Hi music lovers,
I’m a sophomore student, conducting a research project on the value of music. While music is not a physical object that can be tangibly owned like a fine art piece, I am still curious to know how much you would be willing to pay for a piece of music if you could. Of course, it will vary depending on your personal taste as to which artists or genres you like, but I’m hoping to get a general sense of what people think. If you have a few minutes, please take a look at the link below and leave a response. Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
@eleste I will also complete your form, but I’m struggling to imagine how this would look like in practice. In painting, you would own the original painting and all other paintings would be made after it would be just a copy. I guess in music’s case it would be a negative copy of some sort for that particular record? Or if i.e. an album would be recorded digitally, that would mean owning the original files or the hard disk they were originally stored? What if the files were copied on a USB stick or transfered through whatever means from computer to computer? Or if they were restored from a backup, would that mean that their value would be affected in any way?
Original recordings and masters are worth something, if I owned the original masters of a favourite song or album I’d be beyond pleased.
Thank you so much for leaving your opinion here. Yes if it’s possible I personally believe it would be amazing…
First of all, thank you for complete this form.
In order for the concept of owning music to work in the same way as owning a work of art, there needs to be a way to control the replication of music. This is difficult to achieve because it is very easy to replicate and transmit digital music.
However, the music industry is exploring new ways to own music. For example, some music streaming services allow users to download specific songs or albums for offline listening. In this case, users obtain a kind of “digital ownership” of the song or album.
In addition, new ways to manage music ownership are being developed using blockchain technology. Blockchain is a distributed ledger that can track and manage ownership of digital assets. By using blockchain to manage music ownership, it will be possible to control the replication and transmission of music and protect the value of music more effectively.
It will be interesting to see how new ways to own music will develop in the future.
I’m confused about what exactly you’re asking. Are you asking what is the maximum we would spend on a piece of music, like an album or a song? Or are you asking what is the maximum we would spend to be the sole owner of a piece of music?
First, I apologize if my question was unclear. I was mainly interested in discussing the latter.
No worries. Personally, the only reason I would want sole ownership of a piece of music would be to release it freely to as many people as possible.
Wu-Tang Clan made an album back in 2015, only one copy of the album was ever made and it isn’t available digitally. The album was originally sold for $2 million, before it was seized by the US government and resold for $4 million to settle debt.
If I were to somehow come into ownership of something like this, I would work to somehow release it to the public (like the current owner is). I don’t like the idea of hoarding art for myself.
I would steal it.
Honestly, money is so toxic to art that I’d avoid trying to look at it through that lens. Value doesn’t equal dollars, and it’s shameful that the two are so often equated.
Bit confused what you are asking about, as “own” could mean everything from full copyright to the piece in multiple countries & the ability to collect royalties & to sue people for using the piece without your permission, to owning the original written manuscript & composers’ notes, or owning a master recording, or a copy to play as one wished, or just access to a copy.
When you ask about the dollar value I’d give to specific pieces, I don’t know whether you want to know how I’d assign a monetary amount to the value to humanity, to the music industry, to the artists involved, the retail price of an album or single, or just what I’d pay today to hear those pieces.
I’d have no interest in owning full rights to music I had no part in creating, so wouldn’t want to buy such a thing - guess if someone gave me something like this as a gift I’d make it available to the world on a CCC license or similar?
Manuscripts & master recordings? Again, I’d want to make these accessible to the public.
Physical & digital copies of recordings am happy to buy, and do this instead of streaming. Have copies of the released stuff your survey mentions, but idk what I paid for any of it.
