Intellectual Property Strategy and the Long Tail: Evidence from the Recorded Music Industry
Removing digital rights management increases music sales overall, but the gains are concentrated in lower-selling niche albums rather than blockbuster hits, because lower search costs mainly help less-visible products get discovered.
Summary
Zhang studies how removing digital rights management from music catalogues affects sales, exploiting the staggered timing of major labels' DRM removal. She finds relaxing sharing restrictions raised digital sales by 10% overall, with a 40% increase concentrated in lower-selling long-tail albums and no benefit for top sellers. The results suggest that intellectual property strategies aimed at reducing piracy should account for how they
Editor's opinion
Narrow music-industry DRM mechanism paper, not a firm-strategy lever.
Key concepts
Digital rights management · long tail · piracy strategy