Various attempts have been made to curb illegal downloading of music from peer-to-peer (P2P) websites. Governmental agencies and some recording companies often place much emphasis on penalizing people who are engaged in piracy (Sinha & Mandel 2000, p. 2). However, it is necessary to provide positive incentives to consumers. They should see the benefits of purchasing music legally, rather than only the risks of punishment.
Companies should look at this problem from a marketing point of view, and they should first focus on the product, itself. Very often, consumers can purchase only the studio recording of a song. However, researchers suggest that buyers can also be interested in live recordings and rare performances of musical compositions (Sinha & Mandel 2000, p. 12). They are not readily available at P2P websites.
Additionally, Internet users may more willing to download music legally when it is available in different formats such as FLAC, WAV, or MP3. Overall, researchers suggest that people pay attention to sound quality and they can be more ready to pay when it is difficult to find a song with high quality sound on illegal websites (McCorkle et al, 2012, p. 83). This is one way of attracting customers. In this way, online retailers can show that they can offer much more than P2P networks.
Price is also important factor that influences the decisions of Internet users. Online retailers can attract customers by lowering a price when a person purchases a large number of songs or an entire discography of some performer.
In fact, the findings of economists suggest that lowering the price can be a more effective strategy than restrictive measures such as fines (Jeong & Lee, 2010, p. 3886). Additionally, the companies can set different prices for more or less popular songs (Sinha & Mandel 2000, p. 3). In this way, online retailers can provide more options to buyers.
Besides, the website online should be made more-user friendly that P2P networks. For example a customer should be able to easily find a song by the name of the track, performer, recording company, or the name of the album, and so forth. Secondly, companies should remember that people can use their tablet computers or smart phones to buy music. Thus, the websites should be adjusted to the needs of these users who may become the most important customers for music industry.
Online retailers should not disregard such a factor as the self-esteem of consumers. Companies can stress the idea that legal downloading of music does not only help performers, but many other people working in recording industry. Thus, it is necessary to show that legal purchase is an ethical behavior because this message can appeal to customers who are usually concerned about their self-image.
On the whole, the proposed strategies can yield better results than restrictions and penalties. They provide an incentive to purchase music legally. Restrictions and fines may be efficient for a short time, but producers will find it difficult to take actions against millions of people who use P2P websites.
This is why more attention should be paid to the positive aspects of legal purchase, such as ease of use, flexible pricing, ability to purchase songs in various format, and sound quality. These set of strategies can improve long-term sustainability of companies that record and distribute music.
Reference List
Jeong, G., & Lee, J. (2010). Estimating consumer preferences for online music services. Applied Economics, 42, (3), 3885-3893.
McCorkle, D., Reardon, J., Dalenberg, D., Pryor, A., & Wicks, J. (2012). Purchase or Pirate: A Model of Consumer Intellectual Property Theft. Journal Of Marketing Theory & Practice, 20(1), 73-86.
Sinha, R., & Mandel, N. (2008). Preventing Digital Music Piracy: The Carrot or the Stick?. Journal Of Marketing, 72(1), 1-15.