blinddrew wrote:And if the user decides that the value of an item that can be infinitely reproduced for practicaly zero, or is virtually replaceable with another from a near-infinite pool, is zero?
Of course, yes. The economic value of something is zero if people don't want it. If the something can be infinitely reproduced is zero even if people want it. It's just enough that it's very abundant.
Let's face it, even if you restricted every song on spotify to one play, there are 50 million songs on the platform... at 3 mins a track that's nearly 300 years of solid listening. We're near as dammit to infinite supply. Demand, however, is finite because we have other pressures on our time.
But absolutely! We discussed this already, if I recall. Whether we like it or not, music
in generic terms has no economic value at all. It's never had it. What has value is music (like anything else) that is
scarce.
So a musician has to create scarcity. There's a limitless supply of generic music, but a very limited supply of music by, say,
you. If you manage to create scarcity around _you_ and your name, the music you produce has economic value.
Voss water and all that.
So how do you propose to limit supply? Because that really hasn't worked very well over the last 20 years...
I don't - and never did? You cannot limit the supply of music in generic terms. Not much has changed in that respect - anyone could pick up a guitar and make a song and sing it in the street in times past. But you can
create scarcity around a specific artist - by the usual tools of good product and marketing.
And if we're going to talk fairness, an alternative view might be that if you can make all the worlds art and entertainment available to all the world for free (your infinite supply), would that not be the fair thing to do? Fair is a very nebulous term, especially when dealing with the digital economy but it translates into the material one as well. There is more than enough food in the world but millions starve every year, is that fair?
The thread is about fairness for the artist. I was under the impression that what we were discussing here "fair" as in a way to enable artists to reap the economic value of their work.
I've been giving a simple advice - just the same as I would if someone asked how to operate a compressor: as an artist, given that you can produce a good enough product, focus on create scarcity around yourself - i.e. focus on marketing and any activity that create a traction on your name. Or have someone else do it for you, of course - which was the old labels' job.
That will increase the economic value of what you do - streaming included.
It shouldn't be particularly controversial - it's just how things work in the world.
As I have already said, there are other types of value than the economic one - and I for one find them superior. But
in terms of making money for your work, we're talking about economic value.
I digress, but basically I don't think your argument that "A fair environment is an environment where supply is not infinite" is logically sound. Hence I don't think the rest follows...
Perhaps the clarification above helps.
As of fairness.. I don't think it's so hard either. Fair is when there is a balance between someone's work (can be a musician, can be a miner) and the demand for that work. With music, means that if enough people want a piece of you, they get it, but you get to make a living out of it. Not rocket science, I'd say.