On-demand music streaming and its effects on music piracy

• Autor(a) principal: Nunes, Mariana de Almeida Gaspar Freixo
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/25934
• topic: Music industry; On-demand streaming; Music piracy; Millennials; Generation Z; Conjoint analysis; Indústria da música; Streaming on-demand; Pirataria de música; Geração Z; Análise conjoint; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Economia e Gestão

In the late 1990’s, music industry revenues began to decline, mostly due to the proliferation of the Internet which enabled consumers to easily pirate music. Record companies and artists began fighting legal battles and investing in educational campaigns in an attempt to teach young people the value of intellectual property. However, the times are now starting to change. In 2016, US retail revenues from recorded music grew 11,4%, the biggest increment since 1998. Streaming revenues have now surpassed income from the sale of traditional formats. Nevertheless, there is still a big player in the market worth paying attention to: music piracy. This thesis seeks to investigate the impact on-demand streaming services have been having on illegal downloading and uncover young music consumers’ habits and preferences. Through an online survey, the study used a conjoint analysis to uncover consumers’ preference structure. It also included direct questions to assess music consumers’ characteristics and habits. The results show that ethics and perceived risk negatively influence the decision to pirate music. On the other hand, higher ethics and involvement are associated with the propensity to pay for streaming services. Also, as age increases the propensity to pay for streaming rises and the tendency to pirate decreases. Even though consumers are price sensitive, price is not always the main decision factor. Finally, we observe that streaming did in fact help to reduce the incidence of music piracy among young music consumers.