Last week, London-based NetNames released a report entitled Sizing the piracy universe, which reveals substantial evidence that piracy of entertainment media increased substantially over a 15-month period of study.  The author of that report is Dr. David Price, Director of Piracy and Counterfeit Analysis at NetNames. Dr. Price was kind enough to take about an hour of his time for ...

Freeloading: How Our Insatiable Appetite for Free Content Starves Creativity In his new book, author Chris Ruen provides a glimpse into his personal transition from consumer of free media to advocate for artists’ rights and a more rational conversation about copyright in the digital age.  Ruen shares his own thoughts about common justifications for online piracy, about the mechanics behind ...

There are a lot theories and a lot of experimentation with regard to independent filmmaking, the digital age, and the prospects for redefining the ways in which filmed entertainment can be funded by sponsors and distributed over the web.  I thought it would be interesting to talk to Amy French, an old friend who is a writer, filmmaker, and actress ...

Beneath the roil of arguments about illegal downloading of digital media, there is an unmistakable social, dare I say ethical, implication to the idea that the next generation is growing up believing that it is normal to enjoy entertainment media without paying for it.  Perhaps the most counter-intuitive phenomenon is the fact that college students currently paying a premium to ...

While it’s true that affordable digital cameras and editing software have put impressive means of production into the hands any boot-strapping filmmaker with a dream, digital filmmaking at the highest end of TV and motion pictures is actually more complex and more expensive than the days of celluloid-only production.  As part of my focus on digital cinema, I interviewed cinematographer ...

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