Art – a public or private good? April 23, 2009
Posted by Sverre in : Political economy , comments closed
The so-called “Spectrial“, in which the founders of the Swedish file-sharing service Pirate Bay got harsh convictions in court has given further fuel to the debate over copyright laws and file sharing. The Norwegian Broadcasting blog NRK Beta has a very interesting comment on what many view at the industry shooting itself in the foot by waging war on its consumers.
Reading it made me take a political economist view of the apparent discrepancy of rights and ownership between consumers and industry. For the political economist, the market for pirated music and movies is an interesting and peculiar case. It appears to me that the current state of affairs is that the majority of young people view art as a public good, while the music and movie industry insist on treating it as a private good. (more…)