tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/downloading-271/articlesDownloading – The Conversation2018-11-29T12:16:44Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1078452018-11-29T12:16:44Z2018-11-29T12:16:44ZAugmented reality promises to rescue dying museums – so why don’t visitors want to use it?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247943/original/file-20181129-170241-17gifj8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Bennett</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Museums are often perceived as dusty cabinets full of dead and ancient things, especially those institutions you’ve never heard of. You know the ones, the neglected pride of county towns that could play a vital cultural and social role but struggle for funding.</p>
<p>For some, technology is the answer, <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/75809/12-world-class-museums-you-can-visit-online">virtually recreating</a> museums and their contents online, or launching fancy <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-augmented-reality-anyway-99827">augmented reality</a> smartphone apps that overlay videos of the real world with interactive computer-generated content. We certainly see the potential for such apps to make museums more exciting, especially to young people, and have recently been using them to bring dinosaurs to life.</p>
<p>But sadly our experience suggests visitors just aren’t keen on downloading these apps. So is there another way technology can help revitalise musuems and similar attractions?</p>
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<p>We are working on a project <a href="http://palaeogo.org/">called PalaeoGo!</a> that explores how museums and parks can be enhanced by augmented reality, 3D digitisation and new search engines. Our first foray with augmented reality was at <a href="https://www.nps.gov/whsa/index.htm">White Sands National Monument</a> in New Mexico, US, using a smartphone app <a href="https://www.zappar.com/getzappar">called Zappar</a> to support <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-hunt-a-giant-sloth-according-to-ancient-human-footprints-95344">research undertaken there</a>. </p>
<p>Using the phone’s camera to scan a code on a notice board or flyer brings forward a 2D computer-generated image superimposed on the phone’s live camera feed. Users can see a troop of mammoths walk over the horizon with the real landscape behind, or have their selfies taken with a mammoth. We’ve since created our <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/palaeogo/id1339629432?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2">own free app</a> that recreates augmented reality dinosaurs and other extinct reptiles and mammals in 3D, without the need to scan a code.</p>
<p>We deployed the mammoth and a <em>T. rex</em> at various events in 2017 and 2018, allowing visitors to pose for selfies. The tech was embraced enthusiastically, not just by children but by older generations as well. We found the sense of technological wonder coupled with a chance to strike a silly pose with an extinct animal really appealed to the visitors.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247952/original/file-20181129-170220-cqogaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247952/original/file-20181129-170220-cqogaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247952/original/file-20181129-170220-cqogaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247952/original/file-20181129-170220-cqogaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=277&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247952/original/file-20181129-170220-cqogaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247952/original/file-20181129-170220-cqogaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247952/original/file-20181129-170220-cqogaj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=348&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Mammoth selfies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Bennett</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>But when we first deployed the app at a museum, in summer 2018 at the <a href="http://www.theetchescollection.org/home">Etches Collection</a> on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast, it challenged our thinking. In fact, it stopped us dead. When we had staff on site to show people what was possible with our own tablets and phones, the technology had an impact and people were excited to see it in action (although they did not always download the app). But no one engaged when we relied on posters and banners to encourage visitors to download and use the app. </p>
<p>We failed at the first step, not due to a lack of interest in the technology or in the 3D dinosaurs deployed, but due to the fundamental reluctance of visitors to download museum apps. We have since found this experience to be shared by others, such as <a href="https://www.skyboxmuseum.com">Skybox Museum</a>, who also struggle to get visitors to download their app deployed at their site in Manchester. In fact, the feedback we’ve received so far suggests that simply getting people to download a museum app, rather than a problem with the underlying technology, is the biggest obstacle to its success.</p>
<h2>What makes people download apps?</h2>
<p>To find out why, we immersed ourselves in a growing body of consumer-based research on smartphone apps. It turns out that the characteristics of an app are less important when it comes to getting people to download it than whether they <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401215301122">trust the makers</a>, and that brand loyalty and familiarity help <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401217304309">build this trust</a>. We also know that the potential for social interaction and pure enjoyment are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167923613001863">more important</a> than the usefulness or educational value of an app. People want to be entertained, engage with others and are wary of potential risks to their phones and personal data.</p>
<p>So when you’re asked to download an app at the doors of a museum, the default position is to decline. It’s a hard sell, especially if you have children in tow. Promoting the app in advance helps but, even if you overcome this reluctance, people still want a guarantee of fun.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247953/original/file-20181129-170226-uqldxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247953/original/file-20181129-170226-uqldxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247953/original/file-20181129-170226-uqldxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247953/original/file-20181129-170226-uqldxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247953/original/file-20181129-170226-uqldxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247953/original/file-20181129-170226-uqldxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247953/original/file-20181129-170226-uqldxv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Not enough for a download.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Bennett</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>What’s the answer? Games are an obvious possibility. Which regular museum visitor hasn’t seen a horde of children with clipboards on some form of quest or hunt? Promising a fun game is perhaps the key to getting children to try the augmented reality we know can change a museum experience. </p>
<p>The alternative is to make such resources available without an app, and we are exploring this. One solution might be to enable visitors to access it through their phone’s internet browser or via a standard QR code. Another idea we are trialling is to preload the technology onto a tablet hired like an audio guide at a museum’s entrance. As the software doesn’t need downloading it can be more complex, for example using locational technology such as GPS that can prompt the user to activate the device at a given spot and offer content tailored to their visit. But this would make social interaction and downloading those fun-filled selfies harder.</p>
<p>We believe that technology has much to offer the museums of the future. In fact, we would argue it’s essential to their survival. In particular, <a href="https://www.realitytechnologies.com/mixed-reality/">mixed reality</a>, a form of enhanced augmented reality where real people and objects are displayed in virtual worlds, has some exciting potential to create immersive, engaging and educational content. But for once, the smartphone may not hold the key.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107845/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our attempt to bring dinosaurs to life via a smartphone app was met with excitement – then it hit a brick wall.Matthew Robert Bennett, Professor of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Bournemouth UniversityMarcin Budka, Professor of Data Science, Bournemouth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1022942018-08-30T13:56:38Z2018-08-30T13:56:38ZFortnite is setting a dangerous security trend<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234061/original/file-20180829-195322-1vw0od5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/san-francisco-ca-usa-august-2018-1159820950?src=9cA5iMzKjwOrSbMg2PDOTg-1-30">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cybercriminals have just been given yet another route to get malicious software (malware) onto your personal mobile devices. The hugely popular video game Fortnite has become one of the first major apps to bypass official app stores and encourage users to download its software directly. </p>
<p>In doing so, it’s also bypassing the security protections of the app stores and chipping away at a system that has worked reasonably well at keeping malware off people’s phones and tablets. And we’re already starting to see the dangerous results of this, as Fortnite’s installation method created a <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/08/25/fortnite-app-allowed-hackers-secretly-install-anything-android/">security vulnerability</a> that may have opened up some users’ devices to hacking.</p>
<p>Fortnite’s maker, Epic Games, shocked the industry when it announced at the start of August that it would release the app <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/aug/06/fortnite-is-coming-to-android-phones-but-not-through-google-play">directly to consumers</a> instead of through the official Google Play store (although it’s still available through Apple’s App Store). The firm said this was to create a direct relationship with customers instead of depending on middlemen distributors. Google <a href="https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/112622?hl=en-GB">takes 30%</a> of the money paid for any app or in-app purchase in the Play store.</p>
<p>This goes even further than the likes of Netflix, which recently confirmed it was <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/21/netflix-itunes-2/">testing a bypass of Apple’s iTunes billing</a> system in 33 markets worldwide. This meant that some subscribers would be unable to pay using iTunes and instead would have to complete payments via Netflix’s website, reducing their engagement with the official Apple store.</p>
<p><a href="https://sensortower.com/blog/app-revenue-and-downloads-1h-2018">Current estimates</a> suggest that in the first half of 2018, users of the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store spent a combined US$34.4 billion on mobile apps and games. These official stores still represent the first port-of-call for millions of mobile users, and in return <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/USEC2012-Conundrum.pdf">they have come to expect</a> trustworthy, vetted, malware-free, high-quality apps.</p>
<p>The issue with attempts to bypass official stores is that they contradict <a href="https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/protecting-your-organisation-malware">recommended security best practice</a>. Engaging with these stores is highly endorsed because of the added protection they offer. Apple, for instance, has <a href="https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/">a set of detailed guidelines</a> that app submissions are checked against. Similarly, Google has a series of <a href="https://source.android.com/security/reports/Android_WhitePaper_Final_02092016.pdf">automated and manual techniques</a> to vet apps.</p>
<p>Directing users away from these stores means less protection. And even worse, it stands to encourage a wider behaviour change. It sends the message to users that official app stores are no longer the primary trusted way to engage with apps.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234060/original/file-20180829-195322-5raaup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234060/original/file-20180829-195322-5raaup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234060/original/file-20180829-195322-5raaup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234060/original/file-20180829-195322-5raaup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234060/original/file-20180829-195322-5raaup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234060/original/file-20180829-195322-5raaup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234060/original/file-20180829-195322-5raaup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Bypassing official app stores is a risky game.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/melbourne-australia-may-23-2016-closeup-424829353?src=W5YMty38eGU1V13XXlzdHw-1-18">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://blog.trendmicro.com/update-mobile-threats-on-the-rise/">Industry research</a> has validated the importance of this advice time and time again, by revealing that third-party app sources – particularly on the Android platform – are often plagued with malware and can expose users and their data to a <a href="https://www.wandera.com/reddrop-malware/">variety of security and privacy risks</a>. According to the 2018 Symantec <a href="https://www.symantec.com/content/dam/symantec/docs/reports/istr-23-2018-en.pdf">Threat Report</a>, the vast majority (99.9%) of discovered mobile malware was found in third-party app stores. This <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/google-play-store-malware/">doesn’t mean</a> that official stores are free from malware but they do have the advantage of another set of specialists checking apps for potential problems.</p>
<p>As such, direct downloads create a substantially greater security risk. A perfect example of this was revealed recently when <a href="https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/112630336">Google discovered</a> <a href="https://www.androidcentral.com/epic-games-first-fortnite-installer-allowed-hackers-download-install-silently">a severe security vulnerability</a> in the Fortnite installation process. This essentially made it possible for malicious apps to download and install anything on a user’s device without their permission – a cyber-security nightmare. Although Epic Games has since released a fix, it is very likely that <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/24/fortnites-android-installer-shipped-with-an-epic-security-flaw/">many users have yet to install it</a>, which means they may still be vulnerable.</p>
<h2>Eroding good habits</h2>
<p>A more long-term impact of the shift to direct downloads and engagement is the potential erosion of best security practice. For years, <a href="https://www.sans.org/security-awareness-training/ouch-newsletter/2017/securely-using-mobile-apps">security awareness campaigns</a> <a href="https://www.wired.com/2016/12/never-ever-ever-download-android-apps-outside-google-play/">and guidance</a> have emphasised the importance of sourcing apps only from official stores. This has been a difficult (yet crucial) task as security awareness campaigns <a href="https://kar.kent.ac.uk/67511/1/csss2015_bada_et_al.pdf">are hard to get right</a>, actually changing people’s behaviour <a href="https://www.nspw.org/papers/2008/nspw2008-beautement.pdf">is even harder</a>, and attackers are constantly updating <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13673-016-0065-2">their tricks</a>.</p>
<p>Encouraging or redirecting users away from traditional channels may well undo some of these ingrained secure habits. For example, the Fortnite installation process requires gamers <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/24/fortnites-android-installer-shipped-with-an-epic-security-flaw/">to enable installations</a> <a href="https://www.grahamcluley.com/android-security-fortnite/">from unknown apps</a>. But doing so puts users at higher risk. A user would need to navigate to this setting later to disable third-party installations as it does not reset automatically.</p>
<p>If more large app developers bypass the official stores in this way, it will almost certainly have an impact on people’s broader behaviours. This could result in the belief that trusted sources of apps are no longer necessary and that disabling protective security measures isn’t a problem. What’s more, it could create a higher temptation to look to third-party app stores for new apps or better deals – app channels that are, as mentioned, unfortunately <a href="https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/security/news/cybercrime-and-digital-threats/red-alert-2-0-android-trojan-spreads-via-third-party-app-stores">infested with malware</a>.</p>
<p>The ultimate result of these actions will be further malware infections and a higher compromise in privacy and security. Ordinary users will pay the costs of app developers’ desire to avoid the regulations and fees of the official stores.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102294/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jason R.C. Nurse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A serious security threat was found in popular video game Fortnite’s installation method after it bypassed Google’s official app store.Jason R.C. Nurse, Assistant Professor in Cyber Security, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1012832018-08-27T11:11:15Z2018-08-27T11:11:15ZIntimate, streamed performances: the musical future in a globalised world<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233431/original/file-20180824-149472-wnlq68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Big Daddy Kane performing at NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Claire Harbage/NPR</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For many music fans buying costly records or CDs is a quaint and distant memory. It meant collections were limited by budget. Today though, the prevalence of free or cheap streaming and downloading platforms on social media has given music lovers a deafening, near unlimited and often overwhelming choice.</p>
<p>Take the streaming service <a href="https://investors.spotify.com/financials/press-release-details/2018/Spotify-Technology-SA-Announces-Financial-Results-for-Second-Quarter-2018/default.aspx">Spotify</a> as an example. Its 180 million monthly users in 65 regions have access to 35 million songs – and that number is growing as we speak. By June 2017 it had 36% of all music streaming <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/653926/music-streaming-service-subscriber-share/">subscribers worldwide</a>, ahead of its closest competitor Apple Music’s 17%.</p>
<p>The arrival of social media platforms midway through the last decade brought a very different way for audiences across the globe to engage with music. From the pioneering <a href="https://myspace.com/">MySpace</a> founded in 2003 to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/">YouTube</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/">Instagram</a>, producers and consumers alike have been avidly sharing old, undiscovered and fresh new music.</p>
<p>Other audio-specific platforms such as <a href="https://soundcloud.com/">SoundCloud</a> and <a href="https://www.mixcloud.com/">Mixcloud</a> also empower users to take control of what music they share and receive, offering a counterpoint to paid download and streaming sites such as <a href="https://www.apple.com/itunes/">iTunes</a> and <a href="https://www.spotify.com/">Spotify</a>. These platforms have furthered the already broad spectrum of music available to the public, and arguably have reached a point of online music saturation. </p>
<p>This means discerning consumers have to be even more strategic when attempting to find the new music that they seek. Also, the music delivered via these platforms is often done with minimal human engagement. But recently the popularity of <a href="https://boilerroom.tv/">Boiler Room</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/series/tiny-desk-concerts/">Tiny Desk</a> concerts has increased dramatically since their inception towards the end of the 2000s. This strongly suggests that online audiences desire interaction with the artists they follow and their peer group fan base.</p>
<h2>Global music performances</h2>
<p>Boiler Room was set up as an independent platform and as a music and culture curator. It has been building <a href="https://boilerroom.tv/about/">an archive</a> of global music performances and scenes since 2010, featuring over 4,000 performances, by more than 5,000 artists, spanning 150 cities. It recently had an <a href="http://texxandthecity.com/2018/06/boiler-room-x-ballantines-african-tour-concludes-in-sa/">African tour</a>, starting in Cape Town, South Africa then to Douala, Cameroon to Nairobi in Kenya and ending back in South Africa, in Johannesburg.</p>
<p>Tiny Desk was launched slightly earlier, debuting in 2008. It is a project of <a href="https://www.npr.org/">National Public Radio</a>, an American privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organisation. </p>
<p>Both have close to two million followers on YouTube. The major benefit these two platforms share is their engagement with intimate live audiences while retaining a quality of performance and sound within the immediate spatial and streaming experience. The main concept here is that when one is watching an online show, one gets close up and personal with the performer as if standing in front of the stage or DJ booth. </p>
<p>An additional layer of human engagement comes courtesy of the crowd as one observes as they dance, sing along or simply soak up the performance. Take veteran hip-hop artist <a href="http://www.officialbigdaddykane.com/">Big Daddy Kane’s</a> performance for Tiny Desk as an example: his lyrics are clear, smoothly delivered and one can feel the charisma oozing from his presence.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Big Daddy Kane’s Tiny Desk performance.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Having seen Big Daddy Kane perform many times at conventional music venues, I feel a different connection when watching his show on Tiny Desk. There exists a personal as much as spatial closeness. This personal closeness is also cultivated by intimacy – reflected in Kane’s eloquent, low-key delivery and rapport with the band. </p>
<p>Boiler Room similarly generates a closeness between performer and observer. The session by British DJ, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/nightmaresonwaxofficial/">Nightmares On Wax</a> at Boiler Room London is a good example. The camera stays fixed at point blank range directly in front of the turntables for 86 minutes as the DJ works his set, where a handful of people can also be seen hanging out backstage.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Nightmares on Wax’s Boiler Room show.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Similarly, South African producer and DJ <a href="https://twitter.com/culoedesong?lang=en">Culoe De Song</a>’s Boiler Room set in Johannesburg focuses on the DJ at work, but with additional camera angles which present fragments of the crowd and some serious dancing. Still, the online viewer witnesses the intimacy and intensity of a small crowd through their screen.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/p9DZeaxsHBE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Culoe De Song’s Boiler Room DJ set.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The future of music</h2>
<p>Does the relationship between the micro scale and informal nature of these performances with the macro scale of the internet broadcast hold the future for new music’s progression? Can the dialectic of intimate connection versus worldwide reach work harmoniously and be sustained? I am hopeful that the answers are yes. </p>
<p>It is this bridging of the gap between human experience and technological interface that makes Boiler Room and Tiny Desk successful. Although Boiler Room have branched out into festivals, open-air concerts and mini-documentaries, the relationship it shares between its performers, real and virtual space audiences remain intimate, as does its attitude to music and culture. As someone who also live streams visual and sonic DJ shows I can attest to the feeling of intimacy with one’s audience. </p>
<p>These virtual events are not only about watching performances or discovering new music, they can empower and inspire their audiences. Of course, small and intimate performances have continued to take place across genre and location, but the Boiler Room/Tiny Desk style responds to the overload of the mega star performance and stadia arena typologies. </p>
<p>This reinterpretation of the local show reclaims the DIY approach to music culture and returns to music as craft as audiences witness performers working closer. Boiler Room started by using a “webcam taped to a wall”. Let’s hope it doesn’t lose that sense of DIY, of the subversive and the marginal, for here is where the magic happens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101283/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam de Paor-Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a time of an overwhelming amount of music available, discerning consumers have to be even more strategic.Adam de Paor-Evans, Principal Lecturer in Cultural Theory / Research and Innovation Lead, School of Art, Design and Fashion, Faculty of Culture and the Creative Industries, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1011622018-08-09T15:15:54Z2018-08-09T15:15:54ZThe rise of cyberlockers: how online piracy is fighting back<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230871/original/file-20180807-191044-1x10haf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/computer-transfer-download-failed-data-stop-474598984">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Illegal downloading is on its way out. A <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-45042838">new report</a> released by polling firm YouGov has found that only 10% of people in the UK now use illegal downloads to access music, down from 18% in 2013. And the recently released <a href="https://www.ivir.nl/projects/global-online-piracy-study/">Global online piracy study</a> from the University of Amsterdam argued that entertainment streaming services such as Spotify and Netflix mean that far fewer people are accessing copyright-infringing content.</p>
<p>Despite this, pirated songs, films and TV shows are still widely available online. For example, the Amsterdam study also found that 36% of the UK population has accessed illegal content online in the last year. The shift from downloads to streaming is real but it hasn’t solved all the entertainment industry’s problems because piracy has also shifted in a similar way. A growing fraction of illegal content is now accessed through streaming “cyberlockers”, YouTube-like websites often used to upload and share video content without permission. There has recently been significant growth in their use, <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/628704/OCI_-tracker-7th-wave.pdf">with 10% of infringers using cyberlockers in 2017, up from 4% in 2016</a>.</p>
<p>Together with my PhD student Damilola Ibosiola and other colleagues, I <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.02679.pdf">recently published research</a> showing that most illegal streaming cyberlocker content is distributed by just a handful of providers, as opposed to the millions of people who used to share files illegally through peer-to-peer downloading software. This might make it easier for law enforcement to contact the host of an illegal file, but it also means that they are up against people with extensive experience in evading detection. As a result, the pirates are constantly fighting back.</p>
<p>Because of this, we wanted to understand how the cyberlockers used by pirates operate, and shed light on this murky domain. We built software to monitor the videos uploaded onto popular cyberlockers, as well as “indexing websites”, which maintain a directory of links to reliable sources of videos on cyberlockers. In total, we identified over 795,000 links.</p>
<h2>How it works</h2>
<p>What we found was truly fascinating, a dynamic ecosystem of competing players, constantly striving to evade detection and being forced to takedown content. This is perhaps not surprising given our observation that these operations were apparently very fragile.</p>
<p>For example, one website we studied was taken offline three months into our measurements. But these kinds of departures were also complimented by various new cyberlocker arrivals. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230874/original/file-20180807-160647-1sgvdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/230874/original/file-20180807-160647-1sgvdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230874/original/file-20180807-160647-1sgvdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230874/original/file-20180807-160647-1sgvdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230874/original/file-20180807-160647-1sgvdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230874/original/file-20180807-160647-1sgvdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/230874/original/file-20180807-160647-1sgvdn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Accessing illegal online content is still common.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/online-movie-stream-mobile-device-man-728322208?src=8fc66K2izADySXQ6W0pmPA-1-0">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All seemed in a constant flux, with links being added and deleted regularly. A total of 55% of cyberlockers saw growth during our measurement period, while 45% saw a decline. But the apparent diversity of cyberlockers may be rather superficial. By examining certain features of the sites to infer potential relationships, we discovered that, in many cases, individual operators were running multiple different websites.</p>
<p>A total of 58% of all videos that we monitored were held by just two major hosting providers, although from the outside they appeared to be dispersed across 15 apparently independent cyberlockers. This meant action against one company could take down a huge chunk of illegal material. </p>
<p>Our guess was that this was largely a product of the cat-and-mouse game played between cyberlockers and copyright enforcers. These enforcers monitor popular websites to identify infringing content, and then use legal notices to request its removal. </p>
<p>We observed cyberlockers use many techniques to fly under the radar of these enforcers. A total of 64% of the sites we studied did not have search features, making it difficult to find content from their front page, and 42% obscured their true content by hiding it among various obscure copyright-free videos.</p>
<p>To get an idea of how successful the copyright enforcers were, we also used data from <a href="https://lumendatabase.org/">Lumen</a>, which records cease and desist letters concerning online content. We were surprised to find that 84% of the notices we monitored were apparently acted upon, with cyberlockers taking down the content. What was less surprising to find was that it usually wasn’t long before the very same content emerged elsewhere (often on the same cyberlocker under a different page).</p>
<p>It seems that online piracy is less of a technical game, and more of a socioeconomic one, with pirates and law enforcers constantly innovating around each other. In most cases, both sides of the debate are driven by financial incentives. It therefore seems likely that the long-term solution will be for the media industry to create new business models that deplete those incentives. Until then, the game will continue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101162/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gareth Tyson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘Cyberlocker’ illegal streaming sites are in a constant cat-and-mouse struggle with law enforcement.Gareth Tyson, Lecturer in Computer science, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/813342017-07-26T06:27:50Z2017-07-26T06:27:50ZAustralians left to monitor their own NBN broadband speeds<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179739/original/file-20170726-23211-1v16yni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A simple broadband speed test from speedof.me</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/garagestock/Screenshot from http://speedof.me</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has pledged to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-accc-threatens-to-take-telstra-and-other-isps-to-court-over-misleading-nbn-speeds-81360">get tough on any Internet Service Providers</a> that mislead consumers about National Broadband Network speeds.</p>
<p>But how do you know if you’re getting a good deal when you connect to the NBN? How do you know if you’ll be getting the high-speed connection you were promised?</p>
<p>NBN Co is building the infrastructure, with <a href="http://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/media-centre/media-releases/one-in-two-australians.html">5.7 million premises</a> now able to connect to the network via fibre, hybrid cable, wireless or satellite. To make that connection though, you have to deal with one of <a href="http://www.nbnco.com.au/connect-home-or-business/information-for-home/how-to-connect/service-provider-list.html">almost 150 listed ISPs</a>.</p>
<h2>Customers are ‘confused’</h2>
<p>The ACCC’s chairman Rod Sims <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-on-changing-telecommunications-market-dynamic">says</a> we should expect a healthy and competitive sector. But <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/speech/communications-at-the-turning-point">he also says</a> many consumers are “confused about broadband speed advertising” and the industry has been “inconsistent in making clear, accurate information available”.</p>
<p>So it is crucial for the ACCC to <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-20/accc-warns-big-four-telcos-over-failure-to-deliver-on-nbn-speeds/8726268">ensure that companies do not mislead consumers</a> about the speeds offered by their ISP.</p>
<p>The Australian market is different to that in the United Kingdom, where the regulator <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/latest/media/media-releases/2017/helping-people-to-shop-around-and-secure-the-right-deal">Ofcom</a> actively provides accurate information to consumers to enable a comparison of services.</p>
<p>Australia takes a different approach, relying on protections available via consumer law, and encouraging industry self-regulation to provide the right information to the consumer.</p>
<p>The experience you get really depends on a range of factors relating to transmission quality, reflected as speed of connectivity and latency (delays) in exchanging information across the internet. Key factors include:</p>
<ul>
<li>how you connect to the internet router in your house (such as by Wi-Fi or ethernet)</li>
<li>the transmission quality from home to the Point of Interconnect (where the ISP’s network connects to the NBN) </li>
<li>transmission quality within the ISP network </li>
<li>transmission quality of the content delivery network. </li>
</ul>
<h2>Measuring the speed of your internet connection</h2>
<p>A basic speed test of any internet connection is a measure of the time it takes to transfer a fixed file from a server. The result is usually given in <a href="https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/46647/mbps">Mbps</a> (Megabits per second).</p>
<p>Many ISPs, such as <a href="http://speedtest.telstra.com/">Telstra</a>, <a href="http://speedtest.syd.optusnet.com.au/">Optus</a> and <a href="https://www.iinet.net.au/internet-products/broadband/speed-test/">iiNet</a>, currently provide internet speed tests for their customers.</p>
<p>But speeds measured this way tend to reflect the connectivity from the ISP to the consumer. The speeds you experience in general use can be significantly lower than the “peak” speed advertised by the service provider. </p>
<p>To get a better idea of the real speed of your internet connection you should use <a href="http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/speed_tests">another speed testing service</a>, in addition to the one recommended by your ISP. </p>
<p>You should also repeat this measurement at various times of the day and keep detailed notes of any results. Some typical speed tests are:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.ozspeedtest.com/">Oz Broadband Speed Test</a></li>
<li><a href="http://speedof.me/">Speed of Me</a></li>
<li><a href="http://beta.speedtest.net/">Speedtest.net</a></li>
<li><a href="http://testmy.net/">Testmy.net</a></li>
</ul>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VTIaKt69O-o?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Speeds can change over time for even the fastest NBN connection.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Currently most ISPs offer a higher speed for downloading and lower speed for uploading. As many users often download the same content, the network can be optimised to take advantage of this and offer higher speeds. </p>
<p>But users also upload unique content, such as photos to social media accounts or files to cloud storage. This does not have the advantage of scale and thus speed of access could be lower. </p>
<p>As cloud-based storage and content-delivery networks – such as Netflix, Foxtel and others – become more highly trafficked, our requirements are changing. Many users now prioritise more symmetrical internet connectivity, with similar download and upload speeds. </p>
<h2>How fast should the internet be in Australia?</h2>
<p>In Australia, premises with fibre connections to the NBN can theoretically get a peak rate of 100Mbps. In fact, in Australia there are <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-choose-the-best-nbn-plan-for-your-needs-68424">5 tiers of NBN connections</a>, varying between Tier 1 (12Mbps download/1Mbps upload) to Tier 5 (100Mbps download/40Mbps upload). </p>
<p>But the measured speeds can often be slower than promised by your provider.</p>
<p>There are various reasons for this. It could be that there is a problem between the premises and the NBN network, or there could be delays or oversubscription within the ISP network. </p>
<p>There can be congestion and delays in national and international networks due to inadequate investment by various stakeholders to keep the capacity of the network in scale with the increasing number of customers. </p>
<p>Your experience can also vary across the day and from one service to another. As the number of users varies quite markedly over 24 hours, the state of the network (NBN, ISP network, Content Delivery Network) can change with various levels of congestion. </p>
<p>This leads to different speeds of connectivity at different times when accessing different types of services. For example, web access might be slower given the location of a server, compared with an internet video streaming service that might be optimised to deliver the most popular content within the region. </p>
<p>While many internet service providers advertise a typical speed, in Australia there is no expectation that they should indicate the variability (the range of minimum and maximum speeds).</p>
<h2>When so slow is too slow</h2>
<p>If you think your NBN connection is too slow and not what you were promised, you should raise the problem with your ISP. If they fail to resolve the issue you should report it to the ACCC.</p>
<p>To improve information about broadband speeds, the ACCC is currently running a <a href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/accc-calls-on-australians-to-sign-up-for-broadband-speed-testing">A$7 million trial of NBN speed monitoring</a> and it wants consumers to be part of it.</p>
<p>Australia could have anticipated these speed issues and established a broadband performance reporting framework as part of access to the NBN infrastructure by providers.</p>
<p>The Australian Communications Consumers Action Network (ACCAN) has been <a href="http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/nbn/do-we-need-a-broadband-monitoring-program/news-story/e42d0ed0f523c1fb044c4a8902440fb5">crying out</a> for a scheme to monitor the performance of ISPs.</p>
<p>But this hasn’t happened yet. So for now it’s left to you as a consumer to monitor your NBN connection speeds, and report any ongoing problems to the ACCC which hopes to start publishing speed and performance data later this year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81334/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Nokia Bell Labs, Google and the Victorian government and leads an interdisciplinary institute – Melbourne Networked Society Institute – that has received funding from both state and federal governments as well as a range of industry partners.</span></em></p>Tough action is promised against companies that offer faster internet speeds than they can deliver over the NBN. But it’s up to consumers to monitor and report on any speed issues.Thas Ampalavanapillai Nirmalathas, Director - Melbourne Networked Society Institute, Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Co-Founder/Academic Director - Melbourne Accelerator Program, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/449822015-08-16T20:25:55Z2015-08-16T20:25:55ZAnxious addict or conscious cowboy? A new view on illegal downloading<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91273/original/image-20150810-11077-lr6nqp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New research shows that not all illegal downloaders are created equally. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lee Nachtigal</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Beginning about 20 years ago, the internet placed almost the entirety of human creation in an unguarded window display and said, in effect, help yourself.</p>
<p>The public, presented with an amazing smorgasboard of content, plunged right in.</p>
<p>Ever since, the “content” industries have been running to catch up. They’ve invented rights management systems, experimented with pricing models, created new media windows and, when these haven’t worked, lobbied governments to sanction the free-for-all.</p>
<p>They’ve also pitched into the online infringers – people downloading but not paying for content – calling them pirates and their actions piracy, words freighted with centuries of social disapproval.</p>
<p>The pirates have returned fire, casting the content owners as cigar-chomping moguls, extorting the public.</p>
<p>It’s a very black-and-white dialogue, and not very helpful.</p>
<h2>Taking a step back</h2>
<p>So how should content creators relate to audiences in the digital age? Is it business as usual or has the relationship changed in fundamental ways?</p>
<p><a href="http://screenfutures.org.au">ScreenFutures</a>, a group of established and emerging screen producers (including the authors of this article), makes the case that digital platforms enable a new kind of conversation between creators and audiences, less freighted and more interactive.</p>
<p>In this new conversation, audiences are no longer “couch potatoes” but fans – interested, opinionated, and involved with creators in the act of constructing the social meaning of the work.</p>
<p>Through crowdfunding services such as <a href="http://www.pozible.com">Pozible</a> audiences can help bring the work to fruition and even help distribute it through services such as <a href="https://www.tugg.com">Tugg</a> (which allows people to “book” movies into their local cinema by popular demand).</p>
<p>For creators whose first contact with audiences used to be standing at the back of a cinema and watching the punters file out, this is heady stuff. </p>
<p>They find themselves engaging with audiences much earlier and more fully than was conceivable even 10 years ago. Communication is the key.</p>
<p>So how should they regard fans who don’t or won’t pay? </p>
<h2>ScreenFutures research findings</h2>
<p>Earlier this year the ScreenFutures group commissioned a study by independent media researcher SARA. </p>
<p>The study surveyed nearly 1700 people aged 16-75 years and found that about 33% watched movies and TV shows illegally downloaded from the internet.</p>
<p>The researchers then surveyed more than 900 “direct pirates”, people who acknowledged they had personally downloaded content illegally – probing their attitudes and reasons for downloading.</p>
<p>The results showed there were many different motivations. Among “direct pirates” the chief attraction was that “it’s free” (20%). Others said they didn’t want to wait for legal releases (18%), or the shows they wanted weren’t legally available in Australia (16%). </p>
<p>Still others said they pirated because it was quick and easy (16%), while 10% said legal shows were too expensive.</p>
<p>These findings correlate with <a href="https://www.communications.gov.au/departmental-news/new-online-copyright-infringement-research-released">research recently reported by the Department of Communications</a>, which measured illegal downloading in Australia and compared it with the UK (and yes, Australians are bigger downloaders). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91269/original/image-20150810-11091-zg5v1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91269/original/image-20150810-11091-zg5v1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91269/original/image-20150810-11091-zg5v1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91269/original/image-20150810-11091-zg5v1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91269/original/image-20150810-11091-zg5v1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91269/original/image-20150810-11091-zg5v1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91269/original/image-20150810-11091-zg5v1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91269/original/image-20150810-11091-zg5v1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luca Rossato</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The standout finding</h2>
<p>But the standout finding in the ScreenFutures study was that attitudes to illegal downloading among people who do it are very ambivalent.</p>
<p>Only one-in-five were unambiguously and defiantly in favour of piracy: the study dubbed these the Outraged Outlaws. </p>
<p>They were not worried about the legality or ethics of pirating, nor its effects on content creators. The only thing that might moderate their behaviour, they reported, was fines or other forms of punishment.</p>
<p>The next category was the Conscious Cowboys. These were people who acknowledged the questionable ethics and illegality of their behaviour but felt they were forced into it by the problems of access and pricing.</p>
<p>Their would modify their behaviour, they said, if the content they wanted were more readily available. They might also reconsider their behaviour in response to ads or educational campaigns.</p>
<p>Nearly a third (31%) of respondents fell into this category.</p>
<p>The third category was the Anxious Addicts, roughly a quarter (24%) of respondents. These people said they loved content and felt guilty about downloading it without paying. </p>
<p>They also worried about fines and acknowledged the arguments of anti-piracy campaigners – especially the damage to industry.</p>
<p>Finally, there were the Nervous Newcomers (19%). New to piracy, apprehensive, doing it mainly because other people were, they were very sensitive to the arguments and open to changing their behaviour.</p>
<p>In short, four out of five people who download illegally have doubts about it, feel nervous or guilty, or sense they may be doing the wrong thing.</p>
<h2>Implications</h2>
<p>There is a conflict between creators and audiences over access to works but it is not deep nor is it intractable.</p>
<p>Except for a noisy minority – less than 10% of the overall population – audiences know they should be paying for content and feel bad about it when they don’t.</p>
<p>The data shows that people who download without paying are often genuine fans who readily pay for content at other times.</p>
<p>These facts need to be reflected in the way that we think and talk about piracy. It may be a form of theft but it is also a backhanded form of customer feedback. </p>
<p>What audiences are telling creators through their actions is that content delivery is too slow, too expensive and too complicated. </p>
<p>The content industries need to work at fixing these problems. But equally they need to begin a conversation with audiences, explaining the problems and what they are doing about them.</p>
<p>They also need to understand the different audience segments and respond to them appropriately — not tar them all with the same black-and-white piracy brush.</p>
<p>Content creators in particular should take up this challenge. After all it’s their work, their livelihoods and their audiences. </p>
<p>The ScreenFutures research shows that people are listening.</p>
<p><em>ScreenFutures launched its report, Content You Love: reframing piracy for a sustainable creative industry, at the Australian Film Television & Radio School on August 13</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44982/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annie Parnell is affiliated with AACTA, Screenfutures</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chloe Rickard is affiliated with SPA.
Chloe is a founding member of ScreenFutures.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ester Harding is a founding member of ScreenFutures.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Drinkwater is CEO of Screen Audience Research Australia (SARA). He is a member of ScreenFutures.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bridget Callow-Wright and David Court do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Beginning about 20 years ago, the internet placed almost the entirety of human creation in an unguarded window display and said, in effect, help yourself. But that’s not to say all illegal downloaders are the same.David Court, Subject Leader, Screen Business, Australian Film, Television and Radio SchoolAnnie Parnell, Festival Manager & Film Producer, Australian Film, Television and Radio SchoolBridget Callow-Wright, Masters of Screen Business and Arts Student, Australian Film, Television and Radio SchoolChloe Rickard, Head of Production @ Jungleboys, Australian Film, Television and Radio SchoolEster Harding, Producer, Australian Film, Television and Radio SchoolPeter Drinkwater, CEO of Cowlick Entertainment Group, Film Grit and marketing research agencies Screen Audience Research Australia (SARA) and House of Brand, Australian Film, Television and Radio SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/322842014-09-30T01:14:23Z2014-09-30T01:14:23ZThom Yorke’s ‘new’ music model ticks few of tomorrow’s boxes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60280/original/wms7p75t-1411974345.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Looks like the future – sounds like status quo. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Daniel Hambury </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Late last week, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke released his new solo album – <a href="https://bundles.bittorrent.com/bundles/tomorrowsmodernboxes">Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes</a> – via BitTorrent, Inc’s “bundle” platform. Visitors to the service pay a US$6 fee, receiving the usual torrent descriptor file (much as one would on a torrent index site such as Pirate Bay) and proceed through to a downloadable bundle of eight MP3s, a music video, cover art and purchase links to the vinyl edition. To date, more than 300,000 users have either purchased the album or legally downloaded a free portion of it. </p>
<p>It is the paid component of the bundle that proves a potent detail here. So far, this fee-generating torrent file has been the central media hook found in reportage on the album, spreading news of Yorke’s work beyond music and entertainment journalism into the broader technology press. </p>
<p>In much the same way Radiohead’s 2007 album In Rainbows created a broad-reaching splash with its pay-what-you-want delivery download model – a model the band subsequently abandoned – Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is an experiment only to the degree that all effective album promotion at this level is an experiment in unknowns. </p>
<p>This “new” delivery model, after all, draws heavily on a platform we’ve had for more than a decade now. Broadly speaking, the only part of this that is in any way new or innovative is that BitTorrent Bundles now allows users to pay for a product they’ve previously used for free, albeit often illegally. </p>
<p>Of course, Yorke is telling a very different story to promote the album. In the press materials accompanying Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, he is quoted as saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work. Enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves, bypassing the self elected gate-keepers. If it works, anyone can do this exactly as we have done.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is only tangentially true. It would be unwise to call the recording industry the “self elected gate-keepers” of the music industry at present. We’re now 15 years on from Napster, a moment in history read by many as the beginning of the end for the recording industry. Napster, if nothing else, proved a powerful promoter of the MP3 file format and for well over a decade independent artists have distributed their MP3s through a cavalcade of online models: MP3.com begat CDBaby.com begat access to iTunes begat <a href="https://bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp.com</a>, and so on. </p>
<p>There is no gate left to police with regard to music distribution. A small tweak to a new model does very little here. </p>
<p>Instead, the gate-keepers of the contemporary music industry corral attention. In a world where the cost of bringing music to market approaches zero dollars per unit (and reaps as much via Spotify and its $0.007 per track royalty), the name of the game is getting noticed and on-selling that attention to a willing buyer. In the terminology of the marketing sector, this is a strategy of brand extension and it’s far from a trade secret. </p>
<p>Billboard Magazine <a href="http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/legal-and-management/6266461/are-brands-musics-new-bank-lars-ulrich-and-top-execs">recently published</a> a piece openly discussing the music sector’s attempts to capture more of these opportunities; similar initiatives currently net the sporting industry as much as US$12 billion annually. In that Billboard piece, Steve Pamon, marketing executive for American corporate finance juggernaut JPMorgan Chase provides an exacting account of how this transaction works: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s not about us supporting you, it’s about you supporting us in exchange for money. Once you tell me how it supports us, we’ll pull out all the stops to support you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This transaction has been at the core of the mainstream commercial music business since the 1980s. Its nature rarely changes to any measurable extent. It is a case of financial capital exchanged for cultural capital, in aid of furthering financial capital. The promotional cycle for Thom Yorke’s new album will not liberate anyone from this. </p>
<p>Yorke’s promotional efforts may side-step the Fortune 500 in this instance, but this pay-gated bundling platform is nothing more than a microscopic step forward in a system that has – to date – failed to deliver on overly utopian promises. Put simply, this technology enables much but guarantees almost nothing beyond the status quo.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32284/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Rogers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Late last week, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke released his new solo album – Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes – via BitTorrent, Inc’s “bundle” platform. Visitors to the service pay a US$6 fee, receiving the usual torrent…Ian Rogers, Lecturer in Music Industry, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/184262013-10-07T19:30:36Z2013-10-07T19:30:36ZMusic sales are waning but don’t blame the pirates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31966/original/73b6nw6p-1380163298.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Music sales have been falling for some time, but this should not attributed to piracy alone.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tracey Nearmy/AAP Image</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fact: worldwide sales of recorded music have declined significantly over the last decade. Fact: there has also been an increase in the use of P2P file-sharing technologies over the last decade. </p>
<p>While there is an obvious correlation here, the question which should be addressed is whether there is causation as well. One of the first lessons in microeconomics is that correlation does not imply causation, or put simply, just because two variables are observed to move together (positively or negatively), this doesn’t imply one is causing the other to move. </p>
<p>While it is somewhat obvious that illegal downloading could reduce sales, we also need to keep in mind that, with certain assumptions in place, downloading could actually increase sales. Consumers could sample music before proceeding to make legitimate purchases, for example. Or maybe downloading could create a buzz which ultimately generates higher sales than in the absence of this induced demand. Theoretically speaking, the effect downloading has on sales could be in either direction.</p>
<p>Therefore the question about which effect prevails becomes an empirical one. To date, however, statistical analyses have failed to reach a consensus on this question. A seminal Harvard study that appeared in the prestigious Journal of Political Economy <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/511995">found no evidence</a> of sales displacement effects from music downloading using US data over a 17 week window in late 2002. </p>
<p>Of course the time-frame of analysis of the Harvard study was only 17 weeks and the unit of analysis was specific songs/albums. So while there might be inconclusive evidence of sales displacement at the micro-level (i.e. downloads of song/album vs. sales of song/album), overall levels of downloading might still very well have displaced the overall level of sales. </p>
<p>This is an entirely reasonable proposition but when considering the ‘bigger picture’ there are a number of other important factors which also enter into the (statistical) equation and need to be addressed before definitive statements can be made. </p>
<p>When considering declining sales over the last 10 to 15 years, we need to recognise that much has changed about the way people consume music, mainly due to the internet. Since the arrival of iTunes in 2002, consumers now have the ability to easily purchase individual songs rather than complete albums, which <a href="http://journals.ama.org/doi/abs/10.1509/jmkg.74.3.107?journalCode=jmkg">may have reduced revenues</a> if consumers were only ever interested in one or two songs on an album. </p>
<p>Another reason for the decline in sales might be related to the arrival and adoption of subscription-based streaming services like Spotify and Pandora. Of course, YouTube also offers another means by which to consume music which doesn’t require any payment, per se, and is paid for with advertising revenues. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31965/original/syyrftv5-1380162782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/31965/original/syyrftv5-1380162782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31965/original/syyrftv5-1380162782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31965/original/syyrftv5-1380162782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31965/original/syyrftv5-1380162782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31965/original/syyrftv5-1380162782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/31965/original/syyrftv5-1380162782.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Listeners are spending less on purchasing music, but more on attending concerts and festivals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AndreiC/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beyond simply changing music consumption habits, the internet also provides a myriad of substitute activities for the act of listening to music itself. Social networking and online gaming would be two examples but there are countless other activities which could also substitute music consumption. The point is that there may have been a fundamental shift in “tastes” for how music is consumed and a shift away from purchased music consumption in the more global sense.</p>
<p>Even if people are purchasing less music due to downloading, the effect on artists’ incomes and the incentives for musicians to create music would seem the most fundamental questions to address in this debate. First year economics teaches us that if marginal costs are close to zero (as is arguably the case with the digital distribution of music), price reductions increase overall welfare. </p>
<p>However, the flip side of the argument is that there is now less incentive for artists to create. But has this actually been proven to be the case? There is <a href="http://www.nber.org/chapters/c11764.pdf">emerging evidence that the answer is no</a>. Moreover, live performance incomes appear to be increasing and there is evidence that <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016762451200008X">increased downloading has been the driver</a> of this.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most important consideration of the consumer in the debate is the issue of music pricing – particularly in Australia where the so-called “Australia tax” sees consumers <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=ic/itpricing/report.htm">paying an average of 50% more</a> than their US counterparts. </p>
<p>If demand has actually dropped for whatever reason, prices should fall to reflect this. Instead they have been maintained at high levels which are not likely to be profit/revenue maximising. Hence, the music industry’s attempt to hold onto unrealistic pricing points may also have led to the declining sales in many respects.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is the first of our five-part series looking at the contemporary music industry. Click the links below to read the others:</em></p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/music-streaming-revenue-structures-stacked-against-artists-18416">Music streaming revenue structures stacked against artists</a></strong> </p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/spotify-merging-music-with-social-media-18401">Spotify: merging music with social media</a></strong></p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/doing-things-with-music-the-newest-arm-of-the-industry-18729">“Doing things” with music: the newest arm of the industry</a></strong></p>
<p><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/rage-against-the-machine-music-tv-still-important-for-the-australian-industry-19100">Rage against the machine: music TV still important for the Australian industry</a></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/18426/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordi McKenzie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fact: worldwide sales of recorded music have declined significantly over the last decade. Fact: there has also been an increase in the use of P2P file-sharing technologies over the last decade. While there…Jordi McKenzie, Senior Lecturer in the School of Economics, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/159112013-07-09T20:40:50Z2013-07-09T20:40:50ZFactCheck Q&A: broadband, climate change and Labor Party reform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/27256/original/mydtcvx7-1373490524.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We factcheck Malcolm Turnbull and Anthony Albanese on this week's Q&A program.</span> </figcaption></figure><figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Dh-CgQnb690?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Catch up on Q&A from 8 July. Source: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>UPDATED: We were inundated with ideas for statements to check from Monday night’s Q&A on ABC TV. Here, our experts tackle four claims on three of the most requested topics.</em></p>
<h2>1. Anthony Albanese: claims about the speeds available under Labor’s National Broadband Network.</h2>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>“The NBN will allow uploads of 400 [megabits per second], 1000 [megabits per second] downloads, for a total cost of $30.4 billion in terms of equity. Malcolm’s plan is $29.5 billion.” - Communications minister Anthony Albanese, Q&A, 8 July. (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh-CgQnb690&t=30m55s">Watch the NBN segment here</a>).</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The access speeds of a telecommunications network are facts that can be verified. The costs debate is much trickier - more on that shortly.</p>
<p>Albanese’s claim that the national broadband network (NBN) will allow uploads of 400 megabits per second (Mbps) and downloads of 1000 Mbps is correct. However, it should be pointed out that these speeds are not yet available in <a href="http://www.nbnco.com.au/get-an-nbn-connection/wholesale-speeds.html">NBN Co’s current standard household implementation</a>, which is limited to 40 Mbps upload speeds and 100 Mbps downloads. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.nbnco.com.au/about-us.html">NBN Co</a>, the government enterprise rolling out the network, has said it will offer much faster speeds <a href="http://www.nbnco.com.au/blog/nbn-gigabit-available-december.html">by the end of this year</a> at wholesale prices of between $70-$150 a month.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Albanese’s claims about NBN speeds are correct. <strong>- Peter Gerrand</strong></p>
<hr>
<h2>2. Malcolm Turnbull: Labor’s National Broadband Network would cost $94 billion-$100 billion.</h2>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>“[The Coalition’s NBN plan is] about $60 billion cheaper… Your plan would cost $100 billion… On very conservative assumptions it would cost $94 billion.” Shadow communications minister Malcolm Turnbull, Q&A, 8 July. (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh-CgQnb690&t=30m55s">Watch the NBN segment here</a>)</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>According to Labor, taxpayers’ share of building the NBN by 2021 will be $30.4 billion in equity, which was revised up from an <a href="http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2012/8/8/national-affairs/national-network-broadly-track">original estimate of $27.5 billion</a>.</p>
<p>The Coalition says that its rollout of an “affordable” version of the national broadband network could be finished sooner by 2019 and cost taxpayers $29.5 billion.</p>
<p>The major saving proposed in the Coalition’s plan is its preference for implementing Fibre to the Node instead of Fibre to the Home (see <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-tale-of-two-nbns-the-coalitions-broadband-policy-explained-13304">this article</a> for more detail).</p>
<p>On Q&A, Albanese did not dispute the Coalition’s $29.5 billion figure, instead arguing that there was little price difference between the parties’ plans and: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“why would you buy an inferior product for basically 29 bucks rather than 30? That’s the difference in terms of equity between the two”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Turnbull’s claim that the current Labor/NBN Co plan could cost an extra $60 billion is based on his own consultants’ advice, which is included as a 12-page analysis in <a href="http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Background.pdf">background papers</a> for <a href="http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Broadband.pdf">The Coalition’s Plan for Fast Broadband and an Affordable NBN</a>.</p>
<p>That claim is based on four key assumptions: much lower broadband revenue, 40 per cent higher costs to connect premises in established areas, more people choosing wireless-only connections by 2028, and an extra four years of work on top of the current eight year schedule - a 50 per cent blow-out.</p>
<p>As the analysis for the Coalition also notes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“This is a simple model. It is subject to the normal uncertainties of any such analysis, but it is in the Coalition’s view a much more likely forecast than that contained in the NBN Co 2012‐2015 Corporate Plan.” (<a href="http://www.malcolmturnbull.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Background.pdf">Background Papers</a>, page 29)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The truth is, the cost estimates in either party’s business plan are only as good as their underlying assumptions. </p>
<p>For a ten-year “build and operate” engineering infrastructure project as massive as this, it is likely that some of the assumptions – under either plan – will inevitably be found to be significantly in error.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>The costs of completing a national broadband network - under either a Labor or Coalition government - can only be considered estimates until the network is actually implemented, and all costs and revenues brought to book. </p>
<p>The merits of the Labor/NBN Co and Coalition NBN plans deserve more analysis and debate in an election year. However, there are too many uncertainties and assumptions to be able to provide a definitive fact check on which party is right on its costings. <strong>- Peter Gerrand</strong></p>
<hr>
<h2>3. Malcolm Turnbull: Obama’s climate change policies are more like the Coalition’s than Labor’s.</h2>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>“[US president] Barack Obama gave a <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/25/remarks-president-climate-change">great speech about climate change</a> recently, a lot of initiatives, [and] an emissions trading scheme is not part of them. The measures he announced are more like the Coalition’s policies in fact.” - Shadow communications minister Malcolm Turnbull, 8 July.<em><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh-CgQnb690&t=59m32s"> (Watch his statement here)</a>.</em></strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Climate policy is back in the news, both in Australia and in the United States. The Labor leadership change, from Julia Gillard to Kevin Rudd, has sparked <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2013/s3799051.htm">speculation that the government will move</a> from the current fixed carbon price to an emissions trading scheme in 2014, a year earlier than currently planned.</p>
<p><em>(You can read an explainer on <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-the-difference-between-a-carbon-tax-and-an-ets-1679">the differences between an emissions trading scheme and a carbon tax here</a>.)</em> </p>
<p>While Malcolm Turnbull has long made it clear that <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/abbotts-climate-change-policy-is-bullshit-20091207-kdmb.html">he personally favours emissions trading</a>, he stressed on Monday’s show that he <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/market-system-best-to-reduce-emissions-turnbull-20130709-2pn12.html">“will support the collective wisdom of the party room”</a>. Rather than making businesses pay for emissions permits, under the Coalition’s <a href="http://www.greghunt.com.au/Issues/DirectAction/DirectAction-Index.aspx">Direct Action plan</a> an Abbott government would buy emission reductions from industry, provide support for rooftop solar panels and start a tree-planting program.</p>
<p>So is Labor or the Coalition closer to Obama’s current policy position?</p>
<p>President Obama <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/06/25/remarks-president-climate-change">last month</a> announced a suite of climate change initiatives including regulating greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants and further investment in clean-energy companies.</p>
<p>Both Obama’s and the Coalition’s approaches are based on direct government intervention. In Obama’s proposal, the government reduces emissions by regulating emitters to stop or reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. In the Coalition policy, the government would pay the emitters directly to stop or reduce. Both are different from emissions trading, in which permits to pollute are bought and sold by major emitters - such as power generators and factories - who then move towards stopping or reducing their emissions to lower their costs.</p>
<p>But it’s easy to go too far here. The Obama policies are <em>more</em> like the Direct Action scheme than Labor’s current carbon price, but much of the detail of the Coalition’s policy is yet to be made clear. At the moment, we know Direct Action will provide a voluntary mechanism where organisations can bid for funding to reduce emissions. Obama’s will be a mandatory system imposed by regulation. </p>
<p>It’s not the same, but it’s certainly not emissions trading either.</p>
<p>To some extent, Obama has been forced to go down the path of regulation. Since 2009, Obama has essentially faced some of the same difficulties that Labor faced while trying to introduce a carbon price in Australia. </p>
<p>During his election campaign, Obama, along with the Republican candidate, were both expressing a strong view that a move to address climate change was critical. In 2008/09, there was a move to introduce an emissions trading scheme, commonly known as the <a href="http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h2454/actions_votes">Waxman-Markey Bill</a>. There was initially a lot of support for it in Congress but ultimately it failed because by the time Obama got into government the Republicans resisted it strongly.</p>
<p>So then it became difficult, if not impossible, for Obama to get his market-based policy through congress. In his second term, he was forced to try and find alternatives. His new regulatory approach is much more likely to succeed as it does not need congressional approval.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Turnbull is correct – the current policies of the Obama administration are closer to the Coalition’s than Labor’s. But this shouldn’t be read as an assessment of the Coalition’s policy against the government’s. <strong>- Tony Wood</strong></p>
<hr>
<h2>4. Anthony Albanese: political party reform is happening around the world</h2>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>“[Political party reform] is happening around the world with parties of both the left and the right.” - Deputy prime minister Anthony Albanese, 8 July. <em><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh-CgQnb690&t=8m10s">(Watch his statement here)</a>.</em></strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Particularly since the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/occupy-movement">Occupy Wall Street movement</a>, the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/15/spain-15-m-movement-activism">15th May movement</a> and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/arab-spring">Arab Spring</a>, there has been debate about how governments and political parties can do more to involve people in politics. “People want engagement, people don’t just want to receive, they want to also be able to participate in a real way,” Albanese said of <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-more-coups-against-labor-pms-under-new-rudd-rules-15887">Labor’s proposed reforms</a>, which would ensure the leader is elected jointly by party members and members of parliament. Now, MPs have the sole right to elect the leader.</p>
<p>Political parties in Western representative democracies have often found the need to re-energise themselves. This happened under Gough Whitlam’s leadership in the 1960s when there was an expansion of National Conference and the national executive and federal interventions in NSW and Victoria. </p>
<p>The British Labour Party is sometimes cited as an example of recent reform that Labor is following. But that change happened in 1981, some 30 years ago, when the election of the party leader was opened up from the caucus (the current ALP system) to a tripartite college of caucus, unions and membership.The BLP was following the path blazed by the British Liberal Party in 1976. </p>
<p>The British Conservative Party opened to party membership the election of party leader, but only when there are two final candidates, in 1998, some 15 years ago. In Canada, the Parti Quebecois (a leftist provincial party) opened the election of its leader to its members back in 1985. So the recent reform by the Labor party equivalent, the New Democratic Party, is not so new for Canada.</p>
<p>The French Socialist Party introduced primaries for its supporters to elect its leader in advance of the 2012 election. And the Italian Democratic Party (PD) allowed primaries in 2011. In Italy’s case, it needs to be seen in the context of almost 20 years of political reform to what was a corrupt political system.</p>
<p>It’s possible to see Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s initiative not as part of a democratic idea sweeping the world - if that is what Albanese meant - but part of the sporadic happenings of parties that find themselves in substantial political difficulties. Parties have to respond to each generation of voters, and attempts to involve voters through the internet have been arguably more important to increasing voter participation than opening up leadership ballots to party members. </p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>It is a stretch to say that Rudd’s proposed reforms are part of a recent global trend - they have been happening for more than four decades. Usually, changes to the election of leaders have had more to do with parties responding at various times to local political difficulties than to a general blossoming of political participation across the globe. <strong>- Mark Rolfe</strong></p>
<p><div class="callout">The Conversation is fact checking statements made in the lead-up to this year’s federal election. Normally, these are reviewed. But each week, we will also check significant factual assertions on the ABC’s Q&A program. To allow us to publish these checks as soon as possible, there will be no review process. Request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.</div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/15911/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span> Tony Wood owns shares in Origin Energy, BHPBilliton and other ASX200 companies.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Rolfe and Peter Gerrand do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>UPDATED: We were inundated with ideas for statements to check from Monday night’s Q&A on ABC TV. Here, our experts tackle four claims on three of the most requested topics. 1. Anthony Albanese: claims…Peter Gerrand, Honorary Professorial Fellow in Telecommunications, The University of MelbourneMark Rolfe, Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, UNSW SydneyTony Wood, Program Director, Energy, Grattan InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/18442011-06-15T01:49:39Z2011-06-15T01:49:39ZAustralia’s first fish-eating spinosaurus discovered<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1664/original/spinosaurus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The fish-eating dinosaur discovered in Victoria is a member of Spinosauridae, a group of fish-eating theropod dinosaurs found in Asia and Europe</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1664/original/spinosaurus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1664/original/spinosaurus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1664/original/spinosaurus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1664/original/spinosaurus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1664/original/spinosaurus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1664/original/spinosaurus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/1664/original/spinosaurus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The fish-eating dinosaur discovered in Victoria is a member of Spinosauridae, a group of fish-eating theropod dinosaurs found in Asia and Europe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Paleontologists think it had the snout of a crocodile, the claws of a bear and a taste for seafood.</p>
<p>But what’s most interesting about the discovery of Australia’s first fish-eating dinosaur is its similarities with specimens found in Asia and Europe, shedding light on how dinosaurs spread around the world in the Cretaceous period (125-100 million years ago).</p>
<p>Researchers from London’s Natural History Museum, the University of Cambridge, Museum Victoria and Monash University have determined that a dinosaur vertebra found on the Victorian coast belonged to a member of the Spinosauridae, a group of fish-eating dinosaurs usually found in Europe and Asia.</p>
<p>“The new fossil is the first example of a spinosaurid dinosaur from Australia,” researcher Paul Barrett from the UK’s Natural History Museum was quoted as saying on the museum’s <a href="http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2011/june/first-australian-spinosaur-dinosaur-had-global-distribution98368.html">website</a>.</p>
<p>“It is almost identical to the Natural History Museum’s own <em>Baryonyx</em> specimen from England.”</p>
<p>Baryonyx was a 10-metres-long dinosaur, had a crocodile-shaped mouth and claws like a bear.</p>
<p>“This discovery significantly extends the geographical range of spinosaurids, suggesting that the clade obtained a near-global distribution before the onset of Pangaean fragmentation,” the researchers wrote in their paper, which was published in the journal <a href="http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/"><em>Biology Letters</em></a>.</p>
<p>Pangaea was a single supercontinent that covered the world before eventually breaking up into continents. A clade is a group of organisms with a common ancestor.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/1844/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Paleontologists think it had the snout of a crocodile, the claws of a bear and a taste for seafood. But what’s most interesting about the discovery of Australia’s first fish-eating dinosaur is its similarities…Sunanda Creagh, Senior EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/12312011-05-16T04:12:47Z2011-05-16T04:12:47ZThe BitTorrent lawsuit: why Sly Stallone is out to get you<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/1083/original/aapone-20090913000205192947-italy_venice_film_festival-original.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">When it comes to illegal downloading, are we all expendable?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Claudio Onorati/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ever downloaded a Hollywood flick from the internet?</p>
<p>If the answer is “yes” then you could be next on Rambo’s hit list. As <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/biggest-bittorrent-case/">reported recently</a>, an American federal judge has agreed to allow the U.S. Copyright Group to subpeona at least 23,000 BitTorrent users for illegally downloading Sylvester Stallone’s meat-head heavy film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1320253/">The Expendables</a>. </p>
<p>This decision could effect the single largest illegal BitTorrent downloading case in U.S history. </p>
<p><strong>How do BitTorrent users access licensed content?</strong></p>
<p>The majority of internet users employ <a href="http://www.bittorrent.com/">BitTorrent</a> technology to download and share licensed content. </p>
<p>BitTorrent uses customised peer-to-peer protocols to facilitate the sharing of content among its users. The use of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer">peer-to-peer technology</a> ensures there is no requirement for a single server to act as a content aggregator and distributor. </p>
<p>The users share the content directly with each other, which makes BitTorrent very efficient at delivering content to a large user base.</p>
<p>BitTorrent is one of the most popular file sharing technologies for several reasons. It uses a tit-for-tat system that rewards users for uploading content. The BitTorrent protocol also breaks large content files into very small chunks of data: this means users can download the file from multiple locations simultaneously, reducing the download time substantially. This makes it especially useful for large and popular files.</p>
<p><strong>How can Rocky, or anyone else, track BitTorrent users?</strong></p>
<p>The decentralised nature of BitTorrent technology makes it hard to track users that have downloaded a specific piece of content. But content owners can use sophisticated techniques to track the perpetrators. </p>
<p>Users trying to download a file have to obtain a <a href="http://www.ehow.com/about_4673906_what-torrent-file.html">torrent file</a> associated with that piece of content. This file stores information about the various chunks of data associated with the larger content file and, more importantly, the location of all <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_tracker">tracker files</a> on the internet. </p>
<p>Tracker files store information about the active users sharing (uploading or downloading) the file. A new user is therefore able to connect to one or more of these active users and download the file. </p>
<p>Content owners often pretend to be normal users wanting to share the file. This allows them to be part of the tracker file and, in return, they have access to other active users (or IP addresses) sharing the file. These IP addresses are then forwarded to internet service providers (ISPs), the owners of which are obliged to provide details to the content owners. </p>
<p>This method of detection, though crude, is effective because popular content often has a large active user base. Furthermore, content providers are pressuring ISPs to install filters that can detect BitTorrent traffic and detect whether users are accessing licensed content. Such techniques are helping content owners successfully shut down sites that host torrent files for licensed content.</p>
<p><strong>Could the Expendables case be a knockout blow for illegal BitTorrent use?</strong></p>
<p>Despite (or maybe because of) its notoriety, BitTorrent’s popularity keeps on growing, with 100 million active users and <a href="http://news.softpedia.com/news/BitTorrent-Represents-The-Internet-64446.shtml">a large percentage of total internet traffic</a> attributed to the technology. </p>
<p>As a company, BitTorrent provides the most efficient <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_delivery_network">CDN</a> (Content Delivery Network) product to its customers. A large number of businesses use it to distribute content. </p>
<p>Given its ubiquity, BitTorrent will continue to be used for delivering content – legal and illegal. Perhaps the company can improve its technology to differentiate legitimate users from the troublemakers who upload and share illegal content. </p>
<p>This will definitely help the Schwarzeneggers and Stallones of the world in their mission to catch the bad guys. And when they do … well, you’d better start running …</p>
<p><strong><em>Should people be sued for illegal downloading? Leave your comments below</em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/1231/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Santosh Kulkarni does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ever downloaded a Hollywood flick from the internet? If the answer is “yes” then you could be next on Rambo’s hit list. As reported recently, an American federal judge has agreed to allow the U.S. Copyright…Santosh Kulkarni, Principal Researcher, Data61Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.