Social Practices Around iTunes

Music sharing technologies appear to exist tenuously between the possibilities supported by technical innovation (e.g., peer-to-peer discovery protocols) and the constraints of political, legal, and ethical considerations. These political, legal, and ethical considerations – digital rights management laws, in particular – have catalyzed much of the recent changes in music sharing technologies and have led to an almost exclusive research focus on those issues (e.g., Bowrey & Rimmer, 2002; Kasaras, 2002; Lam & Tan, 2001). There is, however, a gap in the research that is available to inform current music sharing technologies – a lack of understanding about users’ actual practices surrounding music sharing (a notable exception to this is Brown, Sellen & Geelhoed’s comparison of music sharing offline with online music sharing via Napster (2001)). Apple Computer’s iTunes digital music jukebox software has been one of the few music sharing technologies that has successfully walked this apparent fine line between taking advantage of certain technical innovations and conforming to the constraints of political, legal, and ethical considerations. A study of iTunes music sharing practices enables the research community to better understand the moving target of music sharing technologies and practices and the implications of the positioning of music sharing technologies between technical innovation and political, legal, and ethical considerations.