Against the digital revolution? Institutional maintenance and artefacts within the French recorded music industry

Institutional maintenance is particularly intriguing when it occurs in the case of technological shifts, with both changes in technologies but persistence in fundamental ways of thinking. In such a case, artefacts may play a significant role, since they are impacted by new technologies but may remain associated with old values. This raises a core question: What work is carried out on the cognitive dimension of artefacts by actors engaged in institutional maintenance? We answer this question through a study of players' endeavors to maintain the institution of intellectual property rights in the French music industry from 2004 to 2008. We interviewed 26 actors and compiled a base of secondary data over an extended period of time. Our results underline that some artefacts convey institutional maintenance, even in the case of technological shifts. More specifically, we show that actors engaged in institutional maintenance target their efforts towards the manipulation of values infused into artefacts. We also shed light on their efforts to design global devices, akin to the idea of “dispositif”. Embedded in these global devices, some artefacts become nodal points forcing actors in the field to comply with the institution that is defended.