The Worth of a Stream: The Value of Music in the Streaming Age

Despite the continued growth of the streaming music business, controversies remain over how music is valued. At the crux of this debate lies the arguably small amounts of revenue music creators earn which led to the argument that music is undervalued in the streaming age. However, there has been a dearth of research as to how music is actually valued, if indeed undervalued, and if it is undervalued, then what does this mean?  

To answer this question, this paper investigates what makes music valuable, and how it is evaluated and priced in the market. The study is largely inspired by economic sociology (Aspers and Beckert, 2011; Fligstein, 2001) which rejects the neoclassical market model that treats markets as a concrete marketplace that finds a competitive equilibrium between demand and supply, and instead emphasises the multifaceted valuation process.

 The paper will first outline how music valuation has evolved from an historical perspective, culminating in the conventional economics through which the pay-per-unit pricing mechanism has been built around physical artefacts. It will then demonstrate how streaming valuation departs from conventional economics, giving rise to various issues in music valuation and pricing practice. The paper will finish by extrapolating insights about what these new valuation and pricing practices mean to the worth of a stream.

Aspers P and Beckert J (2011) The Worth of Goods Valuation and Pricing in the Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fligstein N (2001) The Architecture of Markets: An Economic Sociology of Twenty-First-Century Capitalist Societies. Princeton: University Press.

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