HOUSTON, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Removing digital rights management restrictions from music available online can decrease piracy, U.S. researchers say.

The assertion by marketing researchers at Rice and Duke universities challenges music industry conventional wisdom that removal of restrictions would increase piracy levels, a Rice release said Friday.


Dinah Vernik of Rice and Devavrat Purohit and Preyas Desai of Duke used analytical modeling to gage how piracy is influenced by the presence or absence of DRM restrictions and found that while the restrictions make piracy more costly and difficult, they have a negative impact on legal users who have no intention of doing anything illegal.

"In many cases, DRM restrictions prevent legal users from doing something as normal as making backup copies of their music," Vernik said. "Because of these inconveniences, some consumers choose to pirate."

The researchers said their study showed piracy can actually decrease when a company allows restriction-free downloads of music.

"Removal of these restrictions makes the product more convenient to use and intensifies competition with the traditional format (CDs), which has no DRM restrictions," Vernik said. "This increased competition results in decreased prices for both downloadable and CD music and makes it more likely that consumers will move from stealing music to buying legal downloads."