Why Are Fans File Sharing?

By: 10.13.10  •  28 Comments

In a previous entry, Kyle Bylin wrote about four reasons music fans participate in file-sharing and how they could be changed. In his latest entry, he picks the topic back up, discussing four more reasons why fans share files and why those dynamics can’t be changed. Interesting analysis of factors and sociological behavior, reasons not all based on economics but instead the “‘Me’ Economics.”

1. Biased Mediums

Technology is biased. It encourages different ranges of social behavior. For instance, when a fan is buying CDs and is looking for a booklet to hold them, they don’t select the five hundred disc holder. They pick the one that is slightly bigger than the collection they imagine having. If a fan has fifty-five CDs and can imagine that in a year or two, that they might have eighty—that’s the storage container they buy. iPods are storage containers. They are often times much bigger in their capacity than the person buying one needs.

As humans, we fill containers. It does not make any sense that a fan can get an iPod that takes $30,000 to buy the music necessary to fill it. This is not to say that large iPods should be banned. It’s simply the most glaring reason why fans are file-sharing music.

Read the rest @ Music Think Tank.

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