In the given example that Americans downloaded music files from the web, so let’s start with the file sharing website, what are they, and how they running business on Internet.
Computer networks allow you to share files with friends, family, coworkers and customers. Before the Internet and home networks became popular, files were often shared using floppy disks. Nowadays, some people still use CD-ROM/ DVD-ROM disks and USB keys for transferring their photos, music and videos, but network five you more flexible options.
There are some methods for file sharing:
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Microsoft Windows contain built-in features for file sharing.
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File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is an older but still popular method to share files on the Internet.
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Peer to peer (P2P) file sharing an extremely popular method for swapping large files on the Internet, particularly music and videos.
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For decades, files have been transferred from person to person over a network using email software.
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Finally, numerous Websites built for community file sharing exist on the Internet. Members post or upload their files to the site using a web browser, and other can then download copies of these files using their browser. Some community file sharing sites charge member fees, while others are free ( advertising supported).
So, in this report we are going to discuss how the online sharing services running, and how they profit, and whether they will success or failed.
Profit Model of online sharing website
Old electronic file products profit model is now not match the current online market, a lot of website find new ways to earn money, there are several steps for a normal file sharing website from unprofitable to profitable.
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The first step can be very long or short, depends on the development. In order to attract new users and to make their file storage full of different kind of files, the file sharing websites need to have some program to attract users to upload files onto these website.
Take a Chinese file sharing website for example, 115 network disk, is a online file sharing website, you can find different kind of documents, music, movies and pictures if the uploader would like to share these files to the public. The attract user program is, when uploaders upload a certain number of files, the uploader can get some money, this is a kind of activity to attract users to upload files.
After the file disk contain big amount of different kinds of files, the website can attract new users, the second step is based on the first step.
After the website have a certain numbers of users, 115 network disk website divide the users into normal users and VIP users, because some files are not free for new users, but free to VIP paid users. But still the Ads is the biggest part of the website income.
This is an analysis for the Chinese document sharing market, how much percentage of the file sharing website remaining in the document market.
Just several years ago, the main method to search document in China website market was the web portals, they provide the stage for all users to read and write document, but the documents were not free, readers have to pain money to each document, and the lack of multiple payment is a big problem, so just three years past, the document sharing website grow at a full speed, people would like the website to open a terrace, and all the files free to upload or download.
File sharing problem: the copyright
The answer for the question “Is the record industry justified in attempting to shut file sharing network down” is yes they justified. When the copyright music files are used for business using, the record industry totally have the right to shut file sharing network down.
If the file sharing website doesn’t have any rules to restrict the infringement files like the music and movies, record industry have the right to shut file sharing network down, and it is the website’s responsibility to pay the damage, but not their users.
The file sharing website need to buy the copyright, then they would have the right to share the files.
One of the opposite example is the “the Pirate Bay”, one of the world biggest file sharing website, the international copyright organization have launce many times that the Pirate Bay infringement for sharing movies and music.
But file sharing cannot be stopped, as I introduced in the first of this report, file sharing can be reached by multiple ways, by Microsoft Windows, by FTP file transfer, and other methods, they are also used to share files with others, but just not used for business. Still, it’s kind of infringement.
The video rental industry’s future
In the new media coming century, the old profit model will disappear certainly. But disappear doesn’t mean the record industry will disappear, but the future direction must change.
Even the copyright is still important, but in the future, the copyright for record industry will be more and more difficult, and the rights protection will become a problem.
There are a lot of right protection problem on the internet, but nowadays in some country’s record market, the record industry even can make more money from provide free music to the free music website than sell music record products. So in the future, have more cooperation with the internet media is a trend. By sharing the music to big numbers of users, the record industry can even advertise their new produced records, reduce the advertisement costs. The record industry can still profit from the live music, and I think the live music will be more and more popular for the record industry to make money.
The growth of the free file sharing age
Consider the fast grow of network media products, in the future more and more people will choose network shared files as their media, and nowadays, some music industry use network media as a kind of free advertisement just by provide free music sharing. So in the future there will be more and more free video and audio products appear on the network as free for users, and I believe the record industry will find new profit model to continue business.
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