Music is an information good, and more specifically, an experience good, whose true value is realized only after its consumption. At its fundamental form, artists create (or produce) the music that consumers pay to listen. Digital technologies and network based sharing/distribution mechanisms...

The increasing pervasiveness of the internet, broadband connections and the emergence of digital compression technologies have dramatically changed the face of digital music piracy. Digitally compressed music files are essentially a perfect public economic good, and illegal copying of these...