>Andrew Dubber variously over at

New Music Strategies
The Wireless
Eponymous

is mostly a pretty clued up guy.

Mostly.

I think he’s wrong on this one, though.

He reckons that the normal laws of economics don’t apply to digital downloads.

I think they do

Then again – being an absolute exotic for my demographic grouping, where my contemporaries appear to be listening to muzak or Barry Manilow (is there a difference?), while I like the Pipettes, Weezer and the Decemberists and pretty much anything else I get thrown – I might be wrong

So – for what it’s worth – here’s my contribution to the debate.

Dubber

You’re wrong in saying that the normal rules of supply and demand no longer apply digital music.
They do. It’s just that we’re all a little unsure of what constitutes supply and demand these days.

We do know that it’s not a zero sum game. (The beverages industry is a good example of this – drink more Coke, drink less coffee, tea, beer, whatever. Proven fact.)

I have more music than I can ever listen to from a wide range of sources – I’ve got a couple of months worth on iTunes, a basement full of vinyl and CDs, I stream Last.FM and I can rip that all day long if I want to. I’ve got Dylan’s TTRH, I can get all the music I can eat from Hypecast plus stuff from guys like you and Jefito.

It’s all free from a marginal cost perspective and almost free from a time perspective if you use something like DownThemAll on mp3 blogs

That’s supply.

Where does demand kick in?

Right about when you start hearing stuff that clicks and you want to find some more of the same. Or when you look forward to Fridays for Jeffito’s Mixtapes and are prepared to go to great lengths to avoid missing a single episode. Or the daily Wireless fix.

So am I prepared to pay for a tidal wave of music of – in some cases – dubious quality?
No.
Would I be prepared to pay for someone’s work/taste/expertise/access in providing music I’m likely going to like and – even better – hear new stuff that’s going to excite me?
Probably.
So the demand is going to be for service –selective aggregation, taste guru, Good MP3 Guide, referral service or whatever you want to call it.

You don’t want to drink bad wine (or beer) any more than you want to have to wade through bad or mediocre (same thing) music.

Which is why there’s a plethora of Good Pub/Beer/Restaurant/B&B Guides.

Why do I navigate religiously via the Good Beer Guide? Because I’ve determined that it’s never let me down and I wouldn’t expect it to in the future. I’m quite happy to pay full retail for the book and – if they put up the price – I’d STILL buy it.

So how much to pay for your music?

Have a look at Library Thing
Seems like a fair way of doing things – you set the price that you’d like to achieve and find out whether the market agrees with you as to the value of the service you’re providing.

How do the artists get paid? They don’t directly.
They benefit from people like ourselves being pointed specifically in their direction by the Taste Gurus of this world and they set their own prices for their own delivery service (if they’re indie). Or they get signed up on the basis of market place demand.