Musikwebben : An alternative to illegal file sharing?

The purpose of this thesis is to examine a new music downloading service called Musikwebben, which is now available in many Swedish libraries. It focuses on the differences and similarities between this service and illegal music sharing services. The question is raised, whether the appeal of Musikwebben is high enough for it to be able to “recruit” users from similar, illegal services. To answer this question, a qualitative content analysis is used, to explore various views on what legal downloading services have to offer and how these differ to illegal alternatives. The focus here lies mainly on the technical differences of the music files and how these may affect fair use and personal use. In addition, the musical content of Musikwebben is compared to the content of a leading illegal file sharing service. Logically, the more variety of music the service has to offer, the more appealing it would be to users. The result of this thesis shows that the music files being offered by Musikwebben are protected by a technology called DRM (Digital Rights Management). This is used to prevent illegal use of the files, mainly copying and sharing, but it also prevents other uses, which falls under both fair use and personal use. Consequently, illegal file sharing services, which are DRM free, are technologically superior and should therefore be more appealing to users. The results also show that the illegal services have a wider spectrum of music to offer, which of course would also be more user appealing.Uppsatsnivå: