CiceroLove - Slashdot User

Study Finds P2P Has No Effect on Legal Music Sales 294

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday February 13 2007, @10:15AM
from the everybody-feign-deep-shock dept.

MBrichacek writes "The Journal of Political Economy is running the results of a study into P2P file-sharing, reports Ars Technica. The study has found that, contrary to the claims of the recording industry, there is almost no effect on sales from file-sharing. Using data from several months in 2002, the researchers came to the conclusion that P2P 'affected no more than 0.7% of sales in that timeframe.' 803 million CDs were sold in 2002, according to the study, which was a decrease of about 80 million from the previous year. While the RIAA has been blaming that drop (and the drop in subsequent years) on piracy, given the volume of file-sharing that year the impact from file sharing could not have been more than 6 million albums total. Thus, 74 million unsold CDs from that year are 'without an excuse for sitting on shelves.'"

The world police?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2007, @10:02AM

An anonymous reader writes "The western society is willing to remove a government based on hearsay (Iraq) and revenge (Afghanistan). Largely these countries had a population that was satisfied to some extent but was at odds with the needs of the west. What then, when another is actually spiralling into self destruction because of a brutal protectionist regime? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2007/02/13/wzim13.xml What line needs to be crossed before the world steps in? What can be done?"

Wikipedia Founder Introduces Open Source Wiki Mags

Submitted by KingJawa on Tuesday February 13 2007, @09:57AM

KingJawa writes "Wikipedia blew away Encyclopedia Brittanica, but can the model be used to upset the magazine industry? Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, thinks so. His company, Wikia, today announced three open-source magazine-style sites where users can write about news, opinion and gossip — one magazine wiki each for politics, entertainment, and local interests. Each open-source magazine hands total editorial control to the readers, allowing them to read, write, edit, and dictate the editorial feel for each topic."

Google Loses Belgian Copyright Case

Submitted by

Christian Engstrom

on Tuesday February 13 2007, @09:44AM

Christian Engstrom writes "A court on Tuesday ruled in favour of Belgian newspapers claiming that Google News infringes copyright laws. Google said it was disappointed with the ruling and will appeal. "We believe that Google News is entirely legal," the company said in a statement. "We only ever show the headlines and a few snippets of text and small thumbnail images. If people want to read the entire story they have to click through to the newspaper's website.""

Developing websites using PHP

Submitted by

NilayVaish

on Tuesday February 13 2007, @09:35AM

NilayVaish writes "I am a final year Computer Science student at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. I am trying to build an online programming contest system. The frontend would be web-based. I am thinking of keeping the backend in the form of PHP scripts. Is the choice good especially for high speed performance and scalability? Can anyone suggest some of the web design tools that provide PHP support?"

Study: P2P has no effect on legal music sales

Submitted by

phaedo00

on Tuesday February 13 2007, @09:32AM

phaedo00 writes "Ars Technica covers a very interesting paper published in the Journal of Political Economy by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf that concludes that P2P has an effect on legal music sales that is pretty much statistically 0: "Using detailed records of transfers of digital music files, we find that file sharing has had no statistically significant effect on purchases of the average album in our sample," the study reports. "Even our most negative point estimate implies that a one-standard-deviation increase in file sharing reduces an album's weekly sales by a mere 368 copies, an effect that is too small to be statistically distinguishable from zero.""

Why Do Games Sell? 103

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday February 13 2007, @09:15AM
from the psychic-powers-beats-gang-violence dept.

simoniker writes "Game designer Pierre-Alexandre Garneau has published a new article compiling a list of factors that make games popular, and although he notes: "The test assumes that the game is good — if it's bad, chances are it won't sell no matter how high it scores on this test," his comparison of GTA 3 and Psychonauts tries to apply common-sense reasoning to why one sold well and the other did not."

Update: Energy Tower Power Calculations

Submitted by

rohar

on Tuesday February 13 2007, @09:03AM

rohar writes "Since this story was originally posted, the efficiency and power output calculations of this Open Design Renewable Energy Project have been completed for implementations of a mid-sized installation for various climates.

Although the project is not at the pilot stage yet, the physics and math demonstrate that the system can meet the design criteria of a clean, renewable, feasible, location independant, reliable electrical generation system that can be built from common materials."

"Inventive Step" test for UK patents consi

Submitted by

Panaqqa

on Tuesday February 13 2007, @08:44AM

Panaqqa writes "People on both sides of the Atlantic can see there's something wrong with the current patent system, but it's interesting that in the UK, it's the patent office itself considering the reform. A public consultation process was carried out last year and the report has just been published (warning PDF). It's unfortunate that on this side of the ocean it takes The Supreme Court to get involved and to force the issue."

Police, cameras, action

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 13 2007, @08:12AM

An anonymous reader writes "silicon.com has got hold of video footage from UK police trials of helmet cameras — as previously reported on slashdot last year — showing arrests as they happen. Violent crime has reportedly fallen by nearly 10 per cent in areas where the tech is being trialled."