Now it's even more official. A professor at the University of Idaho has for years studied students and piracy. His findings echo what everybody else says.

According to Woolley, who has been analyzing piracy among university students for several years, students aren’t even ashamed to admit illegally downloading music off the Internet. More than 95 percent of respondents in his research freely admitted to illegally downloading music, and some 63 percent admitted to copying a CD. Students indicate that they expect the trend to continue after they graduate and move into the workplace.

Woolley said that piracy may not be perceived as an "immoral behavior" for students. They may not see it as unethical because they have no first-hand knowledge of prosecutions for piracy, and they may try to rationalize it because of financial situations. "They also view recording labels negatively and think that it does not hurt the recording artist," he said.

"More than that, students may not realize the effect that copyright infringement has on companies," said Woolley. "The cost is dispersed among software companies or the music industry, and the students don’t really see negative repercussions."

Posted by Glenn at 1:42 PM | Link
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Insightful article at The Guardian on game developer Cliff Harris. Bothered by piracy of his game, Harris asked gamers why they take pirated versions of games. The feedback works across all types of media.

Few claimed the moral high ground, but instead focused on the price (too high, even at £10) and the quality of the games themselves. Some argued that buying them over the internet was much harder than stealing them: how might those without a credit card purchase them (since that's needed for PayPal)? And copy protection drove some to distraction - or more precisely, to filesharing networks.

Reacting to the feedback, Harris dropped his prices, removed DRM and is doing his best to make each game bigger and better. The results are not yet known, and his sales are relatively small, but the approach is in contrast to those of some large game companies. But this is obviously not a simple issue since companies with more popular titles have more to lose from piracy and smaller companies' lack of financial resources make them more prone to find alternative solutions.

"Don't get me wrong - I'm still opposed to piracy," Harris added. "I just hope we're not going to nosedive into oblivion like the music industry did." Given changes in technology and formats, I think a nosedive was inevitable for music. The industry's fight against piracy does, however, help determine the angle of that nosedive.

Posted by Glenn at 11:41 AM | Link
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• The media has heartily covered the IFPI's report on digital music. One topic that has been widely picked up is the IFPI's declaration that Internet Service Providers will become a target in the music industry's war on piracy. Chairman John Kennedy said litigation would begin "in weeks rather than months." EMI's head of digital operations, Barney Wragg, said the industry has been left with "with no other option." (Read article at The Independent)

• The Guardian's article on the IFPI report showcased one of the industry's reasons for optimism: mobile phones. Wragg on the potential of mobile music: "We have the opportunity to satisfy the impulse purchase. We are acutely aware that we are competing for every pound, every euro and every dollar in the consumer's pocket." (Read article at The Guardian)

• Universal Music Nashville co-chairman James Stroud has left to form James Stroud Productions, a production venture that will handle Billy Currington's next album and about six others. (Read article at The Tennessean)

• Snocap and ReverbNation.com announced a partnership that will allow ReverbNation.com users to sell downloads through the site's DistroNow module. Snocap will handle the customer transcaction and royalty payments. Here's the part that stood out to me: The technology will be incorporated into ReverbNation.com's TunePak, which is a music player that can be sent via email or posted on web pages. That allows songs to be purchased wherever the music player resides. (Read press release)

• FCC Chairman Kevin Martin showed his hand on a possilble merger between XM and Sirius. The two satellite radio operators must remain in place, he said, and pointed out that there is a prohibition of one companies owning both licenses. Shares of both companies dropped immediately. XM was down almost 10% and Sirius sank 7%. (Read article at BusinessWeek.com)

Posted by Glenn at 8:49 AM | Link
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• Gadget blog Gizmodo talks of a rumor of a feature Microsoft "may" include a system for giving credits to Zune users whose song sharing leads to purchases at the Zune Marketplace. As usual, the real fun can be found in the comments section. (Read post at Gizmodo)

• If the flash drive format just doesn't work for you, maybe the Playdisc will be more to your liking. The 128MB device, made by a Korean company, is a pre-loaded audio player with fixed content. Could work if music is ever going to be disposable...or if Jet makes any more albums. (Read post at Engadget)

• Piracy is a big time vice: The Boy Scouts of America, with the help of the Motion Picture Association of America, have introduced a program to raise awareness about copyright. Scouts can earn a "Respect Copyrights" patch for the ol' uniform. No joke. (Read article at InformationWeek)

• Ads are everywhere: Verizon Wireless is a sponsor for The Killers' new video for "Bones," which will air across the MTV family of channels tomorrow. "Presented by Verizon Wireless" will appear at the beginning and end of the video. (Read article at Billboard.biz)

Posted by Glenn at 6:11 PM | Link
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Yesterday the Wall Street Journal ran an article on the alliance betweeen Jay-Z and Coca-Cola that puts promotional material in pirated tracks that are passed around P2P networks.

"By inserting promotional material into the decoy files, and then planting those files prominently on file-sharing sites, record labels and other marketers can turn what is now an antipiracy tool into an advertising medium. 'The concept here is making the peer-to-peer networks work for us,' says Jay-Z's attorney, Michael Guido. 'While peer-to-peer users are stealing the intellectual property, they are also the active music audience,' and "this technology allows us to market back to them.'"

This may have people scratching their heads and wondering how labels -- and sponsors -- can use piracy with one hand while they're fighting piracy with the other. Look no further than labels' embrace of -- nay, reliance upon -- (technically illegal) mixtapes to promote their hip hop artists.

It's not just Universal, which did a similar piracy campaign with Ne-Yo. Virgin Records acknowledged it is in talks with MediaDefender "about marketing options. "It's an opportunity that will hopefully lead to a better experience for the artists, the labels and the consumers," said Jason Flom.

Posted by Glenn at 10:13 AM | Link
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• The Sacramento Bee has two Tower articles: One is look at Tower's fall and dropping credibility in the music retail market. (Sacramento Bee) The other looks at the chance of the struggling retailer finding a buyer. (Sacramento Bee)

• A poll by LA Times and Bloomberg finds a "pervasive" attitude among people 12 to 24 that copying purchased CDs or DVDs is legal. "Among teens ages 12 to 17 who were polled, 69 percent said they believed it was legal to copy a CD from a friend who purchased the original. By comparison, only 21 percent said it was legal to copy a CD if a friend got the music free." (LA Times)

• The Dixie Chicks continue to deal with adversity in country strongholds. The group has canceled a handful of tour dates due to slow ticket sales (Kansas City, St. Louis, Memphis, Knoxville) and postponed others (Los Angeles, Nashville, Denver and Phoenix) -- but has replaced them with
shows in Canada. (Update: Kansas City never went on sale.) (AP)

• The Super Audio CD isn't quite dead yet, although it may seem that way to some. Universal Music will release Super Audio CDs from the Moody Blues and Al Di Meola...a total of 12 titles between August and October. (HighFidelityReview.com)

• Digital Music Group has added three labels to its roster: Fuel 2000, Tone Casualties and Roadshow Records. (Sacramento Business Journal)

Posted by Glenn at 9:29 AM | Link
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• SOHH reports it appears The Game has left G-Unit/Aftermath and has signed a five-album deal with Geffen that includes a distribution deal for his label, Black Wall Street. (SOHH)

• EMI has agreed to license its North American catalog -- minus The Beatles, one can assume -- to P2P service Mashboxx. (Billboard.biz)

• Rick Rubin rumored to produce the next Velvet Revolver album, Liberated. (MetalUnderground.com)

• RealNetworks announced record revenue of $89.4 million for the second quarter ending June 30th. If income from the Microsoft settlement is adjusted out, earnings drops to $4.8 million. Music revenues rose 21% to $30.1 million. (Press release)

• Download a PDF of the IFPI's 2006 piracy report. (IFPI)

Posted by Glenn at 1:44 PM | Link
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• EMI is reportedly prepared to no longer insist that Warner Music Group sell its music publishing ahead of any EMI acquisition of WMG, which says either music publishing company should be sold only if required by regulators. (This Is Money)

• Yahoo China has run into the ire of the major music companies. The company will be sued by the majors within a few weeks, says the chairman of the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry. The industry's complain is that Yahoo provides links to illegally copied music. Yahoo is China's second-largest search engine. Baidu, the market leader, was sued last year. (Bloomberg.com)

• No details have been given oh exactly how this came to being, but eMusic has discovered 19 Sun Records tracks that have never been released. The found songs are by artists such as Charlie Rich, James Cotton, Ike Turner and Bill Justis. The songs will be added to the deep Sun catalog that is already available at eMusic. (Press release)

• Handleman, one of the country's leading wholesale music and movie distributors, partly blames a lack of hit albums for its current financial woes. It expects to go through a round of cost-cutting measures that will include closing a distribution center, lowering customer returns and reducing overhead. Employee pensions and health benefits may also be on the cutting board. (The Freep, via Kings of A&R)

• The Chicago Sun-Times' Bobby Reed on black country artists. Mentioned is a former Miss America and aspiring country star, Ericka Dunlap. (Chicago Sun-Times)

Posted by Glenn at 9:26 AM | Link
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Last week a Sony exec told a panel at the Digital Media Summit in Los Angeles that the music industry was not winning its fight against piracy. Albhy Galuten, VP of Digital Media Technology Strategy at Sony Corporation of America, said he does not believe the industry is making progress.

The industry's trade group, the RIAA, is putting out a different message. Yesterday the USA Today had an article on file-sharing that quoted Mitch Bainwol as saying, "The problem has not been eliminated. ... But we believe digital downloads have emerged into a growing, thriving business, and file-trading is flat."

That's the company line a year after the entertainment industry won a 9-0 decision in the famed Grokster case. Eric Garland, CEO of P2P-tracking company BigChampagne, told the USA Today file-sharing applications are still out there and more people --- 10 million today versus 8.7 million in May of 2005 -- are using file-sharing services.

The RIAA knows it is never going to eliminate file-sharing. It's strategy has been to create an environment that will allow digital sales to grow. Album sales are down a mere 3% in 2006. Given the huge growth in single download sales, combined with increased revenues from ringtones, video sales, subscription services and ad revenue-sharing deals for video and audio streams, it's not hard to imagine overall revenues growing this year -- piracy or no piracy.

Extra credit reading: File-Sharing: Creative Destruction or Just Plain Destructive? by Stan J. Leibowitz, University of Texas at Dallas School of Management.

Posted by Glenn at 2:30 PM | Link
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