Brittany Murphy at the Cannes 2005 Film Festival

The entertainment industry has had a big shakeup in recent years with the advent of web 2.0 and the massive rise in users on social networks but this year it faced a recession.

In 2009 film industries across the world had to face a weakened global economy that led to a massive decrease in available financing for motion pictures, particularly for independents. This sudden shock and scarcity of investment severely disrupted film communities particularly in Hollywood, where investment for indie movies has almost dried up. TV shows have been cancelled yet there is enormous demand at the box office. The UK government also reduced significantly available financing through the UK film council as costs for marketing a film has fallen.

Overall, the industry is healthy, and growing. Bollywood is becoming a central player and Indian culture is more present in western cinema than ever before, with recent successes including Slumdog Millionaire . The French cinema industry is in a boom, with French cinema goers flooding to cinemas, and independent theatres according to the IFC.

2009 has also been a year of loss, with high profile entertainment icons leaving us, such as Michael Jackson, CBS news legend Walter Cronkite, and this past week; actress Brittany Murphy.

One area of concern that has had a big impact on the entertainment industry is one of digital piracy that his spiraled despite an increase in legal cases against individual file sharers in 2009. The music industry has been greatly affected by social networks; particularly youtube, which doesn t adequately compensate musicians with advertising revenue. In reality, a lot of independent artists are using this platform to share their music, but viewers are taking advantage of free music readily available instead of opting to pay for downloads or buy CDs. New platforms such as Spotify and newly launched VEVO may shake up the music industry as we head in to 2010.

Until next year!