5 comments

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  Tim Lee

  1 year ago

  Doesn't this assume that different copyrighted products are not substitute goods? In your example, that's certainly true—half the villagers like prose and half like poetry, and so the authors specialize to produce non-substitute goods. But at some point, might we reach the point where there is more than one author filling each tiny niche, and competition then forces them to cut prices in order to gain an audience?
  
  It seems to me that this is more or less what's happening in news and punditry. I can't think of any blogs that charge for access, and there are only a handful of general news sites that do so. For those markets, competition has driven the market price down to zero. I suspect the same thing is likely to happen to music, and perhaps to some kinds of video.
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  Tom W. Bell

  1 year ago

  I think I see your point, Tim, but we are surely very far from the point where so many authors exist that they end up filling every niche with functionally equivalent works. I don't think, at any rate, that such an effect explains what's going on in the blogosphere. It isn't that bloggers duplicate what print media do. Rather, it's that they offer something different, that they do it for love rather than money (see one of my prior posts for a discussion of that effect), and that when bloggers do duplicate the print media, they do so with regard to facts, which fall outside of copyright protection.
  
  I might add that because blogging has encourage an influx of new authors, it contradicts my assumption that the ratio of authors/consumers holds steady. In this case, we see not growth in the overall market for expressive works, but rather a disproportionate growth in authors. Or, rather, a disproportionate growth (thanks to new technologies) in the number of authors able to reach extant readers. Long story short: Blogging resembles not the sort of parable I told, but rather one where a magic spell suddenly empowers everyday folk to put their dreams into words. Though the author's guild suffers, the the rest of us end up rich in entertainment.
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  Don Marti

  1 year ago

  This looks consistent with numbers on the increasing price of a movie ticket relative to minimum wage at monster.com. Multiplex theaters, more movie choices, higher prices.

  
  

  Tim, the New York Times, The Economist, and the Wall Street Journal charge for access. There's probably room for a few high-quality paid competitors even in a market that's swamped with others.
  
  (Hey, I typed "cite" tags and the publication titles didn't show up in italics. Can you let "cite" through please?)

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  Barnaby

  1 year ago

  Cute story.. but how complex was the copyright law of this village? Did it allow for the resale of used copies of the works? Perhaps those villagers who were unwilling or unable to pay $1.25 might be willing or able to pay less for a used copy sometime later. Those villagers who held the works in the highest regard would pay for an unused copy immediately, so the authors would lose nothing from them. The less interested would still get to enjoy the works sometime later. Would anyone lose under this scenario?
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  Tom W. Bell

  1 year ago

  Don: I switched "Accept Trackbacks" to "on"; I hope that accomplishes what you asked.
  
  Barnaby: Even in a simple economy, the price set at the first sale of any copy would presumably include the future income from resale, so the authors would not lose in your scenario. And, granted, the price discrimination you describe would help some of those secondary users (finally) get access at a bearable price. But I don't think that would prove so perfect as to completely get rid of the deadweight social costs of restricting access to what can be, as a matter of physics if not law, made available a virtually no cost.
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