There are a number of products and services that are mainly or exclusively information-based. The industries for these products have been drastically transformed by the arrival of the Internet. These products can now be distributed and reproduced almost at no cost. This generates new challenges for the industries producing and distributing these services. We will focus more precisely on the music industry to illustrate these changes. 

We will discuss the issue specific to the selling and pricing of information goods.

1. Make a contribution on a question of your choice to the Music Industry Discussion Forum. Your contribution must be made before Thursday at 9:00 PM on the Collaborative Web Site

Class Material (Powerpoint presentations)

1. Music Industry

2. Copyrights

3. Public Goods

4. Pricing Strategy

Readings

   Selling and pricing information goods

• Varian, H. Versioning Information Goods, [Version PDF]

• Bakos, Y. and Bryniolfsson, E.: "Bundling and Competition on the Internet: Aggregation Strategies for Information Goods," Marketing Science (January 2000). [Version PDF].

• Chuang, J. &  M. Sirbu, "Optimal Bundling Strategy for Digital Information Goods: Network Delivery of Articles and Subscriptions." Information Economics and Policy 11(2):147-176 (1999).

• Varian, H. “Buying, Renting and Sharing Information Goods” [Version PDF]

• Varian, H. : Markets for Information Good, in  Monetary Policy in a World of Knowledge-Based Growth, Quality Change, and Uncertain Measurement, 2000. [PDF] [HTML]

• Richard Roehl and Hal R. Varian: “Circulating Libraries and Video Rental Stores”,  First Monday, volume 6, number 5 (May 2001) [Version HTML]

• Varian, H. “Buying, Renting and Sharing Information Goods” [Version PDF]

On the music industry

• Inside Napster (and related items), BusinessWeek, August 14, 2000

• Hollywood vs High-tech (and related articles), Business 2.0, May 2002

• Peer-to-Peer: Has the Music Stopped, Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, Feb. 3 2003

• Boldrin M. et Levine D. K., Why Napster is Right: [Version HTML]

• Garten J.E., Intellectual Property: New Answers to New Problems, Business Week, April 2nd 2001 [Version HTML]

• Barro R., J., Attention Consumers: Creativity Never Comes Cheap, Business Week, October 2nd 2000, du web: [Version PDF]

• http://www.listen.com/

• http://www.pressplay.com/theservice.html

• http://www.musicmatch.com/

    Copyrights

• Jeff Howe, "Licensed to bill", Wired.com, Sept 2001.

• About Digital Rights Management on technology, competition, consumers, and on flows of information HERE from The Berkeley Center for Law and Technology.

• Templeton, B. A Brief Intro to Copyright

• Templeton, B. 10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained

• A Guide to Copyrights, Strategis.gc.ca, Canadian Government, January 2000

• GNU General Public License

• Open Source Definition