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Influence of the digital revolution
File sharing methods
Influence of the digital revolution
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Using an illustrative case study from the Web (site, application, event, etc.), analyze and discuss the significance of what Henry Jenkins calls ‘convergence culture’. Make specific reference to two or three of the major areas of tension he identifies as shaping the contemporary media environment. Significant innovations have occurred across the business or intermediate services sectors and the domestic or consumer service sectors, across the fields of entertainment, communication, and information sharing and the website that I am using for my case study is one of them. Imeem.com is a unique file sharing social networking site where individuals pool their time, experience, wisdom, resources, and creativity to form new information, knowledge, and cultural goods. Drawing from Henry Jenkins work I will focus on how the website is redesigning the digital economy, renegotiating relations between producers and consumers and reengaging the citizens. In 2007 the four largest record companies in the world Universal, Warner Music Group, Sony BMG and EMI, signing a deal with Imeem allowing the domain to feature content of the artists signed by the record companies legally. Meaning that, Imeem was now the first website whose users had the music industry's blessing, to share music for free in return for a cut of advertising revenues from the website. It seemed that both Imeem and the music industry had learnt immensely from the Napster incident. Imeem was founded by Dalton Calwell (ex-VA Linux) and Jan Jannink (formerly of Napster) and many of the core engineers came from the original Napster file sharing service. It maybe for this reason that their is a significant difference between Napster and Imeem. Which is while Imeem only allows you to upload and play music on its website, Napster allowed its users to download songs onto their hard drive. For the music industry all that the Napster incident accomplished was to drive file-sharing underground where the recording industry couldn't get a cut of the profits. Had they approached Napster in 2000 the way they approached Imeem, they could have been collecting ad revenue from every file-sharing transaction over the last eight years. Instead, they wasted a lot of money on lawsuits, angered a lot of their customers, and ultimately had to concede that music sharing might be OK as long as they get a cut. For fairly obvious reasons, we usually think of such networks, which began with Napster, as a “problem”.
Napster does not condone copyright infringement, there is no opportunity in the software to stop this, or for royalties to be paid to the song belongs to. The reaction from recording artists, record labels and other music industry players has been varied, but primarily anti-Napster. The first action to be taken against Napster was by the band Metallica. In April of this year, they sued Napster Inc for copyright infringement.
Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York UP, 2006. Print.
Before the 1990’s, if people want to listen to music, they just visit a music store and pick up a CD and then put it into a stereo equipment. However, the development of MP3 file format gradually changed the way people listen to music. This format lets everyone download music easily and it can be converted to CD as well. But, there is still a problem: searching MP3 files on the internet is maddening and people seldom can find the music they want. Therefore, the birth of Napster solved this problem, creating a virtual music community in which music fans could use the Web as a “swap meet” for music files. More importantly, Napster is easy to use and it’s free, which expands the range of audience in age. Bandwidth also contributed to Napster’s success. The greater the bandwidth, the faster the file can be transferred. So, Napster really changed the way people listen to music, discover music and interact with music.
Napster was the pinnacle of this combination of recording technology and the internet. Napster was an internet company that launched in 1999 and focused on music streaming and music downloading. At the time Napster was the only real web company looking at the industry of music streaming and music downloads and as a result , Napster saw tremendous success in the first few years of its life and taking the crown as the fastest growing business ever , a record still unbeaten today. Napster’s focus with regards to peer-to-peer music sharing was ease of accessibility and speed , and in both areas they excelled. Napster made peer to peer music sharing easier than anyone had previously thought possible with the introduction of their massive online music market place in which people could share any type of free mp3 into one mainstream directory. However much like streaming services that push the envelope of accessibility Napster ran into several problems along the way and faced heavy opposition.
Mass media has gone through quite a transformation over the past decade where there were only a couple forms of media. Today mass media has many different forms, from the TV, to the internet, to radio, to social media sites; the list goes on and on. In this paper I will discuss the evolution of mass media during the last century, as well how these developments influence American culture. Furthermore, I will discuss the term media convergence and how it affects our everyday life in ways we never even gave a second thought to. Lastly, I will discuss the absolute importance of media literacy for responsible media consumption
The definition of “convergence” is originally “the interlinking of computing and ICTs, communication networks, and media content that has occurred with the development and popularisation of the Internet, and the convergent products, services and activities that have emerged in the digital media space” (T Flew, 2008). Many economists consider this definition does not fully describe the scale and root nature of media convergence, since all aspects of our institutional and social life - from art (digital paintings and CG technology) to business (direct selling and consulting via AI assistant, E-commerce marketplace and digital payment), e-government platform to entertainment content providers and streaming
According to the text A Gift of Fire, Napster “opened on the Web in 1999 as a service that allowed its users to copy songs in MP3 files from the hard disks of other users” (Baase, 2013, p. 192, Section 4.1.6 Sharing Music: The Napster Case). Napster was, however, “copying and distributing most of the songs they traded without authorization” (A Gift of Fire, Section 4.1.6 Sharing Music: The Napster Case). This unauthorized file sharing resulted in a lawsuit - “eighteen record companies sued for contributory infringement claiming that Napster users were blatantly infringing copyrights by digitally reproducing and distributing music without a license” (Communications Law: Liberties, Restraints and the Modern Media, 2011, p. 359).
The story really begins with Napster and its free software that allowed users to swap music across the Internet for free using peer-to-peer networks. While Shawn Fanning was attending Northeastern University in Boston, he wanted an easier method of finding music than by searching IRC or Lycos. John Fanning of Hull, Massachusetts, who is Shawn's uncle, struck an agreement which gave Shawn 30% control of the company, with the rest going to his uncle. Napster began to build an office and executive team in San Mateo, California, in September of 1999. Napster was the first of the massively popular peer-to-peer file sharing systems, although it was not fully peer-to-peer since it used central servers to maintain lists of connected systems and the files they provideddirectories, effectivelywhile actual transactions were conducted directly between machines. Although there were already media which facilitated the sharing of files across the Internet, such as IRC, Hotline, and USENET, Napster specialized exclusively in music in the form of MP3 files and presented a user-friendly interface. The result was a system whose popularity generated an enormous selection of music to download. Napster became the launching pad for the explosive growth of the MP3 format and the proliferation of unlicensed copyrights.
The age of convergence refers to “the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experience they want” (Jenkins 2003 p2-3) Using Jenkins et al. ’s white paper to
Understanding Media Guinevere Osental HUM/186 September 14, 2015 Allyson Wells Understanding Media Different forms of ways for people to connect have evolved throughout the years. From media emergence to media convergence, people had put mere thoughts or ideas of better communication into the technology every person owns today today. Media has made a way throughout the world, changing as people discovered and invented new ways for more and more people to connect with more people. Understanding how media had evolved through developments, ways of influence, and convergence can help people have a better understanding of media. Media Developments
Joseph STRAUBHAAR and Robert LaROSE (2002). Media Now. Communications Media in the Information Age. 3rd Edition. Belmont, Wadsworth/Thompson Learning.
The first online peer to peer file-sharing application was Napster. Napster allowed people to copy music from their CDs onto their computers in mp3 format. They then allowed other members of Napster to download these songs onto their computers. Once this caught on, millions of people were downloading thousands of songs a day. And as you can imagine, this did not make the record companies happy with the idea that people were getting their music for free instead of buying the CD. It also caused a problem with some of the recording artists. Most notably Metallica.
Communication Theory Name Institution Media Convergence Media convergence provides new opportunities for media to serve individualized purposes while expanding people’s options for information and entertainment content. As an array of media expands, news is edited to suit the tastes of relatively small audiences (Baran & Davis, 2012). The resultant cultural convergence brings about deep changes even in the established media companies, as they have had to reconsider the prevailing cultural consumption of the media (Martnez & Alonso, 2015). Considering the enabled ease to media multi-task, as Martnez & Alonso (2015) argue, users find new forms of content consumption with an interactivity that facilitates media consumers to simultaneously assume the content producer and consumer roles because of the capacity to operate from any device. The enhanced quality and flexibility in consumption and dissemination enhance the demand for media among users whose needs were not met previously (Martnez & Alonso, 2015).
Napster is a company that developed the so-called peer-to-peer technology that lets people search and retrieve music files directly from one another's personal computers. When Napster first came out, millions of internet users worldwide were illegally downloading and distributing copyrighted music, videos, images, and software for free. After being vilified by the entertainment industry, which claims that Napster and any similar programs could make piracy of almost any digital work unstoppable, and many court battles, Napster was ordered by court to be shutdown in 2000. The technology has been praised as a revolutionary development for the Internet—unaware of the problems that would arise from such practices. However, the termination of Napster was not enough, months later, dozens of new, like programs were being developed and used. And since Napster, not much has been done to stop these latest downloading programs.
When you download a song or music with paying it is the same as you steal the money from the artists, because that’s the income for their hard work. Admittedly speaking, illegal downloading could expand market of music and movies, especially for those producers who are unfamiliar to most people. The illegal downloading music becomes a common phenomenon for many people who have experience on the Internet. Despite the legal and moral issues, majority of the people will accept how convenience the downloading music form the Internet will be. The digital music format has been available for a while for customers. Shawn Fanning, a young 18 years old student, created Napster in June 1999. Napster originated from two simple ideas, and achieved a straight goal: combining easily a file sharing program and a music search engine for seeking and distributing music on the Internet becoming easier. Although Napster lost the trial against the Recording Industry Association of America, the music...