The Psychology of Social Networks and Anonymous File Sharing

Do social networks humanize content ownership and deter unsanctioned distribution?

As more and more artists register their tracks with SNOCAP and begin selling unencrypted audio files on social networks like MySpace, questions arise about whether that content will be redistributed against the wishes of the rights holders. We believe that while this possibility exists, the personal connection created by social network interaction will significantly affect the way people treat this content. We believe that people are less likely to redistribute copyrighted material when they purchase it from an artist’s profile page on a social network versus when they get it of an anonymous peer to peer network. Leading psychology researchers in the field of social responses to communication technology concur, and there’s an interesting body of research to support this.

Social networks have created an environment where individuals connect to other individuals, whether those individuals are real, or facsimiles managed by representative entities for promotional or commercial purposes. In either case, the social model created by these systems is one where the representation of the individual on the network is the individual, and interactions with that representation are done understanding that the recipient will know their source. The reciprocity afforded by these systems impacts the social dynamic—anything you say about an individual can be rebutted or commented on by that individual or friends of that individual. By removing anonymity from the communication (although false identities abound) and making the interaction mode one to one, participant behavior is affected.

Peer to peer file sharing networks offer a different sort of social dynamic. While some networks allow individual users to connect to other individuals and groups with similar interests, the activity of sharing and obtaining content is generally anonymous. When you search for and download a shared file, you don’t know who it’s coming from—in fact it’s probably coming from a group of anonymous users.

We believe that the different interaction models of social networks and anonymous file sharing networks affect the way users behave with respect to the unauthorized distribution and consumption of content. Users presented with the opportunity to purchase unencrypted digital content from an artist on a social network are less likely to distribute that content against the wishes of the artist as they might if that content were obtained on an anonymous file sharing network. We are presently working in conjunction with Stanford psychology professor Clifford Nass to review past research and are planning to conduct new studies to further explore human behavior surrounding these issues. We’ll post our findings here on SNOCAP Labs.