Decentralized Electronic Markets: Exploring the Effects of Revenue Splitting Inside File Sharing Systems

Quiring, Oliver; Walter, Benedikt von; Atterer, Richard und Hess, Thomas (2008): Decentralized Electronic Markets: Exploring the Effects of Revenue Splitting Inside File Sharing Systems. In: Electronic Markets, Bd. 18, Nr. 2: S. 175-186

Abstract

Electronic commerce (EC) first appeared in Business‐to‐Business (B2B) markets, while Business‐to‐Consumer (B2C) markets developed later. It was due to the emergence of online auctions that even more recently Consumer‐to‐Consumer (C2C) electronic markets emerged and started to merit major attention in theory. One innovative area for C2C commerce is the concept of superdistribution which links the idea of file sharing with the exchange of money. The money paid for each item of downloaded media content is split among the artist, professional providers and the person from whom it is downloaded. This paper investigates the effect of such a splitting of revenues on users' music download behaviour by comparing five scenarios with different splitting ratios between professional providers and users. A prototype was developed and tested in an experimental setting. The results illustrate that the ratio of revenue splitting does affect the source the users download from, that most participants assume the business model to be fair and that nearly all users would be satisfied by a participation of half or less of the revenues. The results indicate that superdistribution in fact can help make file sharers pay for digital music content by creating a decentralized C2C electronic market.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Betriebswirtschaft > Institut für Digitales Management und Neue Medien
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 330 Wirtschaft
• ISSN: 1019-6781
• Sprache: Englisch