IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this article

Copying, superstars, and artistic creation

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Alcalá, Francisco
  • González-Maestre, Miguel

Abstract

We provide a new perspective on the impact of unauthorized copying and copy levies on artistic creation. Our analysis emphasizes three aspects of artistic markets: the predominance of superstars, the important role of promotion expenditures, and the difficulties of talent-sorting. In the short run, piracy reduces superstars' earnings and market share and increases the number of niche and young artists. In the long run, copying can also have a positive effect on high-quality artistic creation by helping more young artists start their careers, which increases the number of highly talented artists in subsequent periods. The long-term impact of levies on copy equipment on artistic creation depends on whether their yields primarily accrue to superstars who already receive rents or are allocated to help young artists.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167-6245(10)00039-9
Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Information Economics and Policy.

Volume (Year): 22 (2010)
Issue (Month): 4 (December)
Pages: 365-378

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:eee:iepoli:v:22:y:2010:i:4:p:365-378
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505549

Keywords: Artistic creation Superstars Private copy Piracy Levies;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
  • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. Rob, Rafael & Waldfogel, Joel, 2006. "Piracy on the High C's: Music Downloading, Sales Displacement, and Social Welfare in a Sample of College Students," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(1), pages 29-62, April.
  2. Adler, Moshe, 1985. "Stardom and Talent," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 208-212, March.
  3. Zentner, Alejandro, 2006. "Measuring the Effect of File Sharing on Music Purchases," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(1), pages 63-90, April.
  4. Martin Peitz & Patrick Waelbroeck, 2005. "An Economist's Guide to Digital Music," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 51(2-3), pages 359-428.
  5. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
  6. Shavell, Steven & van Ypersele, Tanguy, 2001. "Rewards versus Intellectual Property Rights," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(2), pages 525-547, October.
  7. W. Crain & Robert Tollison, 2002. "Consumer Choice and the Popular Music Industry: A Test of the Superstar Theory," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 1-9, March.
  8. Alan B. Krueger, 2005. "The Economics of Real Superstars: The Market for Rock Concerts in the Material World," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 23(1), pages 1-30, January.
  9. Peitz, Martin & Waelbroeck, Patrick, 2006. "Piracy of digital products: A critical review of the theoretical literature," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 449-476, November.
  10. Darlene Chisholm, 2004. "Two-Part Share Contracts, Risk, and the Life Cycle of Stars: Some Empirical Results from Motion Picture Contracts," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 28(1), pages 37-56, February.
  11. Felix Oberholzer-Gee & Koleman Strumpf, 2007. "The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115, pages 1-42.
  12. Kinokuni, Hiroshi, 2005. "Compensation for copying and bargaining," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 349-364, July.
  13. Erik Brynjolfsson & Yu (Jeffrey) Hu & Michael D. Smith, 2003. "Consumer Surplus in the Digital Economy: Estimating the Value of Increased Product Variety at Online Booksellers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(11), pages 1580-1596, November.
  14. Marko Terviö, 2009. "Superstars and Mediocrities: Market Failure in the Discovery of Talent -super-1," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 76(2), pages 829-850.
  15. Hal R. Varian, 2005. "Copying and Copyright," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 121-138, Spring.
  16. Gayer, Amit & Shy, Oz, 2006. "Publishers, artists, and copyright enforcement," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 374-384, November.
  17. MacDonald, Glenn M, 1988. "The Economics of Rising Stars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(1), pages 155-166, March.
  18. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-858, December.
  19. Gayer, Amit & Shy, Oz, 2003. "Copyright protection and hardware taxation," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 467-483, December.
  20. Paul Romer, 2002. "When Should We Use Intellectual Property Rights?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 213-216, May.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Benefits of piracy
    by chris dillow in Stumbling and Mumbling on 2010-04-20 07:28:00
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. Alcala, Francisco & Gonzalez-Maestre, Miguel, 2005. "Artistic creation and intellectual property," MPRA Paper 1287, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 17 Dec 2006.
  2. Piolatto, Amedeo & Schuett, Florian, 2012. "Music piracy: A case of “The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Poorer”," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 30-39.
  3. Handke, Christian, 2012. "Digital copying and the supply of sound recordings," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 15-29.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:iepoli:v:22:y:2010:i:4:p:365-378. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dana Niculescu)

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.