The Economics of P2P File-Sharing

brajesh writes "Does P2P file-sharing really affect music sales and in what ways? According to a blog entry at "The Long Tail", a paper from David Blackburn[.pdf], a Harvard PhD student, on the economics of P2P file-sharing concludes that it does indeed depress music sales overall. But the effect is not felt evenly. The hits at the top of the charts lose sales, but the niche artists further down the popularity curve actually benefit from file-trading. Form the paper - "Artists who are unknown, and thus most helped by file sharing, are those artists who sell relatively few albums, whereas artists who are harmed by file sharing and thus gain from its removal, the popular ones, are the artists whose sales are relatively high." But then "File sharing is reducing the probability that any act is able to sell millions of records, and if the success of the mega-star artists is what drives the investment in new acts, it might reduce the incentive to invest in new talent. This is, at its heart, an empirical question which is left to future work." There is also another compilation of studies on economics of P2P."

Comments

We need a better model.

[Myself]

I particularly like the Fairshare proposal floated by Ian Goldberg, in which you could "invest" in promising new artists. It gives incentive to get in on the ground floor with a little-known artist, rather than to ride the coattails of a megastar.

Any alternative would be better than the current system.

Re:Here come the flames!

[macdaddy357]

So, teen pop shiiat loses sales, but real musicians find their audience with P2P. No wonder the RIAA hates it. You can't snooker people who get to try before they buy. P2P makes it much harder to rip off children, which has been the recording industry's MO almost since Edison invented the phonograph. Don't buy CDs!