The dynamics of legal and illegal digital music distribution

Abstract

In this thesis I give an overview and background of the current digital music landscape, analyse it through Actor Network Theory and see the complexity of the network as making it difficult to break down into less holistic parts. Every part of the network influences the other.

As illegal downloads of illegally copyrighted music only increases, it seems apparent that the record industry have taken a wrong strategy. Copyright laws have been tightened, DRM systems have been applied and lawsuits have been made, but it seems that it has no decreasing effect on the illegal downloads. I believe what the record companies must to is to put more efforts into making a better legal music download service, that actually can offer a better product than the P2P networks, because then increasing numbers of users will prefer that legal alternative. But for something like this to be achieved, there is a long way to go.