Global recorded music sales fall almost $1.5bn amid increased piracy

Think that illegal downloading is a victimless crime? Think again! UK loses mantle as third-largest music market after 'physical' sales of CDs collapse by almost a fifth


Global recorded music sales fell by almost $1.5bn (£930m) last year as digital piracy continued to take its toll on the industry, with the UK losing its mantle as the third-largest music market after "physical" sales of CDs collapsed by almost a fifth.
Global recorded music revenues fell 8.4% last year, about $1.45bn, to $15.9bn according to the annual Recording Industry in Numbers report by international music industry body the IFPI.

Overall physical sales, the term used in the industry for sales of products such as CDs, fell by 14.2% year on year to $10.4bn.

Digital revenues grew by 5.3% year on year to $4.6bn to account for 29% of all recorded music revenues. However, the rate of digital revenue growth has halved year on year as the industry continues to struggle with piracy and winning consumers over to legal download models.

The world's two largest markets, the US and Japan, took a hammering last year accounting for 57% of the total global decline in trade revenues. In 2009 the two countries accounted for 80% of the global decline.

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The 4G auction - a beginner's guide

Remember the sale of the century, or was it the sale of the millennium? Probably not as you'd have been about 8 years old...

Back in 2000 the 3G auction raised £22.5 billion for the Treasury and set the framework for mobile phone services in Britain for the next decade.


Today Ofcom has fired the starting gun for an even bigger sale of mobile spectrum which it believes could prove even more significant. But the mobile operators are hoping that it will turn out rather cheaper for them than the 3G sale.

The regulator is calling this the 4G auction, and despite the cries of purists who insist that is just a marketing term to cover an ill-defined collection of new mobile technologies, that is the name that will stick. So to find out the answer to a few questions about 4G, click on the title...

Is the age of the critic over?

Guardian critics reflect on how social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and myDigg, fit into the perennial debate on cultural elitism....

Miranda Sawyer, broadcaster and Observer radio critic: 'Twitter has made it easier for critics to hear other people's opinions. Even then, though, you tend to hear similar views to your own'

Jessa Crispin, editor-in-chief of Bookslut: 'The tussle, the argument, the fun of criticism is now online'
 
Philip French, Observer film critic: 'It could be that bad criticism might drive out serious writing'

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Postmodern Media - New BBC Series on the Virtual Revolution - go to the Homesite here

Postmodern Media - Second Life

Digital Humanities address changing nature of knowledge in seminar featured on Second Life - Jan 2009

After much economic gloom and confusion in 2008, the new year is a good time to reflect on an increasingly vital issue for universities: The future of knowledge in the digital age.

Under an initiative sponsored by a $2.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation two years ago, faculty, postdoctoral fellows and guest scholars from more than 10 departments are exploring new research methodologies and disciplinary paradigms in the humanities. On Jan. 5, they met for the latest in a series of “Media, Technology, and Culture” seminars that offers vital insights from experts in the evermore collaborative fields of media studies, game theory and literary and cultural studies.

In a relatively new twist to Internet-enabled distance learning, the “Humanities Tools in Digital Contexts” seminar was also featured on Second Life (SL), the San Francisco-based 3-D metaverse that some call the campus of the future. Numerous universities, colleges and schools offer courses or educational programs in the digital realm, where they own virtual “islands.” Their representatives communicate with people in “real life” through cartoonlike virtual characters known as their “avatars,” or online alter-egos.

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http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/digital-humanities-address-changing-77394.aspx

AS/A2 Productions - Presentation on Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing Keynote

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Thanks to Rik Hudson for this.

Teaser Trailer Examples from Other Schools