This article primarily focuses on the music industry and the influences of file sharing on the advancement of sales. This introspective look on one particular facet of file sharing also promotes further analysis of future complications that may result from the passing of the ACTA. Author Alejandro Zentner claims that music sales have fallen substantially over the past four years. To support this theory, the author uses modeling techniques with country-level data to determine particular facets of the industry that are most heavily influenced and effected. Zentner’s studies showed that countries with higher internet usage and broadband penetration suffered the highest drops in music sales, suggesting that illegal music downloading explains the reduction in sales. Within this model, the author further extrapolates that file sharing may explain the change in the composition of music sales over the past four years. The conclusion Zentner comes to states that "strong intellectual property rights create monopoly distortions, but weak property rights may lead to low creation of artistic work. The development of faster connections and methods of accessing information more efficiently will severely impact the sales of goods." As a result, intellectual property rights are compromised over the mass dissemination of music, and other goods, through illegal downloading.

This article provides a particularly nice vantage point from which to look at the effects of file sharing on the economy. Zentner’s analysis examines these effects in a quantitative manner and links reasons for the ACTA’s birth over the past few years. Though focusing more on the drop in music sales over the past few years, this article looks at the effects of file sharing on the shape of sales, a strong influence on my argument about the future of file sharing.