The DRM and Music Streaming: Legal Perspectives

Abstract

Digital rights management (DRM) systems lie at the heart of this trend and are crucial in this context, enabling such business models in the first place and subsequently protecting and managing the content offered on such platforms. The growth of DRM-supported streaming platforms highlights the importance of networks for content delivery. In particular, it will begin with an overview of the DRM and its evolving nature in the context of music streaming; in particular, its history and early legal controversies can be seen with reference to the US. It will then explore the issue of secondary markets, tied to an analysis of both EULAs and comparable case law from the US and also Europe regarding the principle of copyright exhaustion. Finally, issues relating to the diversity and composition of popular music and the architecture of the Internet itself will be explored. The success seemingly enjoyed by streaming providers suggests that these do not seem to be of much (if any) concern to the general public and users of such services; overall, streaming services seem to create a lower incentive to illegally download music.