On Oct 8, 2013, at 5:48 , cobaco <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks to that basic reality there is no noticable scarcity for digital goods > once the first copy is created, and the creating itself is a sunk cost.
It's not a question of wanting scarcity: trust me, people who make content for sale would be delighted if everyone bought it. It's a question of wanting remuneration for their creation. There *is* a business model that leverages easy copying. Create something, and then sell the first copy under terms that allow the recipient to sell on at any price they choose. So, the first sale tends to be expensive; you're going to be 'competing' with your first customer. The price drops, and continues to drop until it hits the point that people feel they are paying a price that's fair for their own enjoyment and they don't need to sell on. Pretty much around there the price hits zero -- someone buys a copy and gives it away. Whether we want to be in a world where you don't get to enjoy an online movie until its price drops from a few million to a few dollars, I don't know. Another business model is that they don't make digital copies available at all, because of people who think that anything digital is ipso facto free. I'm not sure we want that either. David Singer Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.
