Jeremiah's Music Blog: The Price of MP3's

The Price of MP3's

In an article at Slate.com, author Adam Penenberg posits that a fixed download cost for music is an outmoded model, and suggests a stock-market like pricing model. From the article:

"Songs would be priced strictly on demand. The more people who download the latest Eminem single, the higher the price will go. The same is true in reverse�the fewer people who buy a song, the lower the price goes. Music prices would oscillate like stocks on Nasdaq, with the current cost pegged to up-to-the-second changes in the number of downloads. In essence, this is a pure free-market solution�the market alone would determine price..[snip]..enthusiasts of low-selling genres would rejoice, since songs with limited appeal�John Coltrane Quartet pieces from the early 1960s, for example�would be priced far below 99 cents."

While undoubtably an interesting thought experiment, it's highly impractical as an actual business model, but it does lead me to today's zillion dollar idea: Take this, this, this, and this, base it on this but build it on this.

I can only imagine the interesting affect this would have on the music business. Creating a sub-economy enabled simply by statistical compilation where maybe artists (gasp!) could benefit from high "stock" value simply by putting out music lots of people will listen to (and for the model above, bookmark.)

Just a thought....

Photo by automania. Submitted to Techdirt.

Posted by Jeremiah at December 7, 2005 03:03 AM | Tag This Post | Digg It!