Downloading Empathy to Your iPod

Justine Saylors with her son, Lance, in 2003, the last year of his life. (Courtesy of Saylors family)

What is clear though, McGuire said, is that personal playlists are having an impact. "I don't think they'd keep it up if they weren't," said McGuire, citing as further evidence Yahoo's purchase in recent weeks of the music playlist service Webjay and the hiring of its creator, Lucas Gonze.

Enabling users to essentially recommend music purchases to others underscores that music is something worth paying for online, according to McGuire. "Over the long haul, these kinds of tools continue to place value on the music for consumers."

Besides encouraging purchases rather than piracy, playlists also serve to surface obscure or forgotten songs. "We now have access to music far beyond what the typical Wal-Mart would carry," said Slater. "How do you navigate that range of music? By exploring playlists created by people who share your tastes."

"The [music] industry needs to take a look at playlists and really rethink its approach to distribution. Turning individuals into tastemakers can be a good thing," said Slater, who sees a day when playlist creators become licensed distributors. "I'm not saying it's easy, but I do think it's necessary and beneficial for the industry to pursue."

In addition to the economic upside, the researchers see cultural plusses, as well. "There is the benefit of allowing me or any individual a way to place a stamp on the culture," said McGuire.

"For example, I can create a playlist that expresses my distaste and disdain for the war in Iraq," he said. And that playlist may include tracks recognized as protest songs as well as songs that might not be recognized as such, but in the context of the list they take on new meaning -- "the way I order it, the works I put in there."

Tushnet uses song lyrics for further illustration. Her "favorite footnote" in her December 2004 Yale Law Journal paper "Steal This Essay" quotes from "Avenue Q" and the band Semisonic to make her point that playlists provide a unique emotional outlet: "Sometimes when someone/Has a crush on you/They'll make you a mix tape/To give you a clue" and "Got your tape and it changed my mind/Heard your voice between the lines."

"These folks just enjoy and are passionate about music and like to be the Lewis and Clark, if you will, about music among their friends," McGuire said. "It's a statement of self."

Slater concurs: "This is not just something people are throwing together haphazardly. Music is important to our identity, our shared experience of culture, whether mass culture or niche culture, but also to the way we see ourselves -- what are my tastes? What am I about? It's a process of identity forming at its core."

McGuire is following up the December study with more research into what motivates playlist publishers and consumers. "Of those who look for opportunities to publish their tastes in music, more than two-thirds said they did so simply because they 'wanted to share the music they like with their friends.' So they're not looking for fame [or] fortune," he said of creators like Saylors and Wessel.

As for those who look to playlists for recommendations, McGuire has found that 20 percent said they preferred consumer recommendations over a professional DJ's, and 35 percent said they preferred the recommendations of like-minded individuals. And while those numbers don't constitute a majority, said McGuire, "it is a healthy chunk of people."

McGuire describes his work as identifying the "early indicators" of change, and views these baseline numbers as strong ones. "By supplementing and augmenting traditional tastemakers," he says, playlist creators "are adding a digital spin to word of mouth." These "new mediators and tastemakers," he continued, can exert a very strong influence, and their influence can be much larger than their immediate circle of friends."