פרסומים אחרונים במדור "חברה וכלכלה"

newmoon@newmail.net

Art is very different from Arnona,
security, and other public goods, because
art is not the same product for everybody.

Some reasons:
- The basis for selecting your music is
personal taste. The music I like is not
the one you'll like - but the army I need
is essentially the same as yours, planned
by the same authorities and uses the same
knowledge and techniques.
- There are no gains from big size in
music. If we have a national ministry for
infrastructure, the knowledge they gain
from a project in Jerusalem can help
design better projects in Tel Aviv. In
music, we cannot unite all the bands to
one big entity and make them learn from
each other. It doesn't work this way, does
it? Just imagine...

You may think all this is irrelevant, but
actually it is. Imagine that you can come
to a huge mall (say, the size of Tel
Aviv), where you have all the songs
recorded by all the musicians in the world
in the last 10 years. And imagine that all
of them are free. What will you do?
OK. You will take, say, the 1000 disks you
always dreamed about and could never
afford. Now what?
The problem is that you have to search
through this whole pile of music to find
what you may like. After all, there may be
some wonderful bands you never heard of!
Somehow, somebody's help will ne needed
to make the choice, somebody who knows
your taste and knows the bands. And for
this (or a similar service) you'll have to
pay. Will you?

Let's talk about the difference between
music and a classical "public good", and
continue with the example of the
renovation of the neighborhood. What would
happen if every family had their own
preferred architect (or handyman, or
carpenter) and would insist that they will
allow nobody else to work in their house?
Since there will be absolutely no
possibility to contract one big company
and let them do the renovation for
everybody, there will be no point in doing
the project together and each family will
do its renovation separately. This is what
would happen if every person had a
completely different taste in music, and
would fancy only a very small and refined
set of bands.

So big companies do big projects for
clients who don't have very specialised
tastes. The more elitstic clients contract
their architects and craftsmen privately,
and pay them accordingly.

The same goes in music: if you have a very
unique taste in music, (which is, of
course, inevitable if you are an active
participant in the "Ayal"), be prepared to
pay for your "special" music because your
favorite artist probably has a very small
audience, consisting of you and a few
other "knowledgeable" fans.

But if you also like the music of a very
popular artist - copy the music freely!
This artist will anyway become rich
because of live concerts, CDs, selling all
kinds of T-shirts and souvenirs, etc.

To summarize, I suggest that popular music
and "artistic" music be given different
treatment. Sometimes music is a public
good, but sometimes it is a personal
service.

Yes. We do agree that popular music is a
public good. But if we have less of it,
will this be bad? I am not so sure.
Apparently, some of this music is created
without any aims but to sell. What I would
like is to have the same total amount of
music, but less of the commercial one and
more of the specific music that targets
only a small audience, but gives it a
deeper experience.
In other words, if we want to ask whether
free copying is good or bad for the music
market, we may first need to agree on what
kind of "ideal" music market we would like
to see - not in terms of my or your own
taste, but in terms of the interests and
welfare of society.
Another way to look at it: in the current
situation, musicians who sell a lot to the
public are well-rewarded. Musicians who
sell mainly to other musicians earn very
little, even though their indirect
influence on the musical landscape may be
very big. Is this a good system?

(http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtPE.jhtml?...)