Perspectives on Digital Content Markets: A Literature Review of Trends in Technologies, Business and Consumer Behaviour

In this paper, we focus on digital content markets (DCMs), which have typically been seen as an offspring of technological and business innovations. However, recent trends indicate that these two perspectives are not enough when attempting to understand how DCMs actually work. Technology is obviously a prerequisite for business innovations, which in turn provide new possibilities for consumers. Nevertheless, consumer behaviour is not only a result of technological and business innovations, but by itself a crucial factor of DCMs. In this paper, we attempt to clarify the general view of DCMs by carrying out a literature study that is based on the above mentioned three perspectives: technology, business and consumer behaviour. As a result of our study, we present critical issues for both doing further research and improving the ways of trading and distributing digital content. Especially, we highlight the crucial role of societal transformations for the development of DCMs.