Music downloading. A comparative study between Sweden and Spain

Sammanfattning: File sharing programs have changed the music industry in the last few years, as a lot of Internet users have started to download music. While the access to music has spread though the population of most countries, music sales have also dropped. The music industry has been pressuring political institutions to change laws to protect music copyrights. Sweden and Spain are two different countries with different social, economic, technological and legal characteristics. It is interesting to measure whether there is a difference in music downloading habits between both countries, and the effect that those differences have in the decision of downloading music and the intensity of this behaviour. Furthermore, Sweden and Spain are interesting countries because they have a big difference in legal issues about downloading music: in Spain is legal while in Sweden is illegal. This difference makes it interesting to carryout a comparison and try to discover the influence of legal issues on music downloading habits, because more changes in the law may happen during next years in different countries. In order to answer these questions, the authors conducted a survey in Sweden and Spain to find out the music downloading habits of both populations. The research model to analyze the data collected in the survey was an extension of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model considering economical and legal issues. No big differences in downloading habits were found between Sweden and Spain. However, there are few differences in the factors that influence the decision of downloading and number of songs downloaded per month. Our study shows that in Sweden, where downloading music is illegal, law has an influence in the decision of downloading but not in the intensity of this behavior. In Spain, no influence on music downloading is found by legal issues in people who know the law.