Impact of Legal Threats on Online Music Sharing Activity: An Analysis of Music Industry Legal Actions

TLDR

The music industry has long worried about the damaging effects of online music sharing, moving from consumer education to legal action, and recently shifting focus to high‑profile legal threats against a small group of sharers to curb overall file sharing. This study aimed to assess the impact of such legal threats on online music‑sharing activity. To do so, the authors passively monitored the file‑sharing behavior of more than 2,000 individuals. They found that heavy‑sharing users respond differently than light sharers, and that even after reduced sharing, music files remain widely available on the networks.

Abstract

The music industry has repeatedly expressed concerns over potentially devastating impacts of online music sharing. Initial attempts to control online file sharing have been primarily through consumer education and legal action against the operators of networks that facilitated file sharing. Recent legal action against individual file sharers marked an unprecedented shift in the industry’s strategy. The focus now is on well‐publicized legal threats and actions on a relatively small group of individuals to discourage overall music file sharing. To determine the resulting impact of these legal threats, we passively tracked online file‐sharing behavior of over 2,000 individuals. We found that individuals who share a substantial number of music files react to legal threats differently from those who share a lesser number of files. Importantly, our analysis indicates that even after these legal threats and the resulting lowered levels of file sharing, the availability of music files on these networks remains substantial.