Music Piracy Project

Curtis’s Music Piracy Passion Project, PDD12, Block 2

How Can I Make People More Inclined to Purchase Music Rather Than Pirate It?

Purpose:

My purpose, or reason for doing this project is to, first of all, find out how music piracy is affecting the musical industry. Secondly I want to asses the major roots of why piracy is a preferred method of acquiring music. Thirdly, I want to develop some sort of potential system that will make most users more inclined to purchase music as opposed to pirate it. With this project, I am not sure what I will learn, as I have a lot more research to do. I expect to learn about different marketing effects, strategies, copyright laws, and what the government is doing to stop copyright infringements.

Rationale:

I hope to develop some sort of system that will enable the consumer to choose my system over piracy. I want my system to be intuitive, cheap, easily accessible, and time efficient. I may end up biting off more than I can chew, in order to avoid that, I do not plan on making any actual programs (for computer) because that would require learning a great amount of coding that I frankly won’t have time for. That being said, I think that I will still be able to draw up designs, and theories, and somehow make a prototype of my program or system.

Connections:

This project will fall under “Human Ingenuity” because I am taking the current methods of distributing music and reworking it so that it is centred around customer convenience, and getting money to the artists for their music (without changing the industry drastically). The reason why this doesn’t fall under community and service is because technically, the percentage of the community that I would be helping (artists) is drastically lower than the percentage of the community that I am going to be costing money (consumers who pirate music… so everyone)

Audience:

My intended audience is consumers who pirate music, as well as consumers who purchase it legally. I am targeting people who pirate music because I want to enable them with a better alternative, I want to make my alternative have so many extra features that make it better and I want the prices to be so low that people wont mind spending on the music. My target audience also includes people who purchase their music through systems like iTunes or the Zune store because I want my system to be better than both of those programs so that people would choose mine over their normal, comfortable, program.

Timeline:

Week one: Research (centred around music piracy laws, sales, stats on piracy, sales and comparing the two).

Week two: More research (if needed), begin brainstorming ideas of what kind of system I would like to create and how, have first peer review.

Week three: Begin creating a model of my system/program and have the second peer review.

Week four: Finish creating a model and have final peer review. Have a poll as well on who would pay for music and who would not (sample of 50 people minimum, more is better)

Resources:

I plan on using the internet for most of my research and information gathering. I plan on talking to my dad about marketing strategies and business models (as he owns a business) in order to make my system that is user friendly and sensible to the consumer so that it goes beyond fitting their needs. I want to give them options that they have not heard of or thought of. Some of my other resources may be people from iTunes or other music selling platforms so that I can ask them about stats and what is working and what doesn’t work. I may also try to get in touch with different artists that I can

Process log and reflections:

For my progress logs, I plan on doing weekly blog posts with multimedia and written components so that I can explain what I did that week and show what I accomplished through multimedia.

Peer Reviews:

I plan to have three peer reviews

1. The first I will have two weeks into the project, this one will be a one on one conference and it will be centred around my work (quantity) and my ideas (quality). I will be asking for advise on time managing and asking if they think that I have been using my time wisely. Next I will ask them about how my ideas seem to be coming along. This is the most important part of any of the peer reviews I think because it is very important to start off well. I will ask them if they can see where I am going with my ideas and if they think that it is the right direction to be going in the long run. Based on their observations, and their evidence for those observations, I will determine whether or not to listen to their opinions.
2. The second peer review will be a conference as well. It will take place once I feel that I am half way done my project (for organization sake, let’s say 3-4 weeks into the project). The main questions I will have for my peer are: “Am I still keeping up my work habits?” And “Am I following my ideas in an efficient, and effective path?” these questions are much like the first peer review questions because this conference is all about progress and making sure that I am doing what I need to do in order to complete my project properly.
3. The third and final peer review will take place the day before I present my project to the class. I will present my project to a peer and simply ask for presentation advice.

Speaker Reflection (Fenton and Talissa Eng)

How to be an "A" player in an "A" game
    
        We had a presentation done for us by Fenton Eng and Talissa Eng that was about being the best person/worker you can be. Mr. Eng told us about his life, how he had been drowning in school debt before meeting a mentor and swimming right out of it into wealth. He talked about different organizations and individuals who have made a difference. He gave examples like SPARK (spreading positivity through acts of random kindness) Sundays which was a twitter activity that was started as a club. The idea behind SPARK Sundays was that if a lot of people do a lot of kind acts, even in a condensed setting the result will be thousands of acts of kindness, thus making the world a little nicer. I can not remember much of the rest of the presentation as it is now weeks after the initial presentation, but basically from what I remember (this may not be entirely correct) is that the world only needs leaders or voices to direct them towards change. (However, I may be taking this from the book "Tribes" I have been reading, it is hard to remember, very interesting book, so far, by the way)).

Photo Credit: http://www.achievemagazine.com/fenton-susie-eng.html
Fenton Eng (right) and his wife Susie Eng (left)

Reflection 2 (Feb 19-26)

1. Ideal collaborator
        Our collaborator had the following characteristics, pinned to the following body parts for the following reasons:
A) Creative: this was pinned to the mind because an ideal collaborator must be creative in their thinking.
B) Open Minded: this was pinned to the eyes because an ideal collaborator must be able to see other's ideas and not discredit them without giving them a chance.
C) Cooperative: this was pinned to his mind because an ideal collaborator must have ideas that accompany other's ideas. Their ideas must be cooperative.
D) Constructive criticism: this was pinned to the mouth because our ideal collaborator must be able to give constructive criticism in a way that is helpful and tactful.
E) Being Able to Take it: this was pinned to his ears because our ideal collaborator must be able to hear constructive criticism and apply it if necessary.
F) Professional: this was pinned to his shirt because our ideal collaborator must be professional, both in attire, and in behaviour.
G) Progressive: this was pinned to his hands because our ideal collaborator must be able to keep work going, and work hard all the time.
H) Flexibility: this was pinned to the knee because our ideal collaborator must be able to compromise and bend to other's ideals much like a knee bends in order to walk.
I) Efficiency: this was pinned to the feet because our ideal collaborator must be efficient in order to maximize work and minimize time. The image used here is someone running because they are maximizing work and minimizing time.

Post 1 - Introduction/Reflection 1

1. Introduce yourself:

        My Name is Curtis B, I am a grade twelve student taking project design and development in my final year. In terms of skills, I have a wide variety: I can snowboard, run long distances, play guitar, ukulele, and mountain bike, and do mountain bike maintenance and repairs. I work two jobs: the first, I sell popcorn at NHL games, the second, I package water bottles in a factory. I took this class because I want to develop my presenting skills. I want to make presentations that are memorable, relevant, and relatable.

2. Reflect 

        a) Are you more like this or that?

In this activity, the speaker read out a list of pairs of words that are opposite or considered very different and we, the students chose which one best represents us. I did not fully understand what this activity was supposed to teach us as we did not share anything as to why we chose what we chose. Which, in my opinion, would have let us better understand how our classmates think.

        b)Who will cross the line first?
In this activity, we were paired up and separated over a line and told that the purpose of the game is to make the other person cross the line first. My partner did not want to move at all, I tried bribery and other methods of that sort but could not get her to move. We had a one minute time limit so I decided trying to get her to cross was futile. I then offered her a deal, if she agreed to out her shoes on her hands for the rest of class, I would cross the line. My thought process here was that if I could get her to do something funny then it was worth me giving up the win. Ultimately, she declined the offer and neither of us crossed. When the game was over, we went over what we thought the game was for. We mostly said it was for communication skills and arguing a point. Ms Lees, however, told us it was for something far less obvious. The purpose of the excersise was meant to teach us that not everything is a contest. If we had decided to cross the line at the same time, both our goals would have been accomplished. The game gives a very good learning opportunity but I think it could be improved upon a little bit. If I wrote the game, I would call it "Who will cross the line" because that way it makes it easier to make the point at the end. Technically if two people cross a line at the same time, neither of them crossed the line first, therefore neither of them won or lost. It's just even. If the goal is to make the other person cross the line and it doesn't matter who does it first or who does it second, then the game would make sense and be winnable for both parties.

        c)Paper Folding
In this activity, we were instructed to fold our piece of paper multiple times until finally making a triangle and ripping off one corner. After that, we opened our papers up and looked at one another's. This activity was my favourite because I understood the reason for doing it and it had no apparent flaws. The idea behind this activity was that we were supposed to be able to see that other people think differently than we do and that we need to be able to understand where others are coming from. This activity accomplished it's goal very well.