File Sharing: Creative Destruction or Just Plain Destruction?

Stan Liebowitz

Journal of Law and Economics, 2006, vol. 49, issue 1, 1-28

Abstract: The sharing of sound recordings over the Internet is the newest controversy in a long-running battle between copyright owners and copying technologies. In order to provide some context, perspective, and background, this paper examines the short history of file sharing, the longer history of record sales, various explanations for the change in record sales, and some analysis of the economics of copying. Although file sharing has been imperfectly and inconsistently measured, it nevertheless appears to reveal a fairly close linkage between changes in file sharing and changes in record sales. Explanations, other than file sharing, for the recent decline in record sales seem to have little or no support. Because economic theories of the impacts of copying hold out little hope for a benign impact of file sharing, these results should not be surprising. These findings reinforce the econometric results from most of an expanding literature.

Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (80)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/503518 (application/pdf)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jlawec:y:2006:v:49:i:1:p:1-28

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Law and Economics from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().