Meeting at London’s Royal Society will scrutinise basic model first formulated in 1922 that universe is a vast, even expanse with no notable features

If you zoomed out on the universe, well beyond the level of planets, stars or galaxies, you would eventually see a vast, evenly speckled expanse with no notable features. At least, that has been the conventional view.

The principle that everything looks the same everywhere is a fundamental pillar of the standard model of cosmology, which aims to explain the big bang and how the universe has evolved in the 13.7bn years since.

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The debate over whether copyright infringement cannibalizes legitimate media consumption has been dragging on for several decades now.

The issue has been researched extensively with both positive and negative effects being reported, varying based on the type of content and the ‘piracy’ source, among other variables.

By now, most experts would agree that watching a new blockbuster on a pirate streaming site isn’t going to magically benefit legitimate sales. However, there are many more nuanced types of copyright infringement, where ‘unauthorized’ use is more likely to have a positive effect.

TikTok Pirates

For example, when a viral clip from a TV series is making the rounds on social media platforms, one could argue that this serves as free advertising. At the same time, this clip is not a direct substitution for the full series, which means that the infringing use can be an opportunity, not just a threat.

To test this hypothesis, researchers from Peking University examined the impact of short and condensed TV show clips posted on Douyin , the Chinese TikTok. Rightsholders typically object to this type of unauthorized use, but is that wise?

The goal of the research was to see whether these ‘pirated’ clips have any effect on legitimate consumption. The researchers used a natural experiment around a massive enforcement spike that started around April 2021, when rightsholders criticized Douyin/TikTok for the infringing activity, which triggered a wave of takedowns.

“In April 2021, over 500 actors and actresses, together with more than 70 major companies and organizations in the industry, protested against copyright infringement on short-form video platforms. They called for platforms like TikTok to actively detect and remove unauthorized film and television content,” the researchers recall.

In response, the Chinese TikTok removed countless problematic clips. The researchers used this ‘natural’ event to see if the takedowns impacted legitimate streaming activity of TV shows on iQIYI, one of China’s most popular subscription streaming platforms.

The researchers analyzed whether the mass takedown event impacted demand for subscription-only ‘VIP’ shows in any way. Non-VIP shows, which are freely accessible to all, acted as a control variable, since these were not the focus of the takedown campaign.

Infringing Clips as Free Promotion

After analyzing the data, the researchers found that popular TikTok clips indeed have a significant effect on legitimate consumption. Taking these ‘unauthorized’ clips offline actually decreased legitimate views.

“Our empirical results reveal a positive effect of TikTok condensed clips on streaming services demand. Specifically, we observed that the boycott event led to an approximately 3% drop in the number of views for the original VIP content on the focal streaming platform,” the researchers write.

“[S]hort-form condensed clips could be viewed as user-generated samples of original video works. They produce positive spillovers by enhancing the visibility of TV series and attracting interested viewers to the full-length content on streaming services,” they add.

This conclusion is quite intuitive in a social media world where ‘influencers’ are widely used to promote content. For some entertainment industry executives, however, it will require some mental gymnastics to fully grasp that seemingly infringing content can be a good thing.

The results also put question marks around the widespread upload filter technologies, that aim to prevent the unauthorized use of video and music. While full copies are never a good thing, small clips may be beneficial in some cases.

“Although streaming platforms may be suffering declining engagement these days, our results show that among various kinds of alternative contents on short-form video platforms, user-generated condensed clips might not be foes but actually friends,’ the researchers note.

Not all TV Shows Benefit

In addition to this overall conclusion, the researchers found some interesting moderating variables. Apparently, not all short clips have equal promotional value. TV series with more complex plots, which are harder to summarize in clips of a few minutes, benefit most from social media clips.

Translated into genres, the data reveals that ‘crime’ and ‘fantasy’ shows gain more from this type of social media promotion than ‘romance’ or ‘family” shows. According to the researchers, this makes sense as ‘condensed’ clips of complex shows are less likely to act as a replacement for the full show.

“Given the constraints of condensed clips of only a few minutes in length, it is highly impractical to include every twist and turn for crime and fantasy genres, making them less susceptible to replacement by condensed clips,” the researchers note.

In a similar vein, unauthorized clips of highly rated shows tend to have more promotional value than those that feature shows with bad ratings. This also makes sense, intuitively, as a teaser of a bad show might put potential viewers off and vice versa.

These and other results are explained in detail in the full paper titled Pirating Foes or Creative Friends? Effects of User-Generated Condensed Clips on Demand for Streaming Services , which will be published in the academic journal Marketing Science.

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Yang, Guangxin and Zhang, Yingjie and Liu, Hongju, Pirating Foes or Creative Friends? Effects of User-Generated Condensed Clips on Demand for Streaming Services. Available at SSRN

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Study confirms our canine companions can grasp more than simple commands – or at least for items they care about

Dogs understand what certain words stand for, according to researchers who monitored the brain activity of willing pooches while they were shown balls, slippers, leashes and other highlights of the domestic canine world.

The finding suggests that the dog brain can reach beyond commands such as “sit” and “fetch”, and the frenzy-inducing “walkies”, to grasp the essence of nouns, or at least those that refer to items the animals care about.

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Kermitops gratus are thought to be among first true amphibians and represent key evolutionary step in transition of life from water to land

After achieving worldwide fame through numerous hit films and TV shows, leading to a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, Kermit the Frog now has another accolade: a 270m-year-old fossil named after him.

Scientists have discovered a species of an ancient amphibian ancestor, which they have named Kermitops gratus because of its resemblance to the bright green star of The Muppet Show.

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Lecturer and social historian whose books on witchcraft transformed the study of the subject

In the mid-1990s the historian James Sharpe, who has died aged 77, wrote Instruments of Darkness, a book on witch-hunting in England that reopened a field of research that had been in the doldrums for a generation after the Welsh historian Keith Thomas ’s brilliant Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971). Published in 1996, Jim’s book helped to make the study of British witchcraft what it is today: one of the most lively areas of historical writing.

Earlier historians had argued that whereas witch-hunting on the European continent was fantastical, dominated by beliefs about the devil, English witch-hunting was comparatively rational and down-to-earth, centred on beliefs about the practical harm that witches caused to people and animals. Jim showed that this was nonsense, and that English witch-hunting was also powered by fear of the devil and followed much the same pattern as many other European countries.

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Ottoline Leyser of UKRI says people in public eye should be able to debate better, with less polarisation and blame

The head of the UK government science body at the centre of a libel scandal has called for “creative disagreement” and a higher standard of public discourse, with less polarisation and blame between scientists and politicians.

Ottoline Leyser, the managing director of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), said that with so much at stake for the planet and given the need for science to propel a transition to a low-carbon economy, it was imperative for policymakers, scientists and the public to be able to communicate.

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From social communication therapy to drugs trials to help with mood, participatory methods are making a difference to autistic people’s lives

Kirsty Orton didn’t mind whether her baby was autistic or not – she just wanted her 12-month-old to enjoy being with his mummy: to notice her when she came into the room. To meet her eye when she talked to him and to be able to communicate.

“All I wanted to do was be able to connect and bond with Fynn,” she said. “But when your baby looks everywhere else in the room except at you and stays in their own zone, like you’re completely unimportant to them, it’s upsetting in a way that I struggle to put into words.”

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Michelle Donelan had accused two members of Research England’s advisory group of ‘sharing extremist views’ in letter to UKRI

Michelle Donelan, the science minister, has apologised and paid damages after accusing two academics of “sharing extremist views” and one of them of supporting Hamas.

In a statement posted on X , the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology said she had deleted a tweet and letter published last year, and accepted what she termed a “clarification” from one of the academics, Prof Kate Sang at Heriot-Watt university in Edinburgh.

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Parts of the structure are younger than expected while an east wind blows the whole thing across the desert, researchers find

They are impressive, mysterious structures that loom out of deserts on the Earth and are also found on Mars and on Saturn’s biggest moon, Titan.

Experts from universities including Aberystwyth in Wales have now pinpointed the age of a star dune in a remote area of Morocco and uncovered details about its formation and how it moves across the desert.

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