotes ‘file-sharing stops the record companies from monopolising music.’ ‘People, who make too much money, make a little less.’ One participant even stated that if the companies were so bothered by file-sharing they would enforce legislation laws more and work to make piracy impossible instead of having lenient punishments.
This graph shows the most commonly listed file-sharing sites the questionnaire participants use.

One of the sites listed by the participants has recently been a feature of news after the owners were taken to court for allowing illegal downloads.

Pirate Bay was set up in 2003 by an anti copyright organisation pirate Bryan and has for the last five years been run by individuals. Although the site itself does not contain the copyrighted material it provides the user with links through which they can access it. Pirate Bay has an estimated 22 million users and dramatically contributes to the $18 billion that the film industry claims it loses to piracy every year. Pirate Bay has recently been sold to a Swedish company who say they are going to start charging people copyright costs for their music, after the previous owners were taken to court and given a year’s imprisonment and a million dollar fine for piracy.

Some questionnaires were devised to facilitate the collection of base data on popular music videos, and outline some of the key aspects of what makes a charismatic, enthralling and enjoyable music video. The data will provide a foundation for the 'Sail Away With Me' music video planning.

The answers received were unstructured which meant that most of the data was unable to be added to a comparative chart or graph.

Below is a sample questionnaire. Both males and females of varied ages were asked to fill out the questionnaire;

When asked whether they preferred watching a music video or just listening to the song, the majority of people said they would rather just listen to the song. The two main reasons for this were; being able to multitask, and that watching a video makes it harder to connect with the music as it adds an image to the lyrics, making the watcher unable to imagine their own storyline. This suggests that a video cannot be too visually specific as an audience will create their own imagery when listening to a song, and may find the video conflicts with their personal views. It also shows that music is a catalyst for imagination, confirming the idea that songs need to be able to stand on their own without the help of a video if they want to do well in the charts.

When asked the question what attracts you to watching a music video? Many of the participants were unsure of what to write. It became apparent that the majority of music videos viewed by the public were shown on the music channels, and that many people didn't choose to watch videos unless they were easily accessible. One stated that she used the music channels as a stop gap between advertisement breaks, whilst another said that the only reason he watched music videos was because they were shown with the song on YouTube, and he accessed his music this way as it was free. This shows that though people enjoy watching music videos, most of the time they don't specifically seek out a video to watch. This contradicts the fact that this year universal are predicted to make $100 million from leasing videos to YouTube and its partnering companies including MTV and my space, and also that YouTube to date has had over 30 billion views. This shows that in spite of the participants answers a larger and more specific quantity of data would need to be collected before any stable conclusions about the attraction of music videos can be made.

Bibliography- http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10126439-93.html