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DEAR CONGRESS: THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT (DMCA) IS BROKEN AND NO LONGER WORKS FOR CREATORS

One of the biggest problems confronting songwriters and recording artists today is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law was written and passed in an era that is technologically out-of-date compared to the era in which we live. It has allowed major tech companies to grow and generate huge profits by creating ease of use for consumers to carry almost every recorded song in history in their pocket via a smartphone, while songwriters’ and artists’ earnings continue to diminish. Music consumption has skyrocketed, but the monies earned by individual writers and artists for that consumption has plummeted.

The DMCA simply doesn’t work.

Researchers at Brown University have succeeded in creating the first wireless, implantable, rechargeable, long-term brain-computer interface. The wireless BCIs have been implanted in pigs and monkeys for over 13 months without issue, and human subjects are next.

Brown’s wireless BCI allows the subject to move freely, dramatically increasing the quantity and quality of data that can be gathered — instead of watching what happens when a monkey moves its arm, scientists can now analyze its brain activity during complex activity, such as foraging or social interaction

the device’s power consumption, which is just 100 milliwatts. For a device that might eventually find its way into humans, frugal power consumption is a key factor that will enable all-day, highly mobile usage

In 2007, Netflix changed the landscape by introducing streaming on PC, allowing customers to instantly watch shows. By 2010, Netflix video streaming became available on additional platforms, including iOS devices. Today, video streaming services Netflix and Hulu have a strong hold among combined iOS and Android Top US Apps.

These convenient apps have set the stage for a preferred entertainment delivery. A whole generation of consumers have grown up with video streaming, rather than (or in addition to) paying for cable television: cord cutters and cord nevers. Major premium cable networks, HBO and Showtime, are now after a piece of the pie Netflix and Hulu have carved out

Both HBO NOW and Showtime are taking different approaches to standalone streaming partnerships. HBO NOW has gotten more traction in part to a heavy promotion from Apple, resulting in positive metrics. Showtime’s success is less clear, being married into Hulu’s already strong performance

В 2015 г. продажи музыки выросли на 3,2% до $15 млрд, сообщила Международная федерация звукозаписывающей индустрии (IFPI)

Рост рынка обеспечен прежде всего тем, что продажа музыки в цифровом формате приносит теперь больше выручки, чем продажа треков на физических носителях – CD- и DVD-дисках.

На цифровые форматы теперь приходится 45% всех продаж, или $6,7 млрд. А в 19 странах мира они занимают уже больше половины рынка. За последние 10 лет онлайн-продажи музыки выросли в 6 раз, а в 2015 г. – на 10,2%.

Большинство представителей поколений Y и Z использует онлайн-видео как эффективное средство для снятия стресса или отличное снотворное.

Digital видео служит для большинства 13–24 летних молодых людей не развлечением или средством познания, как предполагают маркетологи, а антидепрессантом и средством побыстрее уснуть. Отличным способом для снятия стресса онлайн-видео назвали 61% представителей молодого поколения. Еще 44% молодых людей воспринимает видео как эффективное снотворное средство.

Defy Media также обнаружили, что подростки не возражают против рекламы. Более того, 63% молодых людей выразили готовность приобрести продукт, рекомендованный звездой на YouTube. А вот доверия к ТВ-звездам меньше – на нее откликнулись бы только 48% представителей поколения Z.

Singapore had the foresight to realise very early that they didn’t have resources. They didn’t have water, they didn’t have energy. So they were forced from the start to include sustainability in their thinking. They understood that economic sustainability for them was tightly linked to environmental sustainability

The infamous traffic in Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta, led to the first phase of a Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) rail system to alleviate the strain on roads, to be announced this year

whole countries such as Mauritius and Tuvalu will need to evacuate due to rising sea levels. But while coastlines in much of the world may suffer, climate change will be a positive development in some areas. Specifically, Canada; northern Europe; Russia; Alaska; Patagonia, Argentina; and southern Africa may all experience real estate booms.

Continuing with the New York example, Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently proposed a $20 billion climate change plan for the city.

The plan is designed to mitigate damage from another Sandy-sized storm and would drastically change everyday life for New Yorkers, with sharply increased taxes and large construction projects in most seaside neighborhoods.

Electronic waste, or e-waste, is a rapidly growing global problem

Yet many are realising that the gadgets we chuck away can be ripped apart and transformed into something new – brand new technology, or even art.

In 2012, we discarded 48.9 million tonnes of electrical and electronic products. If current trends continue, by 2017, the annual amount of e-waste produced globally will reach 65.4 million tonnes – that’s roughly 20% of the weight of all the people living on Earth.

many developers are concerned about the dangers (physical, mental, or cultural) of asking their audiences to strap on a vision-obscuring headset for hours at a time. 

Long-time game designer and current Google game design chief Noah Falstein's personal favorite is "transmogrified reality" --  an approach to game design that relies on new 3D-sensing phones and tablets, combined with inexpensive head mounts, to seamlessly integrate the virtual with the real.

Consumers in China spent $116.8 billion on luxury goods abroad in 2015

This translates to 46% of the global volume of high-end goods, which includes branded leather goods, cosmetics and electronics, according to consultants at Beijing-based Fortune Character Group, which derived these figures from the revenues of some 20,000 brands.

The government says that 120 million Chinese tourists — just about 1% of the population — went overseas in 2015, and contributed to 12% of global spending on their holidays.

Still, most parenting wisdom continues to portray television as an evil mind-rotting demon. The fear of ‘screen time’ is so deeply ingrained in our collective imagination that an irrational opposition between outdoor play and media consumption is taken for granted. Many parents believe the choice is either/or: indoors or out.

most storytelling is interactive. We consume most of our media through internet connected devices. And technology is so adept at providing ‘adaptive feedback’ that it proves to be an exceptionally effective teaching tool. In fact, a recent SRI study shows that game based learning can boost cognitive learning for students sitting on the median by 12%.

Joint media engagement refers to spontaneous and designed experiences of people using media together, and can happen anywhere and at any time when there are multiple people interacting together with digital and traditional media.

Immersive journalism is an emerging genre in which sound, video, and reporting are melded together and presented with virtual reality technology to put the consumer in the scene, usually experiencing it from the point of view of the participants.

The larger concept is the cultivation of empathy, using the information—sight, sounds—point-of-view—to cause the user to see things he or she wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

It isn’t unreasonable to suggest that the way stories are told and received may fundamentally change in the next twenty to thirty years.  There are many ways to tell stories and to engage an audience.  Immersive journalism places emphasis on engagement through perspective, placing the user inside of the experience.

"There's a certain class of content which is only going to come onto Facebook if there's a good way to compensate content owners for that,"

"We've recently rolled out the business model for this. We'll give a revenue share on a portion of the views to content owners

To grasp the scope of change unraveling in content creation, which is increasingly fragmented, consider all the mobile apps on your smartphone.

Sociologists from Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), avoid using the term “middle-class”, explaining that a mechanical transfer of terms used in most developed countries standards only distorts the picture. Other researchers claim that if the middle-class does not exceed 25%-30 % of the population (the highest figures obtained for Russia), it is useless to discuss the phenomenon, since this figure is around 60% and over in developed societies! It is not just a matter of statistics; it means quality difference for middle-class role in society in general and its consumer aspect in particular.

‘The Russian middle-class is growing not due to entrepreneurs and people from free business, but due to government employees or state corporations. Furthermore, gradually this tendency is becoming more vivid and changing the mentality of what the middle-class is

Consumers have more digital media options than ever, and most are finding what they want. But many are becoming frustrated by the complexity and effort piecing together their entertainment experience requires.

While consumers appreciate the freedom to customize their entertainment experiences, they don’t enjoy the friction—the hassles, responsibilities, and even vulnerabilities—that can result from choosing options à la carte.