Last summer (2013), Ben Wheatley’s A Field in England, became the first UK film to be launched
in cinemas, DVD, TV and VoD all on the same day. This could become the
norm in the future – giving people the choice of medium from the start,
rather than making them wait several months after the cinema release
to enjoy it.
There has been a sharp growth in film and music downloads
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More than £1bn was spent on downloaded films, music and games in the UK in 2012, the highest annual total.
Sales increased 11.4% from 2011, meaning that a quarter of the entertainment market is now digital.
But figures released later by entertainment retailers will
also show a big drop in physical sales - more bad news for high street
shops.
Sales of CDs, DVDs, Blu-ray and video games fell by 17.6% in 2011 although they still make up most of the market.
Kim Bayley, director general of the Entertainment Retailers
Association (ERA), which will release the figures, said that breaking
the £1bn barrier was an "incredible achievement" for retailers.
"This reflects their huge investment in new and innovative
services - which means you can buy music, video and games literally at
any time of the day and wherever you are.
"At the same time I suspect that many people will be
surprised to learn just how resilient the physical business still is -
with three-quarters of entertainment sales still on disc.
"Downloads offer convenience and portability, but people still seem to value the quality and tangibility of a physical product."
Geoff Taylor from UK music industry body the British
Phonographic Industry credited the Jubilee and London 2012 Olympic Games
for showcasing British music around the world and driving up sales.
"But market conditions at home remained difficult and
pressure on the 'leisure wallet' impacted music sales on the high
street," he added.
Analysis
On the surface, it's been another buoyant year for the entertainment industry.
Such healthy figures could lead some to wonder if the threat
of piracy - which saw the industry locked in legal to-ing and fro-ing
with internet providers throughout 2012 - is perhaps overstated.
But in truth, the entertainment industry still has a huge
battle on its hands. By far the biggest slice of its income is via
physical sales - and these continue to decline.
In its quest for new revenue models, the music industry's
move to offering its artists' material on streaming services - such as
Spotify - has been a popular one, with 3.7 billion streams by British
fans in 2012.
But revenue from these services is miniscule when compared to
actual sales, leaving the entertainment industry looking over its
shoulder - more so in 2013 than ever before.
"The quality of our music and
digital innovation by UK labels means we have excellent potential for
domestic growth and to increase our share of the global music market.
"We hope government will recognise the potential of digital
music to contribute to economic recovery and provide more active support
in 2013."
More than half of the digital sales went on video games, which grew 8% to £552m.
Films and music had a smaller share of the digital market but sharper growth - downloaded films up by 20% and music by 15%.
BBC technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones said: "The
entertainment industry has been struggling to adapt to the digital age.
"And while consumers are now paying for downloads, that's not making up for the rapid fall in high street sales."
Sales of video games in shops were particularly badly hit, with retailers blaming a lack of compelling new titles, he added.
Digital services boost sales of video and music sales
Skyfall and the first Hobbit film were the best-selling videos of 2013
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Digital
services like Spotify, Netflix and iTunes have helped boost sales of
video and music in the UK, according to figures from entertainment
retailers.
Digital sales of video grew by 40% in 2013, helping to offset a 6.8% decline in sales of physical formats.
Music streaming, meanwhile, saw a 33.7% rise and now accounts for nearly 10% of consumer revenues from recorded music.
The overall UK music, video and games market was worth £5.4 billion in 2013, up 4% on 2012's total of £5.1 billion.
Kim Bayley, director general of the Entertainment Retailers
Association (ERA), said this was "a stunning result after at least five
years of decline".
Digital video, which includes iTunes downloads as well as
streaming services like Netflix and Lovefilm, made up 30% of 2013's
total video sales of £2.06 billion.
Skyfall, the latest James Bond film, was the year's
biggest-selling video, having shifted 2.96m units since its release in
February.
The first instalment of the Hobbit franchise, An Unexpected
Journey, was the second biggest seller, having sold 2.06 units since its
release in April.
The picture for the British music scene is not as rosy with overall sales falling by half a percent.
Physical sales of music have fallen by more than 7%, while
digital sales' 3.5% rise is lower than a 15% percent boost seen in the
previous year.
The slack has been picked up however, by streaming of music
via such services as Spotify and Deezer which saw subscription revenues
rise to £103.1m, according to estimates from the BPI (British
Phonographic Industry).
The trade body put the total value of UK recording music
sales at £1.04 billion. Digital sales, not including streaming revenues,
account for around 40% of that total. 'Weak release schedule'
For all digital's advances, physical formats still account for
more than half - 56% - of all sales of music, video and games in the
UK.
Blu-ray video was the best performing physical format, with sales of almost £252m constituting a 10% increase on 2012.
But vinyl albums also saw a significant increase over the last 12 months, with sales in 2014 more than doubling to £14.6m.
One Direction were the top selling single UK artists
Now That's What I Call Music 86 was the biggest-selling album
of 2013, having shifted 1.2m copies. Its sister titles, Now... 85 and
Now... 84, were the year's second and third biggest-selling albums
respectively.
One Direction were the biggest selling single UK act for 2013, surpassing Emeli Sande - whose album was released in 2012.
Their 685,000 copies sole mean no single UK artists sold more than one million copies, a first for more than 20 years.
The ERA's Kim Bayley attributed the overall drop in music sales in 2013, in part, to "a weak release schedule".
Peter Jackson's first instalment of the Hobbit trilogy was the most pirated film of 2013
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was the most pirated film of 2013, according to the website TorrentFreak.
More than 8.4m people downloaded the film using BitTorrent networks which allow peer-to-peer file sharing.
Quentin Tarantino's movie Django Unchained took second place in the list with 8.1m downloads.
Piracy remains popular in part due to the delay between a
film being shown at a cinema and its release for download or streaming,
said TorrentFreak.
The year's top grossing movie Iron Man 3 also appeared on the
list, but the hugely popular film The Hunger Games: Catching Fire did
not feature.
TorrentFreak compiles its list from various sources including download statistics reported by public BitTorrent trackers.
Uploads to The Pirate Bay increased by 50% in 2013
But its figures do not include illegal online streaming or
cyberlocker downloads, which allow users to share files if they have
access to a password, so the total number of pirated films could be much
higher. 'Jobs at risk'
The battle against piracy has seen several courts around the
world order internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to the
file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. The site hosts links to download
mostly pirated music and video.
It has had to change domain names six times in a bid to get around the site-blocking moves.
Despite this the site saw an increase in uploads of 50% during the past year with 2.8m files being listed.
A spokesperson for the Federation
Against Copyright Theft (Fact) said that piracy puts jobs in the
entertainment industry at risk and prevented future investment in
entertainment.
"Piracy threatens the livelihoods of over 1.5 million people
whose jobs rely on the continued success of films, TV programmes and
other forms of entertainment that are created in the UK.
"The people running websites providing access to pirated
content are doing it to make money... and Fact has helped bring criminal
convictions against site operators."
Although The Pirate Bay has seen an increase in the number of
illegally shared files legitimate digital services have helped boost
the sales of video and music in the UK according to figures released at
the start of the year.
Digital sales of video grew by 40% in 2013, helping to offset
a 6.8% decline in sales of physical formats. This was helped by
services like Spotify, Netflix and iTunes.
The overall UK music, video and games market was worth £5.4 billion in 2013, up 4% on 2012's total of £5.1 billion.
Google took down 5.3m links to pirate
content in the first week of September 2013 - just under nine every
second. Photograph: Walter Bieri/AP
Google took down a record-breaking 5.3 million allegedly infringing
links from its search engine in the last week of September, equivalent
to just under nine links every second.
The data, released as part of Google's transparency report, shows a significant rise in the number of takedown notices filed by copyright holders to Google over the last year. Google was forced to remove 5.3m pirate links in the last week of September.
Between July and October 2012 copyright holders sent Google about
1.8m link takedown notices a week, increasing to 2.8m a week in November
2012 and 3.8m in mid-December 2012.
In February 2013, takedown notices hit 3.8m a week, increasing to
4.47m at the end of March, and finally peaking in the final week of
September hitting 5.3m spanning 37,413 domains from 5,407 copyright
owners, which marked a 4008% increase over the first notice listings by
Google in July 2011. Examples of the links Google received takedown requests against.
Evidence does not support the claims
In contrast to the increasing action of copyright holders, a report published (PDF) by
the London School of Economics (LSE) has found that "evidence does not
support claims about overall revenue reduction due to individual online
copyright infringement".
"The marketing benefits and sales boosts arising from the sharing of
films online are starting to be seen as compensating for losses in
revenue due to infringing sharing, and the digital world is thriving on
ubiquitous digital content sharing."
In fact, according to the report, UK revenues from online music were
higher than revenues for both CDs and vinyl combined for the first time
in 2013, showing growth in the sector. Worldwide sales of recorded music
also increased in 2012 for the first time since 1999.
The movie industry is seeing growth too, despite the Motion Picture
Association of America’s (MPAA) claims that piracy is devastating its
bottom line. Global box office revenues hit $35bn in 2012, marking a 6%
increase on 2011, according to the report.
"File-sharers in the UK were found to spend more on content than
those who only consumed legal content, demonstrating the potential boost
to legal digital content sales as a result of content sampling."
The report concludes that those industries that have embraced digital
distribution are seeing increases in revenues, that online sharing has
benefits for media creation and that "evidence-based legislation on
copyright enforcement is needed that independently assesses the claims
of the dominant creative industry firms and the impacts on users in the
light of today’s digital culture." • In September, the movie industry's trade body lambasted Google and other search engine providers for doing too little to prevent people finding pirated content online.
A Case Study from Pete Fraser: Fans
I shall suggest ways in which the work of Henry Jenkins writing particularly in 'Convergence Culture' (2006) could be useful in the exam using fan videos as a case study. The conventional image of the fan, as portrayed in fictional representations, is of a deranged fanatic, endangering the life of the fan's hero. Examples would be Robert De Niro as Rupert Pupkin in King of Comedy (1982) or Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes in Misery (1990).
Henry Jenkins' work on fan fiction challenges this view as simplistic; in Convergence Culture he looks at a number of case studies to suggest that fans are engaged in quite a range of cultural activity. His chapters consider: Survivor and ‘spoilers’- the ways in which fan groups online collaborate to find out about upcoming episodes and circulate information about them or 'spoilers'; American Idol and ‘democracy’- the first US programme to use mass text voting, a way in which some would suggest that the audience participate in a form of limited democracy to choose their winner. The Matrix and ‘transmedia’ looks at the ways in which a text can be produced in a number of different forms- the films, animations, comic books, each of which adds a different element to the jigsaw of the story and which cannot be fully understood on their own. Star Wars and fan film production - of which there are many thousands on the net, some of massive technical prowess and Harry Potter- kids as writers and activists, where Jenkins looks at the ways in which young Potter fans have become involved in political movements based upon how they have interpreted the stories applying to real life issues.
Jenkins argues that the web has created ‘knowledge communities’ where fans meet together online to share interests and discuss them in depth. He sees fansites as having a sort of 'collective thinking' and sets of rules and credentials, where some things can and some things can't be said and where individuals can gain kudos for their knowledge as expert contributors in the same way as they would in the academic world - for example site admins or the most regular posters often have special status in fan groups and forums compared to newbies. Jenkins' definition of convergence is wider than the generally used definition around technology and the digitalisation of media content, as he looks also at the ways in which the integration of media industries into conglomerates represents an economic convergence but perhaps most importantly how the online age creates a social and cultural convergence too - with audiences coming together socially online from all over the globe and start to make things which they share online. This cultural production by fans of fiction that extends beyond the original text has been around since long before the web, but the distribution of it has become significantly easier since the online age began.
Task • Create a blog post title ‘Film Industry & Fandom’.
• In your own words give a definition of fandom and the different ways that film fans can express their fandom using online media?
• I would like you find evidence of the ‘key ideas’ at work.
Find examples to support / illustrate – screen shots, embed videos….etc.
Uploads to The Pirate Bay increased by 50% in 2013
