How ones position in the world shapes how he or she might feel about identity, society and culture.

An Individuals position in world has a significant impact on how they view the world. Their views on identity, society, and culture are affected by how they live and what they see everyday. When an average American sees the pictures of disaster on the child’s poster on page 500 they are likely to not feel very strong emotions. This is because there is a true disconnect between our situations. A person seeing the poster is not being directly affected but a person who lives in that disaster area will certainly have some strong feelings about the incident. The photographer most likely tried to capture an image that would evoke some emotions and by doing that the photographer could have possibly missed truthfully reporting the event.

How a person reacts to different photos can reveal a lot about that person. If they respond strongly to an event happening far away, they might have some sort of tie to that place. If a person reacts negatively or in an annoyed manner when seeing the “99%” protesters in the streets of America you can deduce that the individual is not in favor of what that movement is doing.  How people react to and interpret photograph can show what type of person they are in many aspects. It can tell you whether they are liberal or conservative, have lot of money, or where they are from just to name a few. That is why it is very important for photographers and editors to know what their audience will respond to when choosing photos to run on the front page of a newspaper.

Annotated Bibliography

Andrew Todd

Mr. Stow

English 103

18 October 2011

Music Piracy: Annotated Bibliography

Blackburn, David. “On-line Piracy and Recorded Music Sales.” Ariel December 2 (2004): 1-42.

           

            This in depth analysis of file sharing provides me with a large amount of background info about the music industry at the time Napster became popular. The author is attempting to find the truth between two conflicting positions on file sharing. Mr. Blackburn took a rather neutral approach to the subject by using studies that have findings that both support and contradict the idea that online piracy negatively affects the music industry. Also, It contains several useful charts about the sales of the music industry.

Friedlander, Joshua, and Jonathan Lamy. "Illegal Downloading = Fewer Musicians." RIAA - Recording Industry Association of America. RIAA, 19 July 2010. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. <http://www.riaa.com/blog.php>.

This article is disproving the earlier findings of certain professors by showing a study that supports the articles argument. They tell why a certain study is inaccurate due to its data collection method. This source is rather biased since it is from the record industry, but they do bring up some good points to consider. I plan on using one of their charts to extrapolate information and their counterargument to support my thesis 

Giliespie, Nick. "Music Meltdown." Reason 35.7 (2003): 18. EBSCOhost. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost>.

            This brief article presents data about CD prices and record industry revenue. It features the opinions of two editorialists. Source should be rather unbiased seeing as how they are simply presenting data. Provides very useful data and few quotes that will contribute to my paper.

Kusek, David, and Gerd Leonhard. The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution. Boston: Berklee, 2005. Print.

            This source discusses the future of what music distribution will look like and how the record industry can capitalize on it.  They theorize that it will turn into monthly service much like a cable bill. Where consumers would have access to (in theory) a limitless amount of music in their home. Provides good information about the possible benefits of developing a good P2P file sharing system.

Liebowitz, Stan. "File Sharing: Creative Destruction or Just Plain Destruction?" Journal of Law and Economics 49.1 (2006): 1-28. SSRN. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=646943>.

            Liebowitz provides an extensive amount of information filesharing activity and record sales. A vast amount of background information on past copyright issues is also presented. He takes a very numerical based approach to his decisions, which tends to make it less biased. I will be able to use the great background work done by liebowitz to make sure my reader fully understands the issue I am writing about.

London, Eversheds. “Online piracy of recorded music.” Journal of Brand Management 11.2 (2003): 129-132.

           

            London’s comments on technology are a bit dated but his incite into legal matters are useful. The paper also talks about solutions that the industry could explore. He is basically summarizing the various aspects that contribute to online piracy. For my paper I can definitely use the viewpoint coming from England and his reader friendly summary of the issue is great.

Montoro-Pons, Juan, and Manuel Cuadrado-Garcia. "Digital Goods and the Effects of Copying: An Empirical Study of the Music Market." 14th International Confernce on Cultural Economics (2006): 1-19. Print.

            This paper provides a very theory based looked at the economic affects of piracy. Author makes the point that by breaking the copyright laws, incentive for both artists and record companies is dramatically decreased. His findings and theorizing conclude with him finding a substitution affect between downloading and purchasing of goods. His non data based approach will provide some good discussion material for my paper.

Pietz, Martin, and Patrick Waelbroeck. "Why the Music Industry May Gain from Free Downloading — The Role of Sampling." International Journal of Industrial Organization 24.5 (2005): 907-13. Science Direct. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167718705001682>.

            This paper focuses on the potential profits of the record company by allowing downloading and not allowing downloading. It claims that through sampling that the industry could stand to make more money by allowing music to be shared. It allows users to refine an albums utility to them, therefore making them more likely to purchase. Provides very insightful information into a position seen as illogical by the record companies

Pietz, Martin, and Patrick Waelbroeck. "The Effect of Internet Piracy on Music Sales: Cross-Section Evidence." Review of Economic Research on Copyright Issues 1.2 (2004): 71-79. SSRN. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1145904>.

This paper by Pietz and Wealbroeck used Macroeconomic data (not theory) to test the affects of piracy. The took a multi country sample and looked at things such as GDP, music “quality”, and other media substitutes. This time they found information to support the record industries claim that their sales are being affected negatively by file sharing. This contradicts Pietz other finding. More economic data to support my argument will be used.

"Submission to Hargreaves Review." Featured Artists Coalition. Mar. 2011. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. <http://www.featuredartistscoalition.com>.

            This paper submitted to the government in the UK is list of things this group of artists would like to see done to the copyright laws in the UK. Their points are very logical as far as fairness go, but they fail to provide substantial evidence as to how more money would be made. A collective of artists wrote the paper so it brings a good point of view to argument that is mainly argued by academics and lawyers. I will definitely use their prospective to provide an alternate point of view to my paper.

Sudip, Bhattacharjee, Lertwachara Kaveepan, Gopal Ram, and Marsden James. "Economic of Online Music." ICEC '03 Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Electronic Commerce (2003): 300-09. ACM Digital Library. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=948005.948045>.

             Article compares 5 different scenarios with varying styles of piracy and traditional sales options. It then compares the results to find the options best suited for the involved parties. It is a well developed study and its results should be unaffected by bias since it is numerically based. The large varieties of graphs and tables will provide a lot of great data for my paper.

Zentner, Alejandro. “Measuring the Effect of Online Music Piracy on Music Sales.” Knowledge Creation Diffusion Utilization (2004): 1-32. Mendeley. Web. 17 Oct. 2011.

< http://www.mendeley.com/research/measuring-effect-online-music-piracy-music-sales>

Provides an all encompassing look at the issue. Provides background data, empirical based results, and a thorough analysis of the data it presents. The statistical test it runs seem to be well designed and they are reported in fair way. The fact that this covers so much information in one document will be very useful for summarizing information.

Research Freewrite

The rapid expansion and improvement of technology over the past couple decades has changed many aspects of our lives. This includes how we get our media. The internet has enabled the sharing of music files through torrents and other downloading services. This has affected the music industry in various ways, many of which are negative.  In this paper I will analyze the affects of online piracy on the music industry. Record sales have been declining recently due to the increased availability of free music. Having all this music available for free lessens the importance of owning the CD, therefore hurting the industry from the ground up. Stores sell less, which means less money for labels, which in turn gives them less money to promote current artist and to sign new ones. Torrenting and other forms of online piracy have negatively affected the music industry by decreasing record sales and lowering the revenue of the labels.

            I will use a multitude of sources in order to strengthen my argument against piracy. I want to use CD sales information for data so that I may interpret it myself. Also, I will be looking for commentary on the subject from people familiar with the industry. Studies relating to the matter will also be used to further refine my opinion. The music industry usually puts out a yearly report on how the year went; it typically covers the affect of piracy on their sales; so I will be using that as well. I will also look at what the Featured Artist Coalition has to say about the issue, because they are artist who are for having more freedom over how their music is distributed. This will be a good counter point because they are a group of experts who disagree with me on the issue.

            A potential issue that could arise is that very recent sales numbers may not be available yet. Since I do not download music illegally there will not be any interference with my own behavior. I will need to fully refine and flush out my opinion on the issue since it has many layers that interlace with each other.

The effects of the digital age on the Music Industry

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1145904 - A 4 year examination of data to analyze the monetary losses due to digital piracy.

suffolk - discussion of the positives and the negatives of having all digital music instantly available to us in our home for a small monthly fee, much like water or gas.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167718705001682 - a counter point to my argument paper is trying to see benefits beyond the instant loss of funds. says record companies could possibly profit from free music.

gillespie - details growth of illegal activity and the proposal to decrease CD prices

poor sales - talking about how a #1 chart topper for nielson sold less then 50,000 copies in one week. which is extremely low.

Research Ideas

Demise of Hard Copy media and how it negatively affects the entertainment industry.

The rise of digitally downloading of music, movies, books, and other media has changed the way most of us get our entertainment. We are now able to get media instantly from our computer, often times it can be found for free. This wide availability has led to people, especially in my generation, to download music/movies illegally from various online services.  Without the revenue of physical and digital sales many record labels have seen a decrease in profits.  With less of a profit margin labels will tend to spend less money on signing new artist and promoting them.

Being a bi lingual person has multiple benefits related to business and personal life.

I would be looking into differences of people who speak only 1 language and those who speak multiple. The differences I would be looking to observe would be pay rate, position in company, how many times they have been fired/laid off, along with other aspects of their personal and professional life. I would argue that people who speak multiple languages are more valuable to companies then a person who can only speak 1 language.  Also, there are several benefits for mental health that come from being able to speak 2 languages.

Thesis

The visual elements of this photo make an effective appeal to every aspect of rhetoric, whether it is the official presence of the military, the emotion of mourning family members, or the way the photograph was taken.

Options for Paper