The music market is experiencing a real revolution. The diffusion of products on the web, the possibility of using them for free, running relatively little risk, has put discography in crisis, making it one of the most fertile objects of study to understand what the consumption of the future could be like. The first to try to respond to technological innovations was not a young emerging band, but rock dinosaurs such as Radiohead, 26 years of career, 30 million copies sold worldwide.
The story is not exactly recent, but it was analyzed in depth by Antonio Nicita and Sara Rinaldi in a study entitled "Pay what you want!", published in the latest issue of the magazine "Mercato, competition, rules", directed by Giuliano Loved and published by the Mill. In 2007 the English band announced the imminent publication of their new work, "In rainbows". The musicians played the triple role of writers, producers and distributors (just as happens to many young groups without a contract).
The most important news, however, was the announcement that the album would be, for the first month, purchasable in digital format directly from Radiohead's official website, in exchange for a price at the buyer's total discretion. Simply put, the album was legally and even free to download. The strategy was a success. "In rainbows" was enormously popular: in addition to the boom in official downloads, pirated downloads continued and traditional sales were also successful.
The data is even more interesting if we take into consideration the percentage of those who decided to pay even if not obliged: a good 38%, for an average cost of 6 dollars. In short, the record was one of the best-selling and most profitable works in the history of the group. The success of the strategy undermines the paradigm of rationality of homo economicus and induces a rethinking of copyright policies. The assumption of the economic agent oriented towards maximizing profit would lead one to foresee that, having the possibility of using a product for free, no one would voluntarily subscribe to a free offer.
In reality, the paradigm of "rational choice" has already been denied (think of charitable campaigns that manage to attract more funds if the benefactor is allowed to set the amount of aid). In the case in question, 12% of those who downloaded from the site decided to pay between 12 and 20 dollars, or the price of a CD (while an album in multimedia format costs an average of 8-10 dollars). As far as the copyright economy is concerned, Nicita and Rinaldi illustrate Liebowitz's theory, which demonstrates how the possibility of making legal or illegal copies of a product would not necessarily entail damage for the authors thanks to the dragging effect and the of creating new markets.
The first is that which relates the level of diffusion of a product with an increase in its desirability (the high number of downloads induces more and more people to download the disc). The second takes place, in the case in question, in the creation of an intermediate market between people who are willing to pay the price and people who, not willing to pay anything, would have in any case downloaded the product illegally and free of charge. Furthermore, the one-month limit for downloading tracks with the prospect of a subsequent increase in their cost has made many undecided break the delay, pushing them to buy.
To have further confirmation of the effectiveness of this method, all we have to do is wait for new attempts by the greats of music. In the meantime, the "In rainbows" case and the in-depth analysis of "Market, competition and rules" offer a valuable tool for orienting oneself in an innovative and rapidly changing market.
