Open AccessThe Managing of Peer-to-Peer File Sharing Technologies’ Network Effect: An Adaptation of Actor-Network Theory
Author(s) -
Kobra Elahifar
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
stream
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1916-5897
DOI - 10.21810/strm.v5i1.79
Subject(s) - music industry , file sharing , digitization , context (archaeology) , order (exchange) , adaptation (eye) , business model , musical , computer science , digital audio , peer to peer , entrepreneurship , business , knowledge management , world wide web , marketing , sociology , the internet , telecommunications , psychology , music education , visual arts , pedagogy , paleontology , art , audio signal , speech coding , finance , neuroscience , biology
Peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing technologies have impacted the music industry, including its strategies for the distribution of the musical products, for more than a decade now. As a result, music labels have delayed full digitization of their industry in fear of “online music piracyâ€. The present paper reviews the historical context of the evolution of the music industry from 1999 to 2012. Using Actor-Network theory, the paper examines the strategies that helped the music industry to translate new actors’ effect in order to sustain music labels’ business on their path to digitize music distribution. I will discuss the impact of new digital policies and methods of governing online behavior including the business concept of “entrepreneurship†as they may potentially affect the future of public domain within the framework of consumer rights.