Music in a Digital Society
A whole generation of youths is being criminalized because of their illegal use of copyrighted material – not with intentions of stealing, but using these materials to socialize and be creative. Why are they downloading music? Is it because it is fast and states freedom, or because it can be “free of charge”?
Abstract–The following study examines the attitudes and behaviors of males aged 16-19 when acquiring music online. A whole generation of youths is being criminalized because of their illegal use of copyrighted material – not with intentions of stealing, but using these materials to socialize and be creative. Why are they downloading music? Is it because it is fast and states freedom, or because it can be “free of charge”?
A focus group interview with a group of five male youngsters was made using TDC
PLAY & online downloading as focal points to examine this tendency. To analyze the
interview we used Lawrence Lessig, Andrew Keen, Felix Stalder & Tarleton Gillespie as the main theorists. The result clearly shows that young males prefer to acquire music online because of the accessibility but with a requirement of quality and use of the downloaded music, while the quality of owning a physical object is almost gone.
Keywords: Online music, TDC PLAY, Accessibility, Downloading, Remix.
Exam paper in Media and Communication course, IT University of Copenhagen