Jochen Strube

Strategien für den digitalen Musikmarkt: Preissetzung und Effektivität von Maßnahmen gegen Raubkopien

AbstractThe recording industry is currently faced with a remarkable decline in revenues and record sales. Paid music services have failed to deliver on their promise of a full-catalog, easy-to-use shopping experience so far, and file sharing platforms are still widely used for obtaining online music. In this context we conducted an empirical study via the Internet with 2.260 participants. The main results are: ┃Neither the installation of copy protection measures nor legal actions taken against users of file sharing platforms seem to be appropriate means to increase sales of CDs and online music.┃Potential consumers’ willingness to pay is distinctly lower than the prices currently set by the available paid music services.┃Our study’s results suggest that a price cut for music downloads would lead to increased sales, thus creating benefits for both suppliers and consumers.

Simulation of the impact of network topologies on standardization decisions

Choosing the right set of communication standards is fundamental in any kind of interaction, especially in the coordination of economic activities. The related decision problem, generally referred to as the ldquostandardization problemrdquo, mainly results from interdependencies due to positive network effects. This paper describes the standardization problem, an abstract decision model for assessing the economic value of using standards in communication networks. Previous research investigates the standardization problem mostly in random networks. Motivated by the network analysis of recently examined other network topologies, this paper presents a comparison of simulation results for standardization problems in random, small world and scale free networks. It shows amongst others that random networks exhibit a special solution structure tending to complete standardization. Small world and scale free networks on the other hand, have different solution structures, one with partial standardization as the most common optimal solution and complete standardization, depending from their specific creation parameters.

Preisstrategien für Onlinemusik

Angesichts der zunehmenden Bedeutung der digitalen Musikdistribution werden in der Musikindustrie zahlreiche Debatten uber die Preissetzung fur Onlinemusik gefuhrt. Eine einfache ubertragung der traditionellen Preisstrukturen, die seit Jahrzehnten im Bereich des physischen Tontragerhandels etabliert sind, erscheint dabei nicht sinnvoll. Einerseits handelt es sich bei Onlinemusik um ein Produkt, das sich in vielerlei Hinsicht von traditionellen Tontragern unterscheidet, andererseits ermoglichen die besonderen Eigenschaften von Onlinemusik — insbesondere im Hinblick auf die Kostenstruktur — Preisstrategien, die im traditionellen Geschaft nicht oder nur eingeschrankt moglich waren. Entsprechend ist in der Literatur die Forderung nach einer groseren Experimentierfreudigkeit in Bezug auf die Preismodelle fur Onlinemusik zu finden (vgl. Bhattacharjee et al. 2006, Buhse 2004: 200 und Davis 2001: 81).