France's 'three strikes' piracy law hasn't helped music or movie sales
What's the best way to stamp out piracy? In France, the entertainment industry was successful in pushing a 'three strikes' law that would boot serial infringers from the web.
That went into effect in October 2010. So how's it doing?
According to HADOPI, the agency tasked with administering and enforcing the law of the same name, things are going just great.
A report it released, which looked at data for the 17-month period following the law's implementation, claims that "illegal downloading [is] clearly on the decline in France."
Bing's new entertainment features are a smart way to win new users
Bing may not have a large share of the search market, but Microsoft's search engine has been quietly picking up useful features in small verticals to pick up new users. Starting this week, the engine has new features that make it easier for users to find entertainment information online.
The "Entertainment" section on Bing now provides additional gaming, video streaming and film information. These are smart little tricks that could help create repeat visitors to Bing. And don't be surprised if you see Google taking notice.
IBM report warns on digital media lagtime
Media and entertainment companies aren't moving fast enough to embrace new business models and the ever-changing needs of digital customers. That's the warning shot fired by IBM Global Business Services in its annual survey of the digital marketing landscape.
"Media and entertainment (M&E) companies need to move beyond traditional advertising: the scenario of the future is consumer centricity," the report states. "Yet content owners, media distributors and agencies have not sufficiently responded to these changes, partly due to significant hurdles. Investment decisions are being hindered by new format uncertainty; the lack of cross-industry standards across formats, processes and especially metrics; and significant internal challenges."
Were reports of the entertainment industry's death greatly exaggerated?
There has been a lot of talk about the decline of the traditional entertainment industry the past several years.
As a growing and maturing Internet has become a much more powerful medium for the distribution of media, traditional entertainment enterprises, from television networks to record labels, have increasingly faced new challenges that many argued threaten their survival.
