Abstract
The realm of digital media is undergoing fundamental changes as it moves from mass media to an era of mass participation. This emergence of content created by the masses requires to re-consider the conventional intellectual property rights framework. Free content and protected content co-exist (in the Dark/Light Web).
We propose an alternative environment for the governance of digital content. It incorporates psychological aspects into its economics framework. Multi-agent systems play an important role in order to create an infrastructure that makes the voluntary-based environment sustainable.
We propose a platform based on an open contracts design that encourages voluntary payments. Peer-based reputation and recommendation mechanisms as well as socio-emotive instruments facilitate norm adherence in this online environment. They leverage the efficiency of alternative voluntary payment models based on fairness concerns and reciprocity.
The envisioned platform matches Dark Web content to consumers who value it highly, provides Dark Web content creators with a basic reward for their work and reduces the infringement of protected content in the Dark Web.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Burk, D. L. (2005). Legal and technical standards in digital rights management technology. Fordham Law Review, 74, 537.
Camerer, C. (2003). Behavioral game theory: experiments in strategic interaction. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Charness, G., & Rabin, M. (2002). Understanding social preferences with simple tests. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117, 817–869.
Fehr, E., & Gächter, S. (2000). Cooperation and punishment in public goods experiments. American Economic Review, 90, 980–994.
Fehr, E., Gächter, S., & Kirchsteiger, G. (1997). Reciprocity as a contract enforcement device: experimental evidence. Econometrica, 65, 833–860.
Fehr, E., & Schmidt, K. (2003). The economics of fairness, reciprocity and altruism—experimental evidence and new theories. In S. Kolm, & J. Ythier (Eds.), Handbook of reciprocity, gift-giving and altruism (pp. 616–690). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Hopfensitz, A., & Reuben, E. (2009). The importance of emotions for the effectiveness of social punishment. Economic Journal, 119(540), 1534–1559.
Kluth, A. (2006). Among the audience. The Economist, April 22nd 2006.
Neville, B., & Pitt, J. V. (2004). A simulation study of social agents in agent mediated e-commerce. In Falcone et al. (Eds.), Proc. of the AAMAS-2004 workshop on trust in agent societies (pp. 83–91).
Pitt, J. V. (2005). The open agent society as a platform for the user-friendly information society. AI & Society, 19, 123–158.
Regner, T., & Barria, J. A. (2009). Do consumers pay voluntarily: the case of online music. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 71, 395–406.
Regner, T., Barria, J. A., Pitt, J. V., & Neville, B. (2009, forthcoming). An artist life-cycle model for digital media content: strategies for the light web and the dark web. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications.
Shardanand, U., & Maes, P. (1995). Social information filtering: algorithms for automating ‘word of mouth’. In Proceedings of the conference on human factors in computing (CHI95) (pp. 210–217). Denver: ACM.
Smith, V. L. (1998). The two faces of Adam Smith. Southern Economic Journal, 65, 2–19.
Vasalou, A., Hopfensitz, A., & Pitt, J. V. (2008). In praise of forgiveness: ways to repair trust breakdowns in one-off interactions. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 66(6), 466–480.
Witkowski, M., Neville, B., & Pitt, J. (2003). Agent mediated retailing in the connected local community. Interacting with Computers, 15(1), 5–32.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This work was partially supported by the EU-funded project DANAE (IST-2004-507113). We would like to thank participants of the 2006 Conference of the EPIP Association in Munich for their helpful comments, in particular Arnold Picot.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
About this article
Cite this article
Regner, T., Barria, J.A., Pitt, J.V. et al. Governance of digital content in the era of mass participation. Electron Commer Res 10, 99–110 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-010-9043-3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10660-010-9043-3