Superdistribution is a user-centric approach for the mass-market dissemination of media contents like music, videos, or slide shows. It is based on the idea that consumers can directly and legally exchange content among each other, and adopts the principles of viral marketing as well as multi-level networking. Superdistribution has many facets and may be applied for a broad range of business scenarios. The music industry, for example, which is still suffering from illegal file sharing, has recently identified it as an alternative marketing and distribution channel and initiated activities for making Digital Rights Management (DRM) ready for Superdistribution. However, Superdistribution is not limited to protected content, but can also be applied for the dissemination of user-generated and unprotected content. This paper investigates the user's perspective on this new approach. It presents the results of three user studies, which have been conducted with different prototypes and test cases. Furthermore, the paper points out limitations of Superdistribution and identifies further research needs.
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