Communications of the ACM
DRMs, fair use and users' experience of sharing music
Proceedings of the 5th ACM workshop on Digital rights management
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The music industry argues that unauthorised downloading of music is detrimentally affecting the industry; a breach of copyright that needs to be stopped. The industry has taken many actions to stamp out unauthorised music downloading, including prosecution of peer-to-peer software users for breach of copyright and against peer-to-peer software suppliers for contributory copyright infringement. Industry commentators have questioned this line of reasoning particularly as there is now significant revenue from legal music downloads in the United States and Europe. This paper draws on a qualitative study of music consumers in Australia to show there is not a clear dichotomy between down- loading and purchase. It is more of a continuum. From the users' perspective, downloading is transformed to the activity of accessing and exploring music. The industry could more fruitfully focus on satisfying this basic aspect of the listening experience in DRM systems in order to work together with their customers.