The European Commission paid €360,000 (about $428,000) for a study on how piracy impacts the sales of copyrighted music, books, video games, and movies. But the EU never shared the report—possibly because it determined that there is no evidence that piracy is a major problem.
Source: The EU Suppressed a 300-Page Study That Found Piracy Doesn’t Harm Sales
ImageRights International, the global leader in copyright enforcement services for photo agencies and professional photographers, today announced the launch of a dedicated copyright registration service.
Source: Leading Copyright Enforcement Service Imagerights Announces Dedicated Copyright Registration Service
The main driver of this jump was full paid subscription, which jumped 49.5% year-on-year in retail sales terms, hitting $1.49bn in the first half of this year. ‘Limited’ (ie. not fully on-demand) paid services generating $224.7m in the six months – up by a whopping 224.7% year-on-year.
Source: US recorded music industry revenues grew 15% in first half of 2017 – Music Business Worldwide
EventChain will be bringing their Blockchain expertise to a sector of the entertainment business that could benefit hugely from an immutable ledger such as the Ethereum Blockchain.
Until yesterday, “Sponsorships” was only in beta for gaming channels. Now, the fan subscription model is available to all gamers and in beta for select musicians and other creators.
Source: Patreon Just Raised $60M, Now YouTube Is Gunning For It with Fan ‘Sponsorships – hypebot
The company wants to use the cash infusion to further build out its platform, grow its staff and target new markets around the world. Patreon’s pitch to podcasters, musicians and other creators has been its ability to unlock alternative revenue streams through subscriptions and recurring patronage.
Source: Patreon Raises $60 Million Series C Round of Funding | Variety
In quite a short time, copyright has come to be seen by many outside our industry as an inhibitor to creativity and innovation instead of the enabler and protector it once was. It’s true to say that the consequent disruption to our industry has been felt more intensely in some countries than others.
Source: Michael Healy on World Copyright Issues to Publishers Need to Watch
Big Blue has been making considerable steps forward with research and development projects aimed at broadening the scope of distributed ledger technology to include industries other than the financial services.
Source: IBM far outranks Microsoft as blockchain industry leader, report says
The digital content revolution has done a lot for increasing access and visibility for artists and authors, but the current publishing giants have failed to adequately adjust to the times in a few crucial areas.
Source: Op Ed: How Blockchain Technology Will Disrupt Digital Content Distribution — Bitcoin Magazine
The viewing experience of watching movies and TV shows on the Web has now moved from a cumbersome and possibly insecure arrangement to the security of the Open Web Platform. The integration of the EME API into the Open Web enables Web browsers to communicate with the software that allows playback of protected content.
Source: W3C Publishes Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) as a W3C Recommendation