http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/the-carbon-case-for-downloading-music/
A new study has found that downloading music is substantially better from an emissions perspective than buying compact discs.
The study, which was funded by both Microsoft and Intel and authored by two academics at Carnegie Mellon University and a third affiliated with Stanford University, found that buying an album digitally reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 40 to 80 percent relative to a “best-case” CD-purchasing scenario.
This “best-case” CD scenario involves a customer buying a CD online and having it delivered via a light-duty truck; the more carbon-intensive options examined by the study are express air shipment of the CD, and the customer visiting a store to buy the CD.
The advantage for digital comes largely because CDs must be manufactured, packaged and transported over long distances.
EU Gov't Study: People Won't Pay For Content; New Business Models Needed from the wow dept
Just as more and more European countries are trying to ban or block sites like The Pirate Bay, it seems like a few more politicians should take the time to read the new EU study on digital competitiveness (found via P2P Blog). In it, the authors study the question of paid content and "pirated" content, and find that an awful lot of people have absolutely no interest in paying for content, no matter what -- and that the entertainment industry is exaggerating the impact of things like file sharing, since so few people would actually pay for the content in the first place (even if it weren't available for free). Rather than blaming "piracy," the report properly notes that it's a shift in technology (from atoms to bits) that has created the business model problems today:
De-materialisation of creative content distribution is shaking up the business models of the creative industries, with both potential opportunities and potential losses and bringing new players into the media industries' landscape.
[snip]
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