Annotated Bib #2

Bainwol, M.. "Courting Success. " Billboard 6 Jun 2009: General Interest Module, ProQuest. Web. 11 Aug. 2009. During the last 10 years, a series of court decisions in the United States and abroad have confirmed that basic property rights in the physical world apply in the online world too. [...] the more salient barometer is that the share of Internetconnected households that download music from P2P sites has remained essentially flat during the past three years, all while broadband access has expanded and legal digital music consumption has grown dramatically. Good stuff on how much digital music makes up music sales.

"Business: Free but legal; Spotify v illegal downloads. " The Economist 1 Aug. 2009: Research Library Core, ProQuest. Web. 11 Aug. 2009. Can legal free music compete with the illegal stuff? It seems so. Firms such as Spotify, founded by Swedish programmers, and we7, based in Britain, stream music on demand to European computers in return for nothing more burdensome than the odd advertisement. Together they have quickly amassed 8m users. It is a bright spot in the music industry's long, perilous journey to the digital world. Worldwide sales of music in the form of CDs and DVDs fell by 15% last year, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). Digital revenues, though rising, are not making up the shortfall. Most worrying is the rise of a generation used to obtaining music illegally through file-sharing, particularly in Europe. Lawsuits and crackdowns have displaced file-sharing from public networks into more secretive ones and into things like e-mail, from which it will be virtually impossible to root out. Good article on a new program that streams music for free, and how they are trying to get apple to make an application for the iPhone.

Chen, Y., R. Shang, and A. Lin. "The intention to download music files in a P2P environment: Consumption value, fashion, and ethical decision perspectives. " Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 7.4 (2008): 411. Business Module, ProQuest. Web. 11 Aug. 2009. Downloading unauthorized music file, being framed as a problem of crime, is deemed unethical, but the peer-to-peer systems have boosted its popularity and have become the killer application for the music industry. Two factors, cost savings from CD purchase and the low moral reasoning ability of Internet users, have been frequently attributed as rationales for this behavior. Music download, however, can also be interpreted as a value maximizing behavior that chooses between the values from consuming illicit and legitimate music, wherein the consumption value is partly dependent on one's degree of fashion involvement since music is fashionable. This paper presents a conceptual model of music download by looking at and integrating these seldom noticed perspectives with traditional explanations. An analysis of 834 samples drew from a survey of P2P users in Taiwan reveals that: people are maximizing value while downloading music; and that fashion involvement influences the perception of consumption value from music download. This study also found that moral reasoning moderate the relationships among fashion involvement, consumption value, and behavioral intention to download music. Really good stuff on why file sharing has become so popular due to the expense of legally purchasing the music.


Chris Taylor. "Music's new mousetrap. " Time 3 Feb. 2003: Research Library Core, ProQuest. Web. 11 Aug. 2009. If you're under 35 and own a computer with a high-speed Internet connection, chances are you've indulged in a very 21st century vice: sharing and downloading music (on services like Kazaa, Morpheus and LimeWire) without the music industry's permission. And like millions of others, you could now be in trouble. Has good information on how many people use downloading programs and how many songs they use.

"A GLOBAL PROBLEM. " Billboard 24 May 2008: General Interest Module, ProQuest. Web. 11 Aug. 2009. Current German copyright law gives rights owners a civil right to demand Internet protocol data from ISPs only if a criminal action is initiated by the public prosecutor's office. * The German Federal Constitutional Court ruled March 19, in an interim decision, that IP data should only be given out in cases of serious crimes, not for such offenses as copyright infringements. * Rights owners are teen for French-style "three strikes" legislation; meetings with ISPs and the Minister of Justice have not yet produced results. Not relevant to what I’m writing in my paper, although it does have some interesting facts in it.

Greenwood, B.. "Campus Crackdown: Law Targets Music Pirates. " Information Today 1 Feb. 2009: Research Library Core, ProQuest. Web. 11 Aug. 2009. Ever since Shawn Fanning created the original Napster in a Northeastern University dorm room, colleges have struggled to keep students from illegally downloading music over school Internet networks. Over time, anti-piracy strategies have evolved continuously, adapting to the fluidity of the music industry. Recently, the government entered the fray with the passage of the Higher Education Opportunity Act. Signed into law in August 2008 and set to take effect in July 2010, the act states that universities must develop plans to effectively combat the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material via technological deterrents. Colleges pursuing site-license agreements are finding that fewer companies are now providing them. About three years ago, the Illinois State University kicked off its Digital Citizen Project, the goal of which is to research, discover, and establish best practices for shifting consumption of media on university campuses, according to the project's Web site. Really good stuff on how campuses are struggling to keep students from illegally downloading music.

"The Price of Piracy; A new report says music thievery costs our economy billions. Are such numbers reliable? " PC Magazine 6 Nov. 2007: Research Library Core, ProQuest. Web. 11 Aug. 2009. A new study by the Institute for Policy Innovation finds that global music piracy costs the US economy $12.5 billion in losses and 71,060 jobs annually. The report breaks down losses by physical piracy (bootleg CDs) and illegal downloads on peer-to-peer networks. To derive these numbers, the study estimated "substitution" rates, which assumes that without counterfeit channels, many pirates would purchase legitimate products. Good information on the bad side of illegal downloading.