On The Importance Of Originality

The last worker adds less to output than the first.

This was the argument set forth by French economist Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot (1727-1781). Turgot believed that national wealth was created from agriculture. In the 1700’s this made more sense than now. Turgot developed an interesting theory that explained how the output of each extra worker changes as successive workers are added to a production process. It goes like this:

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Who are the Highest Earning Musicians in the UK & US and How Do They Impact the Economy?

A few days ago I wrote a post over on Canpages about how Justin Bieber, Drake, and Chris Brown represent a whopping 7% of Canada’s whole music economy, which as a figure is a staggering $107,000,000 a year. I thought it would also be quite interesting to look at who has the biggest impact on the music economy here in the United Kingdom and in the United States.

The UK is home to three of the current highest earning artists in the world: U2, Elton John, and Paul McCartney, who collectively earn a massive $362,000,000 a year (it slightly dwarfs Justin Bieber’s $53,000,000!)

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The Perceived Value of Music

An opinion about the value of music today, and what factors are contributing as to why music is at this value. Finally, what artists and labels have to do about it.

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Free Music Doesn't Mean Devalued Music

The concept of zero took ages for societies to recognize—let alone understand—and it’s been a stumbling block in economics recently, especially for the music industry. Those who think about economics in terms of scarcity get upset when abundance pushes price down towards zero (as we’ve seen with digital audio files), as if the economic equation was broken (even though it isn’t).

But artists and other creators hit a different stumbling block than economists: zero is a problem because they feel like their art is worthless.

They aren’t hung up on scarcity. They’re hung up on “devaluation.”

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