The Use of Incentive Mechanisms in Multi-Channel Mobile Music Distribution

The music industry is planning to perform a significant shift toward the digital world by partnering cellphone network operators to build a mobile music market. In this paper we analyze the mobile music distribution strategy focusing on: the communication infrastructure, the pricing strategy and the copyright protection. Results of our analysis show that the strategy may be questioned and hence we propose a multi-channel distribution approach that makes use of both the cellphone network and the free-of-charge communication technologies provided in cellphones. Our multi-channel distribution strategy is coupled with an incentive mechanism that stimulates customers cooperation in the mobile scenario. An evaluation of our approach shows that all the entities involved in the mobile music distribution (customers, cellphone network providers and music stores) can benefit from using a multi-channel distribution approach.