Economic and business dimensions: Digitization and copyright: Some recent evidence from music

Recorded music makes up a relatively small part of the copyright dependent sectors of the economy, which includes motion pictures, software, video games, and publishing. While the recent technological challenge to copyright could have affected any product that can be digitized, text, audio, or video, in reality the recorded music industry was the first to face the new challenge. The struggles of the recorded music industry have spawned an outpouring of research seeking to document the effect of file sharing on the recording industry's revenue. An analysis of stealing music that has already been recorded includes whether stealing harms sellers and whether stealing harms society as a whole. The effects of stealing on sellers depend on its effects on consumers, who differ in their willingness to pay for the product.